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And, not so incredibly, Pancho Villa knew Huggy.

This seems appropriate

This is the part nobody wants to admit. The rest of the world **was** fucking us. If the last five presidents had been willing to use even the smallest amount of pressure to keep shit like this from happening for 35 years, we wouldn't have needed Donald Trump to come in with the sledgehammer. This is also why I laugh when people try to use pure tariff rates as a counter-argument to Trump's "reciprocal tariffs." Sure, our allies had relatively low tariff rates against us, but the protectionist measures they employed to favor their industries over ours were rampant and audacious, and until recently, largely unanswered by the United States.

Squids are VERY excited today...one of their attack subs torpedoed an Iranian Frigate. The Skipper had the stones to come to periscope depth and film it....epic! iGGQpwCNXNAdL1R1.mp4

Happy birthday to the 1st Reconnaissance Squadron at Beale AFB 113 years old today. In 1916, the 1st invaded Mexico to try to capture or kill Pancho Villa. Probably didn't get much per diem.

Fairly certain @M2 gave Eddie Rickenbacker his first intel brief.

Hopefully Bondi. Unfortunately Trump seems to hire women based solely on the "Biff test."

Ah yes, the hardcore fucking of a... **checks markets**... 4% drawdown. From astronomical highs. Like the economic disaster from Ukraine? Or the social catastrophe that followed Maduro's capture? Or the military disaster of the summer attacks on Iran? How many times does the philosophy have to be wrong before you question the philosophy itself?

Hell, it beats the alternative!

Disagree on Patel. I haven't found a better measure of a politician's value than their ability to handle a long-form podcast. Patel is not perfect, and he engages too much in the Twitter chest thumping nonsense that has become the status quo, but he's able to speak intelligently on anything he's asked, and he has guiding principals. That doesn't mean you have to agree with those principles, but it's refreshing that a politician at this point can even spell out what guides them in their decision making. And I don't find any of the frat bro stuff off-putting. I'm tired of politicians pretending like they're formal and keeping all of their immature/illegal/immoral nonsense behind closed doors. Just be honest about it at this point. I trust an FBI director who can smash a beer with an Olympic team a hell of a lot more than the colonels and generals we dealt with while we were in the military who pretended like they had never had a drop of alcohol once they were in power.

He's the hero we deserve, but not the one we need right now.

Biff is my hero, sir

just got my date! Check vMPF boys/girls

Heard back from AFPC this morning that my dates are flowing through the system. Going to Laughlin mid-May with IPT projected for the end of June at Prescott.

Over here is AR, a man that chased down his daughter's abductor (under restraining order too), confronted, then killed the molester in a scuffle, and now charged with murder, just won the Republican primary for Sheriff of said county. He decided to run because that office mishandled and ultimately lost dash cam footage of the encounter. The judge was pulled off the case too, which is still pending. When he wins (he beat the incumbent at the primary), I'm betting on a clean sweep of that office. Didn't they make a movie like this with The Rock? https://katv.com/news/local/aaron-spencer-wins-primary-for-lonoke-county-sheriff-in-high-profile-contest

So far, this wins the award for coolest thing to happen in this war. What a fucking day to be a submariner!

Not odd if the Hornet driver has some questionable loyalties... There is an effort to contain some of the details in order to limit the obvious bad press and political consequences. Complete $hit, rip the Fing band-aid off and call it what it is.

Love him or hate him this is good news for America. Canada purposely and with malice drug their feet on certifying anything Gulfstream for Canada in an effort to protect Bombardier. Canada Certifies Gulfstream G500, G600

I just got the email for a 30 Jun IPT date out of Del Rio that was for Prescott. AFPC guy told me that the location changes all the time though due to AETC doing load management/balancing so to take that with a grain of salt. Sounds like its going to be a cluster until were in the student flights getting ready to go

Here is what Mr Trump thinks of you, your service, sacrifice, and your life should it end with his actions; a promotional appearance to sell hats.

oooffff I remember showing up here as a UPT select and you were still AD. My back hurts...

Water is wet

Bondi and Patel.

Tell me more ChatGPT

We had a plan for optionally manned... Obviously this program was and is personal to me. In the simplest terms, the Tactical Tanker debate comes down to one core issue: vision. For years, we’ve all acknowledged the “tyranny of distance” in the United States Air Force fight—especially across the vast operating areas of United States Indo-Pacific Command. Distance is the pacing threat’s greatest ally. It stretches logistics, constrains sortie generation, limits persistence, and ultimately caps combat power at the worst possible time. The Tactical Tanker concept directly attacked that problem. If I could distill the entire discussion down to the basics: it was about putting more gas forward. Not incrementally more. Not marginally more. Transformationally more. The modeling—while I can’t share specifics here—showed roughly three times the fuel offload at the IPs compared to the current construct. Three times. That’s not a tweak. That’s a different fight. More fuel forward means: Fighters push deeper without sacrificing weapons. Bombers retain flexibility instead of flying razor-thin margins. Tankers operate with more options instead of predictable orbits. The entire air campaign gains elasticity instead of brittleness. In a Pacific scenario, fuel is range, range is presence, and presence is deterrence. The Tactical Tanker fundamentally changed the calculus of how airpower could be projected and sustained. And yet, the conversation kept getting stuck. Specifically—on the boom. The boom became the intellectual gravity well. Instead of stepping back and asking, “What does tripling fuel forward do to the operational problem?” the debate narrowed into technical objections and legacy expectations. The inability to zoom out and process second- and third-order effects stalled momentum. That’s not a knock on anyone’s professionalism. It’s a reflection of institutional inertia. Large organizations optimize around what they know. They protect existing paradigms. They scrutinize deviation more harshly than stagnation. But transformational capability rarely fits neatly inside legacy mental models. The Tactical Tanker wasn’t about replacing the fleet. It wasn’t about novelty for novelty’s sake. It was about solving the INDOPACOM logistics geometry in a way that current constructs simply don’t. At some point, we have to ask: Are we optimizing for yesterday’s constraints—or tomorrow’s fight? Because in the Pacific, fuel isn’t a support function. It’s the strategy.

Is this the first sinking of an enemy surface ship by a US Navy sub since WWII? Definitely a first for a US Nuke Sub!

104-3 ain't bad....

Honestly after my time in the Middle East, how could it not?

Report now saying the IDF just hit a meeting with 88 senior clerics who were electing the next Ayatollah...all 88 KIA.

VA politics is driven by the DC metro folks, which is really an extension of Maryland politics. It didn't go blue, it was just having an affair with a Republican.

James Cameron/Skynet already designed that thing:

ClearedHot knows that because he hooked Eddie on his first contact check

Yeah sorry basically any training code that doesn’t have IPT labeled will be your UPT dates

KEND 26-07AU T-38C x5 T-6 FAIP KC-46 Seymour Johnson KC-46 Altus x2 KC-135 Altus x3 KC-135 General Mitchell ANGB KC-135 Pittsburgh KC-135 Beale C-17 Altus C-130J Fort Worth C-130J Little Rock x2

To include Lt LeMay.

Cuba is teetering on the edge, out of fuel, 90% of the island has been without power for the last 36 hours. If Trump cleans up Venezuela (not complete yet, Iran and Cuba)...Liberal minds will explode. Again, the dude is a narcissistic asshat, but he has done some good things. Still early on all three but at least not the status quo of the last 47-60 years.

Meh...show of hands: who's at all surprised by this? ...Beuhler? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember that we were openly providing UKR targeting/intel, on top of hardware and training.

ADMIN NOTE: This thread is being absorbed into 'The Iran Thread"...

Some very interesting primary results from last night, Texas was ground zero: State Rep. James Talarico has won the Democratic Senate nomination in Texas over Lunatic Rep. Jasmine Crockett. She is the one who called paralyzed Texas Governor Greg Abbott "Governor HotWheels." Next up after 21 years in office Rep. Al Green, pushed out of his district by the new map, challenged Rep. Christian Menefee, who was elected to the newly drawn 18th Congressional District in a special election last month. Green has been escorted out of the last two State of the Union Addresses. U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL and fourth-term congressman from Houston, lost to state Rep. Steve Toth, R-Conroe. Crenshaw faced difficult headwinds — he was the only House Republican running for reelection in Texas without a Trump endorsement. Crenshaw has been openly feuding with former SEALs Eddie Gallagher and Sean Ryan. In an exchange threatened with some of "his boys at 6." It’s a similar story up north, where Dallas Democratic Rep. Julie Johnson was pushed out of her district and now finds herself facing a likely runoff against her predecessor in Congress, Colin Allred. Allred, who was leading the vote count but remained shy of the 50% threshold, unsuccessfully ran for Senate against incumbent Ted Cruz in 2024 and dropped out of this year’s Senate primary in December. Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton advanced to a runoff in the Senate GOP primary. Cornyn, is seeking a fifth term and hopes to avoid becoming the first Republican senator in Texas history to seek re-election and not be renominated. Mixed results for Trump. He endorsed 35 incumbents, 18 won. He endorsed 11 challengers, 7 won.

A legacy Hornet paints three E's and their TEWS isn't screaming?? Not saying reports are wrong that just seems "odd"?

I would only ever want to fly with the Aussies and Brits in my lane.

Probably naps, mowing the lawn, and Class Six runs not necessarily in that order!

A friend at Laughlin told me that they had an overall pilot projection shortage for the year, and they had to augment their numbers by pulling from CSO/RPA/alternates/etc. Laughlin seems to have the best mx and moves the most pilots, so that’s played into it as well. Additionally, they’re implementing a new program combining T-38 phase and IFF fundamentals that they’re calling “FBF” (Fighter Bomber Fundamentals) which is expected to move more pilots through that track. Something “going down” made it sound more dramatic, but that’s all I know.

I know a few others who reached out. I’m on leave so I’m waiting until I get back. It’d be great if they simply provided an update to all UFT selects and we didn’t have to rely on a public forum for basic information.

Qatar got two Su-24s so…possible

The great Laughlin scandal of 2026! Im very curious about what transpired. Seems to be a bit more then just a misallocation of numbers…

I think he was a F-4 WSO, then UPT, then F-111, then A-10, passed over for Major, hired by the Reserve A-10 unit in New Orleans, hired on at United but invited to leave during training (lying on his application?), invited to leave at New Orleans for flying violations and personnel conflicts, tried to get hired at Columbus Reserves but blocked by the NOLA A-10 folks, hired at UPS and fired after a conflict on a Asia flight with the other two pilots that resulted in them locking Runner out of the cockpit. After that, it is a mystery that I'm sure we will learn more about. Quite the resume, if you ask me. Maybe he was a plant to screw up the Chinese PLAAF.

KEND 26-05AU T-38C x6 C-17 Altus x4 C-17 March ARB C-130J Little Rock KC-135 AK Guard E-3 Tinker T-6 FAIP KC-46 Altus x2 C-5 San Antonio KEND 26-05AF T-38 FAIP F-35 Luke F-15E SJ F-16 Holloman x4 KEND 26-06AU T-38C x7 C-5 San Antonio C-130J Little Rock x2 KC-135 Altus MC-130J Kirtland x2 E-3 Tinker C-17 Altus x2 C-17 Charlotte ANG AC-130J Kirtland T-6 FAIP x2 KC-46 Altus RC-135 Offutt C-130H Youngston ARS KEND 26-06AF F-22 Langley F-35 Luke F-16 Holloman x2 F-15E SJ x2 T-38A ADAIR Langley