Leaderboard

When I was a SQ/CC I sent alot of guys to get seaplane and tailwheel rated at a 2 week civilian school in Alaska. I would have done everyone but didn’t have the budget, instead it was about 2 dozen and used as an incentive/reward for great work: IP OTQ, Pilot OTY, etc. Didn't work with everyone’s schedule so randos got to go too. It definitely teaches pilots to unlearn some overly safe attitudes in UPT (nothing wrong with that for their level) and how to fly aggressive without being unsafe, meaning have the confidence to take calculated risks. You can’t quantify the benefit of learning to be comfortable outside your comfort zone, but vignettes can draw connections between unconventional training and success in unconventional combat situations. It’s the same logic used sending officers for masters degrees- “this may not apply directly to current job but you’re learning how to think using new tools, thus arming you for the unknown.” That’s the argument I used to get it approved and left my boss speechless, lol. My thoughts are that if you aren’t actively finding fun creative ways to make the team better you have no business leading. Also if you aren’t willing to take some personal career risk by trusting the team to do these things, you have no business leading in combat. We ought to have the best pilots in the world and that costs money and requires leaders who aren’t pussies.

This is the part that I find so funny. People act like these programs have existed for thousands of years and are the sole reason why humanity has survived. Who gives a shit if we over correct? If the alternative is fixing nothing, I would rather zero the budget out entirely and rebuild from scratch then guarantee my children and my grandchildren will live in a financially collapsing empire. People all over the world are living in much worse conditions than we are. We can survive a reduction in government provided quality of life, for a decade or so.

Sigh. Okay, I'll pretend you guys are as dumb as you're pretending to be. Right. So, from the article posted: This is what we call "lying." The official knows damn well that the database hasn't been finalized, because everyone (yes, including you) knows that pictures of the Enola Gay aren't going to be deleted (intentionally). However, a stupid person might not engage their frontal lobe and realize that if you are on a quest to purge the DOD of a decade or so of intersectional nonsense, and you were going to do it in 2025 when you have this neat technology called a "search engine," you would probably search for key words that are heavily associated with DEI initiatives, collect the results into a "database," then go through the database to pick the content that will in fact be deleted. A military officer with the cognitive capacity of a rhesus monkey would realize that the people in charge of this process would definitely search for the word "gay" and get a bunch of DEI nonsense, with, you guessed it, some pictures of the Enola GAY mixed in. But of course, "the official said it’s not clear if the database has been finalized," so until the Enola Gay is actually deleted from the DOD history books, why don't you guys stop acting even dumber than you are and just chill the fuck out. Nah babygirl, you're just so lost in the media-induced desolation over the surprise-domination of the Trump candidacy that you are clinging to anything that feeds your intense desire to have your fears justified. And what would be a more justified fear than watching the history of WWII erased? But just like the Russian pee tape, the not-a-chinese-lab origin of COVID, the Hunter's-laptop-is-fake story, and so many other too-good-to-be-true progressive fever dreams, this one was obviously a nonsense story put out by a desperate journalist feeling completely helpless to stop the erasure of the last 20 years of progressive change. You aren't out, and we both know it. You need this place because you need somewhere to scream into the abyss, but you don't want anyone to know it's you when you do it. It's not a coincidence that all the progressives/liberals/never-trumpers are coming back now that the Boogey Man is back in office.

MARSRADIO, the civilian HF service backup to HFGCS enjoyed communicating with Air Force One today. A member of their team, MSGT, was retiring and this was his last flight. Approximate 12 MARSRADIO operators briefly talked to AF1 with best wishes in his retirement after 20 years. “On behalf of Air Force MARSRADIO, we congratulate you on your retirement. We wish you blue skies and clear frequencies in for your future.” (MARSRADIO Squadron Commander) There is increased activity in the western Pacific supporting flights between Hawaii, Guam, Wake Island, Japan and Fiji. We are still optimistic that we will get a remote station in the Mariannas by the middle of the summer. The net averages 20 hours of support daily with calls from around the globe.

So you're saying that to prevent our pic in the base paper, all we need to do is have a "gay" sign somewhere in the background? Damn, are they going to delete all the Navy pics?

Gangnam style!

Is anyone surprised the organization that made people take photos of their wives off of desks would also over-react here? The DoD only knows bang-bang control logic.

Let's not act like either side has the market cornered on "honor," both sides do bullshit that makes their cronies rich. Why do you think one side is so petulant right now...their babies are in danger of being thrown out with the bath water. There would likely be a similar reaction if the roles were reversed, though maybe not to the extent we saw in the Trumps speech this week. The problem with spending cuts is that everyone thinks their program is the lynchpin holding the US together. Cut deep and walk it back as needed. I'm all for looking at cutting tax loopholes that making business owners ultrawealthy, but first lets trim the fat that we've all seen with our own eyes (so clearly there is MUCH more) and stop blowing taxpayer money on bullshit. Also, figure out social security in a way that doesn't force us/future generations to be taxed even more. If that means sunsetting it, so be it, just do it in a way that allows people to plan for it. I'm already expecting to not get anything, or at the very least, a severely reduced benefit.

Ngl I was debating turning down ABM. Very glad I didn't after being offered the CSO slot. Things work out in the end!

To help with VID:

this is the most important dibs of my life.

The defense of democracy is necessary to defeat Russia <go google yourself a random twitter link about Romanian Election Campaign Interference that supports my narrative>

Couldn’t agree more. I’m an issues guy, through and through. Unfortunately when it comes down the realities of American politics, the Republicans are more aligned with my values than the Democrats. But yes, the Republicans aren’t great either.

Middle class people aren't getting shit from the government. Lower class people don't need 2 TVs and iPhones. And overwhelmingly our money is being spent on keeping old people alive for longer than we should, giving poor people the most inefficient healthcare possible, and rewarding retirees for not saving for their retirement. These things are not needed to live prosperous, dignified lives, and they are directly stealing from future generations who *will* suffer if we don't control our debt accumulation. The financial handicapping of the youngest generation has nothing to do with a lack of government support. It's the boomers using the printing press to inflate their assets and compensate for their failed retirement preparation, making everything too expensive for young people to afford. *More* spending is not the solution to problems created by too much spending.

the irony is musk is trying to let you keep more of YOUR money...the amount of government waste and fraud they are uncovering is wild...why anyone thinks taxes should be higher after the BULLSHIT spending musk is highlighting is beyond retarded but keep telling yourself that you're not the thick-skulled one around here...

Not on that level but I do the same thing so I can keep more of my money. I claim everything I possibly can. New tractor, yep, barn repair, yep, tools, yep, and more, all legal. I guess I'm skirting taxes, using loopholes. I guess since your'e honorable, you don't use any so called loopholes? Don't claim anything? Pay as much as you can?

Believing anything published by the AP would be the same as taking the Babylon Bee seriously.

If you only read those articles you referenced, I see how you take it as overwhelming evidence of western involvement and therefore the "coup" happened only because the west directed it. Yet, a few issues with these... First article: Its an opinion piece written by Seumas Milne. Among many questionable views he has is this beauty from 2006: In a 2006 Guardian article, Milne argued: "For all its brutalities and failures, communism in the Soviet Union, eastern Europe and elsewhere delivered rapid industrialisation, mass education, job security and huge advances in social and gender equality. It encompassed genuine idealism and commitment ... Its existence helped to drive up welfare standards in the west, boosted the anticolonial movement and provided a powerful counterweight to western global domination. I dunno, but I might disagree with this author's take on world events. If you agree with his take, then the downfall of the Soviet Union was a net negative for the US and Reagan was wrong to tell Gorby to tear down his wall. Second article: no proof in that that the US/West directed the "coup". Third article: this one was more thought provoking but yet still leaves doubts as to the ground truth of who really made the "coup" happen. For example, per the Rand study here, Putin immediately started the Crimean operation within days of the "coup". What are the chances the Russian military (so famous for its centralized control, decentralized execution...I kid) was able to pull that off within days without a whole lot of planning? Lessons from Russia's Operations in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine | RAND Guess we can agree to disagree on the 2014 "coup" in Ukraine. From the article I referenced: But the truth underlying the events of February 2014 is far more interesting: The preponderance of evidence suggests that it was Moscow itself that triggered Yanukovych’s departure in order to launch a pre-arranged Plan B—the invasion of Crimea and an engineered “uprising” in eastern Ukraine—after Moscow’s Plan A—a new treaty with a pliant government in Kyiv that placed it under Russia’s de facto control—was about to fail. Indeed, the timeline shows that preparations for Plan B were well underway before Yanukovych’s removal from office. All this, in turn, demonstrates that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plans for Ukraine were far more predatory all along than merely preventing the country’s drift toward NATO, as many of Russia’s Western apologists contend. You can call this spin but I'm going with it as more than likely what actually happened especially seeing as how Putin has operated over the last few decades. Not to mention the famous quote of his that the fall of the Soviet Union was the worst geopolitical disaster in the history of the world. With that mindset, his main driving force is to recreate it and he can always use the threat of NATO to rally his people to get behind his efforts toward that effect. With that said, going to leave this argument at that from my end. Onto what the future holds: More solid analysis from the ISW on what's going on in Putin's nugget. Sure doesn't look like he wants Peace. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 6, 2025 | Institute for the Study of War

Tangentially related, has the AF acquired enough of anything since Gulf War I other than Bob Gates’s obsession with Predator? Edit: maybe C-17?

The music always stops for a while. Like the Boy Scouts say: Be Prepared.

Yeah, not feeling it so much anymore (STS)... Woman Made Air Force History. How She Stays Winning (Exclusive)

The ORM worksheet requires Tier 2 approval. ETIC 72h

Current plan for IPT is Private, Instrument, and Multi ratings. I doubt this will change. Flight schools involved in the program must provide the same instrumentation across all the platforms students will be training on.

It's pretty wild being on the outside looking in, as a previous t6 instructor, and seeing that the *Air Force* somehow managed to completely implode the simplest flying program in the entire service. Wild

It was glorious. Nearly six figures to leave AD just as Delta and SWA were cracking open the spigots. It was a calculated risk after the shit show of 2010/11 force management program, but it paid off. YMMV in 2025.

I fear trying to “save/fix” the world makes you destroy yourself I hope a generation of leaders figure this out soon Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ummm, ok. Like I said, let’s see what Ukraine can do with everything we’ve done for them under Biden. And if European countries want to help out, more power to them. If Ukraine wants/thinks they can get Russia to fold and leave, all the power to them…let me know how it turns out.

TDS is a terrible thing.

Yeah Bud, compared to your non-stop emotional hyperventilating, I'm the love child of Gandhi and Buddha. I doubt I'd like you, but I am worried about you lately. Hospice is great. Fully on board. Dialysis for a 95 year old who can barely move? Cancer treatments that cost hundreds of thousands for octogenarians? Pretty much everything you write indicates you have no practical experience, but I've watched loved ones rot away under the endless generosity of the American taxpayer. There's nothing dignified about an industry that revolves around collecting more government dollars if they can justify more "life prolonging" care. Go sit in an emergency room for a day and watch. Or better yet, go to the emergency room next time you need some after hours care and watch how much your insurance charges you for the ridiculously expensive doctor's visit where you don't even see a real doctor. You might notice that everyone else in the emergency room is poor or homeless, and not even remotely in a life-threatening situation. Yet because Medicare indiscriminately pays for these emergency room visits, there's no incentive to seek more affordable, practical care. If people with insurance and jobs have to be discriminate about where they seek medical attention, it's not too much to expect the poor and unemployed to do the same. This is cute. So the boomers thought their kids would take care of them, yet as a generation they didn't have enough kids to fund the social security system that they are relying on. That was part of the deal and they failed, so I don't have much sympathy for them expecting that we will continue to fund a program that they did not concern themselves with at all until it mattered to them. Once again, just seems like an area that you just don't have any practical experience with. I have multiple family members who haven't saved a dime their entire life specifically because they believed that social security would just take care of them. The ones who are still living have drawn so much more from the system that they ever put in it would make your head spin. But of course if you ask them, they believe they earned it. Hell my own father honestly believed that he paid in more in social security taxes than he's drawing, even though he literally didn't pay taxes for a decade and ended up settling with the IRS to never pay them. Behavior is influenced, and creating a retirement system that was mathematically impossible decades ago only prevented people from preparing for their own future. Brother I don't have to help you Google what happens to countries when they're sovereign debt is no longer accepted by the rest of the world. If you don't understand that basic and repeated fundamental of history, it explains why so much of the drivel you post here makes no sense.

"We," says the major airline pilot. Yes, I'm sure you can. Unfortunately, most middle- to lower-middle-class people cannot.

I have a full stamped FC1. I skipped WPAFB because I did it when I commissioned 8 years ago. lol.

sounds like the BP was much better at apprehending people under Biden 💅

"You see brue roof?" "Yes, I see 1000 blue roofs." "Ughhhh....brue roof not your targhet."

That bridgeee not your target.

Hes right about finding efficiencies! Of course we need the planned $4.5T tax cuts while trimming just $1.5T in spending (it only adds a ton to the deficit, but I’ve been told to support this by Truth, so I obey). I especially support things like cuts to IRS staff - who return 5-6 times ROI for every dollar spent. Why collect billions in unpaid taxes when we can just complain about the deficit (which we are increasing) instead? This plan is flawless, checkmate libs.

Imagine being “on the team” that has to pretend the Enola Gay is offensive. Sounds very snowflake-ish, doesn’t it?

How many helo dudes did she cheat on you with? Where's Biff..

Oh look aircraft availability is in the toilet, better give billions more to Israel and Ukraine. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2025/03/06/air-force-aircraft-readiness-plunges-to-new-low-alarming-chief/

Sunday March 6, 1836 At midnight on March 6, 1836, Santa Anna's troops began moving into position for their planned attack of the Alamo compound. For several hours, the soldiers lay on the ground in complete darkness. About 5:30 A.M., they received the order to begin the assault. The massed troops moved quietly, encountering the Texian sentinels first. They killed them as they slept. No longer able to contain the nervous energy gripping them, cries of "Viva la Republica" and "Viva Santa Anna" broke the stillness The Mexican soldiers' shouts spoiled the moment of surprise... Inside the compound, Adjutant John Baugh had just begun his morning rounds when he heard the cries. He hurriedly ran to the quarters of Colonel William Barret Travis. He awakened him with: "Colonel Travis, the Mexicans are coming!" Travis and his slave Joe quickly scrambled from their cots. The two men grabbed their weapons and headed for the north wall battery. Travis yelled "Come on boys, the Mexicans are on us and we'll give them Hell! "Unable to see the advancing troops for the darkness, the Texian gunners blindly opened fire; they had packed their cannon with jagged pieces of scrap metal, shot, and chain. The muzzle flash briefly illuminated the landscape and it was with horror that the Texians understood their predicament. The enemy had nearly reached the walls of the compound. The Mexican soldiers had immediate and terrible losses. That first cannon blast ripped a huge gap in their column. Colonel José Enrique de la Peña would later write "...a single cannon volley did away with half the company of Chasseurs from Toluca." The screams and moans of the dying and wounded only heightened the fear and chaos of those first few moments of the assault. Travis hastily climbed to the top of the north wall battery and readied himself to fire; discharging both barrels of his shotgun into the massed troops below. As he turned to reload, a single lead ball struck him in the forehead sending him rolling down the ramp where he came to rest in a sitting position. Travis was dead. Joe saw his master go down and so retreated to one of the rooms along the west wall to hide. There was no safe position on the walls of the compound. Each time the Texian riflemen fired at the troops below, they exposed themselves to deadly Mexican fire. On the south end of the compound, Colonel Juan Morales and about 100 riflemen attacked what they perceived was the weak palisade area. They met heavy fire from Crockett's riflemen and a single cannon. Morales's men quickly moved toward the southwest corner and the comparative safety of cover behind an old stone building and the burned ruins of scattered jacales. On the north wall, exploding Texian canister shredded but did not halt the advance of Mexican soldiers. Cos's and Duque's companies, now greatly reduced in number, found themselves at the base of the north wall. Romero's men joined them after his column had wheeled to the right to avoid deadly grapeshot from the guns of the Alamo church. General Castrillón took command from the wounded Colonel Duque and began the difficult task of getting his men over the wall. As the Mexican army reached the walls, their advance halted. Santa Anna saw this lag and so committed his reserve of 400 men to the assault bringing the total force to around 1400 men. Amid the Texian cannon fire tearing through their ranks, General Cos's troops performed a right oblique to begin an assault on the west wall. The Mexicans used axes and crowbars to break through the barricaded windows and openings. They climbed through the gun ports and over the wall to enter the compound. General Amador and his men entered the compound by climbing up the rough-faced repairs made on the north wall by the Texians. They successfully breached the wall and in a flood of fury, the Mexican army poured through. The Texians turned their cannon northward to check this new onslaught. With cannon fire shifted, Colonel Morales recognized a momentary advantage. His men stormed the walls and took the southwest corner, the 18-pounder, and the main gate. The Mexican army was now able to enter from almost every direction. In one room near the main gate, the Mexican soldiers found Colonel James Bowie. Bowie was critically ill and confined to bed when the fighting began. The soldiers showed little mercy as they silenced him with their bayonets. The Texians continued to pour gunfire into the advancing Mexican soldiers devastating their ranks. Still they came. When they saw the enemy rush into the compound from all sides, the Texians fell back to their defenses in the Long Barracks. Crockett's men in the palisade area retreated into the church. The rooms of the north barrack and the Long Barracks had been prepared well in advance in the event the Mexicans gained entry. The Texians made the rooms formidable by trenching and barricading them with raw cowhides filled with earth. For a short time, the Texians held their ground. The Mexicans turned the abandoned Texian cannon on the barricaded rooms. With cannon blast followed by a musket volley, the Mexican soldiers stormed the rooms to finish the defenders inside the barrack. Mexican soldiers rushed the darkened rooms. With sword, bayonet, knife, and fist the adversaries clashed. In the darkened rooms of the north barrack, it was hard to tell friend from foe. The Mexicans systematically took room after room; finally, the only resistance came from within the church itself. Once more, the Mexicans employed the Texians' cannon to blast apart the defenses of the entrance. Bonham, Dickinson and Esparza died by their cannon at the rear of the church. An act of war became a slaughter. It was over in minutes. According to one of Santa Anna's officers, the Mexican army overwhelmed and captured a small group of defenders. According to this officer, Crockett was among them. The prisoners were brought before Santa Anna where General Castrillón asked for mercy on their behalf. Santa Anna instead answered with a "gesture of indignation" and ordered their execution. Nearby officers who had not taken part in the assault fell upon the helpless men with their swords. One Mexican officer noted in his journal that: "Though tortured before they were killed, these unfortunates died without complaining and without humiliating themselves before their torturers." Santa Anna ordered Alcalde Francisco Ruiz to gather firewood from the surrounding countryside and in alternating layers of wood and bodies the dead were stacked. At 5:00 o'clock in the evening the pyres were lit. In this final act, Santa Anna's "small affair" ended. On the thirteenth day of the siege, Santa Anna’s forces advanced toward the fort before the sun rose. Awakened by the sounds of Mexican soldiers shouting, “Viva Santa Anna,” the Texian defenders quickly returned to their positions on the walls. Travis and his slave Joe made their way to the north wall to coordinate artillery fire on the Mexican troops. On the third assault, those troops began breeching the north wall of the Alamo. Mexican soldiers, who had also captured the south and west walls, followed the retreating defenders into the Long Barrack where a final stand was made. Before the sun came up, the last defender had been killed.

How are you not getting the concept that a stronger foreign power can lose to a more committed group on their home turf? Did you miss the past 25 years?

Given my limited experience with the VA, 50% of the VA workforce could be Thanos-snapped off the books and I would imagine the impact to care or services would not be measurably different.

You quoted me and said "I literally answered this the other day", but the only question I had asked was if you were just going to complain every time reality doesn't align with what you wanted to happen. What is it that are you so intent that I reply to? Quote it or repeat it. So you're listing our military failures as justifications as to why we should give military support to Ukraine? Well, I'll give you credit: that's a completely new and unexpected way to look at this. I don't think anyone has ever made that argument. It might be the least intellectual point attempted in this thread, but at least it's original. I got nothing for you. If Ukraine has plenty of international volunteers, why do they have conscription? Why are we seeing countless vids of them abducting their own citizens from the streets? Again, this is just basic logic. Your points are really, really bad. "I'd totally help if it weren't for my ADSC." "I'd totally help if I were allowed to fly airplanes." Funny how all of the ways you say you want to help conveniently have conditions, while all the ways you can actually help have none. Show me one receipt. Let's reel it back in to reality: Your SQ isn't getting called. You're not going to help or make sacrifices. Russia isn't just going to pack it up and put it in reverse. There will be a negotiation. Both sides will make concessions. The killing will stop. Life will go on. We'll look back just as we do on AFG, IRQ, Vietnam and say, "Well...that was f'n stupid".

You'll never be able to make personal/moral appeals to these political appointees. Besides, Congressional pork is higher than even their pay grade. That out of the way, let's address that "shitting on" stray bullet you threw in there. If you're talking about my criticisms, you can tone-police my delivery all you want. That's just "Tuesday" in my life/put it on my tab type of thing. The point is that the premise behind all that pick-me coding, hoop-jumping passed as "innovation", is that you can't lobby for the money for the proven solution in the first place. Don't get it twisted, and let me bold the answer for the reading comprehension challenged, as I see the question of root cause keeps popping up. The ENTIRE COA is couched on the private knowledge that the enterprise has been so undercapitalized for so many decades, they can't meet production quotas. And that became an inconvenient boo boo when the airlines stopped sucking again for a fart and a half after 14 years of constipation. Period end of story. Rest of their pitch is as I said, sophist ballwash, I don't care what overpaid cRafT contractor, or civilian 121 job chasing, lawnmower-time builder that offends. Again, for the johnny come lates in the back: This isn't about "efficiency". That's just a bullshit plausible deniable premise that keeps polyannas appeased, and which powerless Generals glob onto as a notch until they can get their revolving door NoVA civilian follow-on. What this is about, is Exodus 5 (vers 6-9, no shit). It's so obvious to the peanut gallery, even illiterate Bronze age goat herders managed to finger paint it on a book of effin' parables JFC. Pun very much intended. 😄 So with all due respect as I sincerely enjoy your brainstorming sessions on here, spare me the ingénue "we just trying to train the kids here man" all-hands-on-deck pep rally. These are politicians (yes, even the uniformed ones) working from a position of dishonesty and career self-dealing; these are not honest-broker problem solvers. Go get mad at them for not having a spine. Don't cast me a malcontent just because I display umbrage about unnecessary O-2/3 deaths at the altar of quality control dilution and political expediency, while being told I'm part of the problem for demanding no more resources than what was afforded to me when I was in those now dead O-2's flying experience position.