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How pathetic is it to sit in your car and record a video to post on X... 😞😞😞

If he’s using these tariffs to bully neighbors into doing the “right” thing, some targeted tariffs might not be a bad idea. If he’s using them to incentivize US companies to bring more industry and manufacturing home, targeted tariffs might not be a bad idea either, as long as he recognizes that prices will rise for consumers. If it’s a long term strategy to make the country stronger with full knowledge that’s it’s going to hurt middle and low income citizens in the short run, it may or may not be a great idea. We’ll know in 5+ years more fully the consequences. Personally I’d love to see more manufacturing return to the US. Last I checked there were only 2 companies that actually make nails and screws here in the US. There are only 2 or 3 aluminum smelters still here. 2 ship builders and they take years longer to make ships than many intl shipbuilders. I have no idea how many steel producers are still around, but I’d guess very few. I’m not positive this is the right move on Trumps part, but what we’ve been doing for the past 40+ years has gutted our industrial/manufacturing base.

https://x.com/dc_draino/status/1901665227822789059?s=46 The little bitch doubles down…

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DGLeXYiOmFT/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Trump talks to Putin must mean that Trump is Putin's puppet. Ya not buying that. Despite the noise in the first Trump term, something struck a nerve, at least for me. Some background: I cut my teeth in the military with my first assignment in Okinawa--the Korean Theatre of Operations. Obviously as an E3 my worldview was as tight a soda straw as it gets. But there I was going through exercises, training plans, sorties, upgrades, trips, and doing research projects on forward operating locations both in Taiwan and up on the peninsula. 1995, so KIS had just kicked the bucket leaving KJI in charge, but not before he'd started lobbing ballistic missiles across the Sea of Japan. Fast forward a decade, and I'm back in the KTO, this time as a member of the LPA. More bluster, more ballistic missile launches, KJU taken over after his dad. At this point, patterns start to emerge, at least in my mind. After the NoDAKs had lost their benefactor, the USSR, they devolved into a pattern of famine, saber rattling, receiving aid from the west, less noise until the aid starts to run out, then lather rinse repeat. All while, for the most part, diplomacy is cold and almost non-existent from the west. Then one day, seemingly out of nowhere, POTUS is standing on the other side of the line in Panmunjom, shooting the shit with KJU. What in the actual fuck? But for a minute at least, the NoDAKs appear to have blinked, taken a moment to consider some economic incentives, trade even. ========== Ok, lots of words, but how does this tie into the Ukraine situation? 1: Remember when Obama got caught on hot mic with Putin whispering all of the sweet nothings he could do in his second term? -->Clean pass. DJT keeps a line open to Putin-->obviously a puppet. Bullshit; don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining. 2: DJT, as I illustrated above, clearly breaks with established geopolitical dogma. And I honestly cannot say that I see the downside, although I will not suggest there won't be a downside ever. Likewise with UKR: he's changing course, and I for one do not see a desirable outcome in the course followed over the last 5 years, so by all means pick another point on the compass and press. Folks (not the least of which Zelenskyy) want to see Putin/Russia defeated/punished/humiliated. And they are willing to spend as much of our treasure and the UKR military aged population to reach their utopian vision. Here's the bottom line, as I see it: Putin/Russia are not going to be defeated/punished/humiliated without a real cost that we will not want to pay, and I just cannot fathom how everyone is ignoring that elephant in the room.

Epic PA failure here, reservest claiming to be a former SEAL. Don Shipley contacted him and called him out on it. https://videos.extremesealexperience.com/movie_Phony-Navy-Seal-Of-The-Week-Ryan-Jay-Spencer-Youngstown-Air-Reserve-Station

The MRTT (A330 tanker) carries eight 463L pallets (four in the bottom aft lobe and four in the bottom forward lobe). It also doesn't carry ISU-80/90s due to the height restrictions in the lower cargo lobes. The KC-46 carries 10 463L pallets centerline, 18 463L pallets side-by-side, has aero medevac litters in all jets, etc. The USAF isn't buying tankers just to refuel like the KC-135 originally was built for.

Mayorkas should rot in a federal hard-core pound-in-the-butt prison (in gen pop) with the murderers and rapist for what he did to our nation. That’s not weaponizing the DoJ, that’s being just and punishing him for his treason.

In my new hire airline class, I was next to oldest with about 4400 hours total. There were a number of young guys in their mid-20s who commented that my total time was pretty low for such an old coot (44 at the time). I just smiled and passed on the question but I would have liked to explain to them that there is a difference between experience and repetition. Flying boxes and checks from point A to B isn't quite the same as a 35 minute air-to-air sortie in a F-104 where 5 minutes in taxi time was included or an F-4 range sortie with 3 strafe, 6 bomb, and 3 more rocket events.

Some new insights into the Langley and other military base drone swarms from 60 Minutes.

I don't think it's a coincidence that a regional crew and a low-hours Army crew crashed. That doesn't mean it was the primary cause, but the Swiss cheese model for safety has always suggested that many failures line up to create a mishap. Lack of experience is one of them. No way I would have accepted that circling clearance. I've refused similar at other airports far less congested than DCA. And the guys a fly with are in the same boat. Experience isn't just about maintaining altitude. It's about knowing when to say "no." I believe you. That means you have a largely inexperienced corps of helicopter pilots. This isn't about dick waving or which service is better or really anything other than accepting the reality that normal ≠ experienced. You simple cannot be experienced with those hours. You can be hot shit, you can be talented and confident and all sorts of other things, but not experienced. Pretending otherwise is exactly what military leadership has been doing to justify reducing the training and currency of pilots. That doesn't mean you can't get the mission done. I certainly did. But there's no fucking way 500-hour-LordRatner made better decisions than 6,000-hour-LordRatner does. I'm honestly not sure how this is controversial. Would *you* have flown that close to a regional aircraft landing at DCA, at night, on nogs? Is this some sort of White Knight defense of the military pilot? I don't fault her for the DCA procedures, and I don't fault her for her own experience. The former is the fault of the FAA and the latter is the fault of the Army. Again, I do not agree with people picking apart her career and motivations with no knowledge of them. But we do have direct knowledge of her experience, and commenting on it is fair game. Her instructor pilot had what, 1,000 hours? If that's true then he was barely experienced, and certainly not an experienced instructor. Again, not his fault.

Agreed, except for the hours part. Sorry, but we shouldn't pretend like just because the Army does something as a lazy habit, that it somehow imparts upon them a superhuman ability to attain proficiency faster than the rest of us mortals. 460 hours is dog shit. Doesn't matter if you're flying helicopters, Jets, or learning to crochet. That is a tiny number of hours for someone operating aircraft that requires high levels of proficiency and a safety emphasis. Obviously we are dealing with the same problem in the Air Force. When I got out we were sending guys to IP School after their first assignment and all they knew was flights out of the Died. But that's more of the same "normalization of deviance" that created the DC problem in the first place. I'm not going to comment on her as a person because I know nothing else about her. But as a pilot she was, by definition, inexperienced if all she had was ~469 hours. Doesn't matter if it's "normal." No one should be assuming her motives, because she's dead and it's a courtesy to the family, but we also shouldn't lie about her experience level in an attempt to lionize the fallen.

Ok this also sounds like non-pilot talk. Understandable. The point is airmanship. Its the same reason we had future tanker pilots flying 90-degree wing work in UPT. Same reason we had formation takeoffs and landings. And NDB approaches when everyone knew NDBs were on the way out. Flying is not an assembly-line task. You don't just "do flying" a million times until you're an expert. It's a series of physical and mental tasks that are supported by a greater series of physical and mental abilities. The current pilot training crisis is purely a function of the Air Force wanting to buy more than they can afford, and trying to move the resources from pilot training to other things. To make this work they have taken the same approach you have of looking for only directly-applicable skills, training those, and cutting everything else out. It's not going great, based on this thread. It's very simple. You want the best pilots in the world, you need the best training in the world. "Best" means not just neat planes and repetition of core tasks. It means broad exposure to the widest range of flying regimes and decision-making scenarios. "Experience." If you don't think seaplanes and tail draggers and STOL/bush flying have anything to offer a pilot, then you are either A) not a pilot, or B) not a particularly experienced one. I'm sure one exists, but I have yet to meet the pilot with the above three quals who felt like they were no better after the training than before. EDIT: I think you're a pilot, but I don't think you have a particularly broad experience. I could be wrong, so if you have tail-dragger, STOL, and sea plane quals, my apologies. But the entire concept of directly-applicable training is a failing strategy with obvious outcomes.

The silver lining is in 5 years when the AF completely reverses course there should be a good market for secondhand Diamond twins!

Gotcha, I imagine they have it and meet any legal requirements to disclose it but unless it would be very supportive to their agenda they don’t advertise it, not really a spear thrown as we all try to accentuate the positives and the negatives we put at the end of the slide deck. Another question / idea from the cheap seats but I wonder if the services could actually work together in the whole of military training pilot training (including USCG) and divide it up to specialize, have reciprocal support and allow each other to specialize in the aspect of a multi phase training curriculum they most care about? I’m imagining the Army running a basic fixed wing training program, the USAF running an intermediate program, USN running a multi engine program, the advanced phase (fighter, bomber, carrier track) being kept wholly in house, etc… thoughts? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It’s so easy guys: Why don’t we just give UPT over to DOGE? Surely Elon can right this ship. /s

Hueys have a better GPS than the T-6, and that GPS went out of production in 2009!

Ok, cool. So like Hertz rent-a-T6.

You gotta suggest what you want / think should be done I mention acro as it just differentiates UPT from Civ training, builds confidence, SA, experience and is just cool.