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150' over water is essentially IMC. I'd rather fly with goggles and look under as required in a city. Did it all the time in Vegas. This is all intellectual masturbation. The procedures are stupid, and purely a result of not wanting to tell people they can't have everything they want.

Truly? You said that you, a progressive who voted for a progressive candidate who pitched Donald Trump as the literal end to American democracy, would somehow be more mad if you were a Republican who voted for the Republican president who immediately started doing what he campaigned on doing. And you didn't see how that comment is bananas-dumb? Donald Trump is wiping out the bureaucrats that used administrivia and procedure to thwart and outlast his first administration. He's bringing in experts on efficiency and modernization to slash departments that shouldn't exist in the first place. He's purging an ideology that destroyed our academic institutions and violated the very core principals the country was founded on. I know why you're mad about all of these things, but if you're so delusional to think any of this would make a conservative mad, you clearly do live in a mental bubble with no grasp at all on how other people in this country think. That wouldn't be particularly remarkable except for you've been in a primarily conservative organization for what, two decades? The only thing I'm mad about right now is that we had to wait for a reality TV star with a gold toilet and plastic wife to do what conservative presidents should have been doing for the last 30 years.

^^^Too funny coming from the guy who said Biden was doing a good job as president

On the Defense budget subject - spitballing, but could probably cut a couple hundred billion. Having seen deep inside the acquisitions side, all the way to sustainment (and what the warfighter gets for it), it is criminal the money the DOD wastes/misallocates/pays out as it willingly bends over and takes it from industry who enjoy near zero accountability. The DOD accepts shit like paying LM billions of dollars for “F-35 modernization” which really means “make it do the things you told us it would do in 2013.” The millions I spend referenced above should be 100s of thousands, but I don’t hate the player, I hate the game. And the DOD is OK with all of that…fuck us, we deserve to lose billions in funding when that’s how we spend tax payer dollars.

The Martyr reminds me of the G-Spot (Guam).

Progressives are upset that Trump is doing a lot of what he said he would do, and yet, non-progressives are supposed to be upset as well? And I love the “unconstitutional” part of what Trump is doing…this is their new catchphrase since the Musk Nazi-salute nonsense didn’t work.

This is the dumbest thing you've ever said, and that's quite a threshold.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/elon-musk-doge-posts-classified-data_n_67ae646de4b0513a8d767112 Oops! The “hardcore geniuses” at DOGE put up SECRET//NOFORN on their website. In all seriousness, Trump needs to get this DOGE to heel. He was elected to an actual government office. He is the President and the one charged with safeguarding the nation’s secrets and interests. These marauding morons working in his name with what I’m imagining is only the lightest amount of oversight from an unelected billionaire with his own agenda need to KIO. I do not like or trust Trump or support his agenda - but he was elected and so be it. Elon wasn’t elected to shit and is doing a bunch of wildly unconstitutional stuff “with Trump’s blessing” and I think that’s gonna come back and bite us all. I am confident Trump didn’t ask him to hire some interns to put classified info on the internet. If I were a Republican Trump supporter I would be even more mad.

Which conflict have we won since Desert Storm (if you can count that?) How did Afghanistan turn out? Bro it’s time for some change.

Back around the late 2000s (2008ish I believe), there was a sudden push to revisit the “heritage and importance” of scarves. Funny to see it come full circle in the opposite direction, but that’s what happens if you stick around long enough to see yourself become the villain. Drew some ‘toons about it back in the day— definitely a few options that could be 36-2903 compliant.

You a cop?

Yep, and not a surprise. Congress is horrible across the board - maybe it’ll shape up some day, but I’m not holding my breath until we have term limits and some investing restrictions while in office. What you fail to grasp is the majority of voters see this “destruction” (to use your description) as a very positive thing. We want the number of fed employees slashed, we want entire departments completely erased, we want gov spending/budgets massively curtailed, etc. That “destruction” is significant progress towards a more prosperous and stronger America - you don’t believe that, but the majority of America does. We all know by now Trump’s MO is to say wild things as part of his negotiating tactics. Every time in the last month he threatened tariffs people like you went wild and said he was buttfucking the country to death…except they worked immediately and perfectly, every time. Now if we actually “occupy” Gaza, I’m against that, but I am not worried about that happening for now - this is most likely Trump par for the course coming off the top rope initially to settle where he actually wanted to be later on. Same comment on slashing the defense budget 50%, though I do support some significant DOD slashing. The mind losing over Elon is laughable. DOGE has no inherent authority - they provide the info, Trump makes the decision (or has legally delegated authority in some cases). Is the General not in charge when I make large impacting decisions? When I decide how millions get spent, is the General just for show and playing second fiddle to me? Absolutely not, and you know it. He can shitcan me in a second, or immediately deny/turn back something I’ve done - at any point and for any reason per his judgement. He is unequivocally in charge at all times, even if I’m the guy making daily decisions, because in the end the General can’t do everything and micro manage, he has to have people like me to get it done. Bringing in Elon is no different. By the way, Trump has a long way to go to match Clinton in gov “destruction.” It’s just not your team doing it this time, so be mad about it is the only option.

So you do think we should buy Greenland!

Flying HC-130s LL is always off RADALTs for LAAs. Looking back I've never had a altitude top block restriction based on AGL, apart from turns during a departure. When conducting HAAR LL (>1000A in training, down to >500A at night) we (as the tanker) do route study and rndz off an MSA altitude and pass a local WX station altimeter or EGI derived altimeter setting to the '60s. Once everyone is together we can fly MODCON at an AGL altitude...I've only done that a handful of times in Iraq, and a decent amount of area study was done prior. The entire NVG discussion from non-mil aviators and the general public is wild to me...I would much rather fly on NVGs at night, regardless of flight rules I'm on. Other traffic calls, terrain and weather avoidance are all easier, assuming you understand the their inherent sight limitations.

I'll agree. It shouldn't have taken until a few hours ago to open up 625 million acres to energy drilling. I would like to have seen that on day 1. Trump has fallen short of my expectations with regard to timing, but the job is still getting done. https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1890539295343055120

A fairly standard technique was wear it “normal” for the most part, but when you went somewhere outside of the squadron and felt like raising some blood pressure, do the tie thing, ascot, etc. Had a bro get his new ID picture with full ascot. They pushed back hard trying to say he couldn’t have that in his picture and he whipped out a printed card with the applicable regs - he won. The small victories were priceless.

Way back in the day when I went through my first “no morale” iteration we decided to do scarves. The regs didn’t specify how you had to wear it (other than generally around neck and tucked into flightsuit) or what color/designs it had. So welcome to chief aneurisms when you have a bright red scarf worn like an ascot on any day of the week as you walk into finance. It was 10,000 times “worse” (from the chief perspective) than shirts. It was the ultimate “you play fuck on me, I play fuck on you!” The ability to give a massive middle finger to the d bags and let them know you have bested them on a daily basis was 100% worth wearing a scarf. The entire wing did it for about a year until morale shirts were back. Do it boys, you won’t regret it. Only disclaimer is I have no idea what current reg says about scarf design/wear, so QC that before full commit.

What @Clark Griswold said. Air Force trainer aircraft acquisition has been the next-to-last priority, for a long time. When the AF went to replace those aircraft, they didn't care enough to put the proper resources behind it. Leading to today's inevitable state of affairs. Also, my hazy recollection - folks can correct as necessary. The T-41 had worked well for a long time, until McPeak became CSAF in the early 90s, and decided people needed to train in something aerobatic. The AF procured the T-3 Firefly, which was pulled from service after three fatal accidents. After that, the Air Force vacillated between several different solutions: sending people straight to T-37s with no prior flight time provided, paying for people to get a certain amount of hours at a private school of their choice, sending people to get their hours at a school designated by the AF, and probably other options over time that I don't recall. The T-37 had worked well for a long time, besides being old and outdated. The Air Force tried replacing in in the early 80s in a competition eventually won by Fairchild Republic's T-46 Eaglet. They went over budget, and the program was cancelled. Just goes to show you - even during the height of the Reagan era military buildup, the Air Force didn't care enough to get a new trainer built. The AF tried again in the early 90s with the JPATS program, and ended up with the T-6, which were delivered between 2000 - 2009 or thereabouts. And, based on this thread, the Air Force can't seem to keep them flying, for whatever obscene reason. The T-38 had worked for a long time, but was old, outdated, and wearing out. In the early 90s, the Air Force began procuring the T-1 Jayhawk, and split pilot training into a track for T-38s and T-1s, with part of the reasoning being to extend the life of the existing T-38 aircraft. In the early 2000s, the AF began the T-X program with a stated goal of replacing the T-38. That program proceeded in fits and starts, but generally really sucked hind tit when it came to funding over the years, with some years having no funding at all. Finally, in 2016, the AF released a formal Request for Proposal, and in 2018 selected Boeing's T-7. And Boeing has basically been Boeing, and fucked it all up.

Great memories…the stories I could tell (but not on the internet!) @Zero I remember 2008ish when we all were “fuck these gay scarves!” Fast forward to 2013 post-Shaw - “fuck you chief, check out my ascot!” The swings are humorous looking back.

Cleaning house is never fun. You seriously wondering why Trump brought in outside help?? I know you’re not that dumb, but just in case, I’ll let you in on a secret…The elected Republicans are in on it too!! Holy shit that must’ve blown your mind. I’m certain that there were plenty of (R) elected officials getting their pockets lined by USAID funding for writing gay love ballads for Amazonian beetles or something equally ridiculous. And yet you sit there aghast that these people aren’t being used to treat their own illness? I realize the government sits up higher on the pedestal for a liberal and our view of necessary spending varies dramatically. But you cannot tell me you believe the fed has their checkbook in order. If Biden or any other (D) said they were cutting wasteful gov spending and then actually started doing it, I guarantee you I would applaud them, so quit accusing me of the otherwise. And you also seem to have a problem with young people looking at numbers. Would you prefer some sharp minds like McConnell, Pelosi, and Watters get to the bottom of this wasteful spending? I don’t give a fuck if it’s a roomful of Kindergarteners, if they handed the president the USAID budget and said “get rid of it,” more power to them. I promise the US government will not be “kneecapped” without the hardworking folks in USAID.

Well I guess it’s a good thing that Kanye wasn’t in the running for any cabinet positions

Biden couldn’t talk in complete sentences so kind of irrelevant there. Yes Trump is talking out of his a$$, but his intention isn’t wrong, plenty of worthless expenditures in the DoD - it’s become a jobs and industrial program more so than actual national security.

The way I understand the development of the Max, is that if an airline is to blame, then it's American, not Southwest. Apparently they went to Boeing looking for a big new order they wanted quick. Boeing had a new airplane on the design sheets and said it would be X years until ready. American said, thanks, guess we'll talk to Airbus. Boeing said, wait, how bout an updated 737? Now we're all stuck with the Max.

We have the benefit of knowing they collided with an airliner so it kind of taints the discussion. Talking to a bunch of the 1st heli alumni they said 50' over the river was pretty common. Crazy procedural setup.

Thanks for the personal attacks, I knew I could count on you, signed, dumbass. It was Bashi that did the username, but I now think you are his alternate acct. You root for things that are correct so you say. Hmm. Like Russia can keep what it invaded? You think that is correct? Go on record here, we need to see you write it. And dude, the inflation, prices, immigration topic jab was that, a jab. I even labeled it, "a trap". With brotherly love, happy V day, D.E. PS, I'll send you a puppy pic later.

And flying without NVGs at <200' over a river would be a good idea?

Do you mean besides the express, stated purpose of Prop 13? All kidding aside, if you think prop 13 has the effect it is supposed to have - namely, keeping people in their homes - then that's all the proof you need. If you want more data, I recommend this site: https://www.officialdata.org/ca-property-tax/ It will show you every property in CA and how much tax is paid on it yearly. You won't have to search around at all to find 10x differences in any given neighborhood. With some effort, you'll be able to find 100x differences. You can conduct your own thought experiment to determine whether or not someone who currently pays ~$1,000/yr in property taxes would be encouraged to sell their home and move if those same taxes went up to twenty or thirty thousand dollars/yr. Prop 13 aside, another dynamic that distorts the simplistic "blue states contribute more" meme is to consider is how the SALT functions. In short, it reduces blue states' contributions to the federal tax kitty relative to red states' contributions. Here is a table, courtesy of Chat GPT, that will show you how on an income of $100,000, equal earners who live in different states pay the federal government different amounts. Notably, if you live in a lower tax state (i.e. red America), you get the privilege of paying more for the federal government. If you live in FL for example, you pay 3.8% more effective federal tax than if you live in CA. You pay 3.0% more than if you live in NY. If you aren't a property owner, those differences increase even more. Tax Comparison: California vs. Arizona vs. Florida vs. New York at $100,000 Income Category California (CA) New York (NY) Arizona (AZ) Florida (FL) State Income Tax Rate 9.3% 5.85% + NYC tax 2.5% 0% State Income Tax Owed ~$4,450 ~$5,200 ~$2,500 $0 Property Tax (on $400K home) ~$3,000 ~$4,200 ~$2,000 ~$3,200 Sales Tax (on $35K spending) ~$3,100 ~$3,100 ~$2,900 ~$2,450 Total SALT (State + Property + Sales Tax) ~$10,550 ~$12,500 ~$7,400 ~$5,650 SALT Deduction Allowed (Cap) $10,000 $10,000 $7,400 $5,650 Disallowed SALT Deduction $550 $2,500 $0 $0 Taxable Income After SALT Cap $90,000 $90,500 $92,600 $94,350 Federal Income Tax Owed (2024 Brackets) ~$13,200 ~$13,300 ~$13,400 ~$13,700 Total Taxes (State + Federal + Property + Sales) ~$20,750 ~$21,800 ~$17,800 ~$19,350 Relative Federal Tax as % of Lowest State 100% 100.8% 101.5% 103.8%

Complacency. Like doing high risk combat operations…just because you’ve done it a thousand times prior doesn’t make it any less risky. Your ability to manage the risk may improve, but that doesn’t equate to mitigating aka eliminating.

https://www.instagram.com/share/BABMhUaZY6

It's still unbelievable to me that anyone ever thought our involvement in this conflict was winnable, or that the intent was ever to "win" against Russia. I've been arguing this for 3 years. The net result will be a loss to the West. It just is what it is. The security and interests of the American people were never a factor in Ukraine. It always was a corrupt state ripe for the manipulation and exploitation by people who stood to gain billions of dollars. All of us have been conditioned to think since childhood that Russia was capable superpower bent on world domination. And even after it has been demonstrated that they don't have that conventional capability, the propaganda still works. People still believe it. Zelensky himself said he doesn't know where $100 billion dollars went. It was allocated by our leadership, but it never showed up. The Ukrainian media themselves just admitted they were 90% funded by foreign interests such as USAID. How many times are we going to be "gotten" by these giant scams? It's now being reported that nearly every department of our government is rife with scams, lies, corruption, waste, etc. But they got this one right? The same propaganda machine that suckered half the population during COVID was the same propaganda machine that was pushing funding for this war. I understand how it works. It's a compelling belief: We're the noble good guys fighting to the good fight against the forces of evil. That's what I always believed in the early stages of my career. Eventually, you've gotta grow up a little bit and face reality. “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts." Now that this whole thing is being dismantled, we're gonna have people equivocating and performing these amazing feats of logical gymnastics. "We were just trying to drain the Russian economy, not really win." So we spent hundreds of billions of dollars of US taxpayer money, half of it vanishes to who knows where before it made it to the battlefield, and the ROI is massive because a million Russians and Ukrainian men were killed? There is no ROI for you and me. None. What is our record for direct US engagement in third world foreign conflicts recently? How is Iraq doing? How is Afghanistan doing? How is Libya? How is Syria? But somehow we expect that if don't directly engage and instead give Ukraine hundreds of billions in money and equipment to fight a conventional conflict against an enemy that isn't a third world shithole --- that they're going to have a better result? It's mind-numbingly ridiculous to even think there was a reasonable expectation this was going to go well for the "good guys". Draw the border on the front lines. Let Russia boast over their acquisition of a few hundred km2 of destroyed rural farmland. The real benefit to the US will be the cessation of wasted $billions.

https://www.newsweek.com/russian-drone-strikes-chernobyl-nuclear-plant-sarcophagus-ukraine-video-2031027 I mean seriously...

How long until they direct a return to the white V-Neck?

To paraphrase, Joe Rogan, prior to COVID, I would have likely ranked vaccines as one of mankind's greatest accomplishments. Now? Not so sure. After COVID, I wonder how many of them are just full of junk that I don't need and won't work anyway. Has the flu vaccine really worked for me? I've had the flu many times after the vaccines, so was it really less severe than it would have been? I fully recognize that vaccines defeated small pox, polio, etc (reference the greatest accomplishments thing). But when governments and big corporations team up to almost force people to get a vaccine that hasn't been fully tested to prevent an illness that wasn't as bad as many were claiming, you have to wonder why. And then as soon as you do and you realize there's a guy behind the curtain telling you to ignore the guy behind the curtain, that makes you question a lot of things you had previously accepted as fact. I think part of being a conservative is a natural distrust of consolidation of power. Governments and big companies used COVID to consolidate power and vaccines as an enforcement mechanism. Hence the right's relatively newfound distrust of vaccines and many medical 'experts'.

but but but i thought the F-16s/Bradleys/HIMARS would WIN THE WAR?!?!?! more gaslighting end this disaster.

Isn't it hilarious that the same senior leaders that will complain about how our generation doesn't want to stay in and only thinks about the airlines, somehow completely misses the fact that when they were company grade officers they were basically living a frat boy's wet dream, with no real deployments, mission, or sacrifice? I had one Colonel tell a story about drunkenly arriving his car into a light pole at the OClub, only to have SF drive him home and pick him up in the morning to retrieve his vehicle. That same colonel then defended the 0-0-1-3 policy and giving article 15s to officers who were drunk in public. He had nothing to say when I asked if he had a bottle of scotch in his desk as a wing Commander. These guys are nothing but cowardly hypocrites. They enjoyed a system that was so awesome and carefree that it gave them the camaraderie and memories to stick around when the job inevitably gets lamer and lamer as you gain more and more responsibilities. But they can't see that without that first decade of awesome memories, there's no nostalgia to keep you tied to the organization. It is bordering on criminally stupid that the leadership of an organization desperate to retain talent can't see that allowing colored t-shirts and large mustaches is a no-brainer.

In principle, I don't disagree with you. However, At what point on a visual approach are you not responsible for see and avoid? I don't like it, especially in light of this outcome, but we were all taught that fundamental rule on day one of instrument flying. And I highly doubt the final report gets published without mention of it.