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Glad to see my airline/union assisting UPS/IPA in their time of mourning and assist bringing Captain Diamond home to rest.

i totally agree that UPT cuts are seriously degrading the quality of the product. But don't conflate the UPT syllabus cuts with a need to create a new ACE program: even with a robust UPT syllabus like I went through many moons ago, the ACE Program was extremely beneficial for the new co-pilots. Story time: I remember back in the 2005-2006 time frame, there was a Langley F-22 at Hill AFB whose crew chief lost control of the landing gear pin during ground ops, and the pin got sucked down an engine. IIRC $6.8M in damage. That year, at Beale, our T-38 CT Program was run on a budget of around $6M for ~3700 hours of flying time. Think about that. That's around 3,000 SORTIES in a T-38... for $800,000 less than the cost of a single Raptor FOD incident. My experience in the Beale T-38 CT Program has made me such a better U-2 pilot and overall aviator than I would ever be without it. A magnitude better. There is so much that could be done to make our USAF aviators "that much better"... but the AF leadership will simply not invest the pennies... and I do mean "pennies"... to make it happen. It's no longer a priority. I hope I am proved wrong on my last statement.

To whom it may concern. Will the person at the O-club Friday night who drew dick pics in our flight caps please provide new hats. Sincerely, Col. Harry Balzac & Col. Hugh P. Ness

I think this about the 5th cycle of colored shirts and name tags in my career. Thankfully I’ve been able to mostly ignore all of the knee jerk decisions and keep doing the right thing: morale shirts and call sign name tags (and no hat/sunglasses on head), as God intended.

Go all in and put two WSOs in it.

On that being said "arg"...I declare DIBs Before "Biff_T"!

Sadly, none of this surprises me. The more I learn, the more jaded I get toward our military/political leadership and what kept us in the never ending quagmires since 9/11. This is proof that no one is immune to the government trying to fuck you and make your life a living hell if you piss off the wrong person. It also puts a spotlight on the hypocrisy around the different spanks for different ranks. Never mind the unwillingness of people to do the right thing so as not to upset their careers. Here's hoping the current administration will fix this situation. Funny sidenote on the point they make about being "frozen" in the rank your retired/left the service. Our OG received a call from a FDX guy about a squadron mate who had the audacity to take MLOA during peak. The dude introduced himself as Maj Gen XXX and to our OG's credit, he made a point to let him know that his retired rank didn't mean shit, then prompted told him to go fuck himself, the MLOA was legit.

Leave the kids alone. If the boomers hadn't raped every institution and convention for their own advantage, all the while incinerating the housing market, suppressing interest rates, saddling every 22 year old with crippling debt, and inventing "too big to fail," maybe the younger generation wouldn't look toward something different. The American Dream was raped by the generation that cried out for free-love and no war until they got in power to give us a corporatist government and endless wars. Now they don't like that their kids are skeptical of their promises. No small wonder. Socialism is a nightmare, but you have to be blind to think this is just about lazy young adults. 😂

Watching POTUS realize that Putin is a menace in real time has been entertaining.

Well, looks you got your answer.

You are *way* behind me in line 🤣😂

Dibs

True, but I'd still hit it.

I heard it was Ben Doverbich. I still have that one tucked away in the safe. At the request of the Air Force Museum it will go on display in Dayton when I fly west.

I want to see her wearing those chaps with no jeans.

Weed stench, incessant beggering, homeless that don't want help and just want to be assholes, $18 beers.* But hey, there's a Packers bar there with Pliny on tap. * I know, I probably described every mega city.

If it’s stable enough for you to climb down from the flight deck and walk to the door, it’s stable enough to land/ditch. If you can’t walk to the door, you’re proper fcuked whether you have a chute or not.

Detroit was technically too be to fail too. Been there recently? Given communist rule, ANY city is fully capable of collapsing and consuming itself.

Russia made a robot. It's a perfect copy of a drunk Ruskie.

God damn that's delicious.

I learned in a Supercub that had a 135HP Lycoming...it was a beast and I thought normal ops for a Cub. There is NOTHING like slipping a Cub (or other taildragger), over the tree to a greaser one wheel landing on the grass....best if done at Sunset. I am currently shopping airpark runway options. I looked at a 5280' grass strip on 80 acres two weeks ago. Looking at 361 acres this week.

Fucking clown show https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5612407-comeys-challenge-trump-prosecution/amp/

That’s what we planned to do too, but the BAH difference between our current assignment and the UPT bases is $1,300-$1,700/month. From my understanding, they just changed things to where you only find out your MWS at drop night now and don’t find out your location until you finish up at the FTU. If that’s the case, they can’t PCS you and then send you to the FTU because you don’t know your final duty station yet. I hope they’re able to accommodate you for IPT locations that make sense!

There is a middle ground here that should make sense to everyone but it obviously hasn't caught on yet. 200 mile high speed chases that puts everyone on the road in great danger are super dangerous and something needs to be done quickly to prevent that. Don't care what you're running for, if you're running you aren't going to be allowed to put others at risk. PIT'ng someone who you haven't established is actually running (moving up to next exit, clear indicators that you're not going to become an issue) and you move to PIT them, unsat. Some jurisdictions don't even allow pursuit anymore if the person is fleeing. Have watched plenty of videos where the dude will run and cops won't chase or they have to hope the Highway patrol or other police/sheriffs can.

This exact situation was on the Oliver show. Trooper PIT'd a pregnant lady, flipped her minivan over as she was trying to find a good spot to pull over.

Not even a CPO guy, just a line guy who’s clearly the front runner for biggest douche of the airlines 2025 award? I can’t even fathom that.

As much as AOC?

Is she dinosaur bait? I think Republicans need to give up on tough-talking women. I'll take the soft spoken Condoleezza Rice and Amy Coney Barrett over Sarah Palin, Marjorie Taylor green, Lauren Bogart, Christy noam, or Kari Lake

New rule to add to the motherhood: Egressers, defenders, and football players in the tunnel have the right of way.

It's late, I'm drunk. IAW the he man woman haters club handbook At 14:15 reminds me of taking my first wife 4 wheeling on the Eglin reservation back in the 80s. Good times Also at 21:36 there's a door in my barn just like that

A chute is the illusion of a fighting chance. Just like when we carried 6 chutes in the back.

I’ve heard lots of credible source negatives about Crenshaw for several years. Unfortunate, I had high hopes at the beginning.

Just listened to it. I’m not really surprised by any of it, but it is still absolutely blood boiling. I hope the Trump admin steps in and rights this egregious wrong.

I agree. I think the right is underestimating the political energy and direction politics is headed in this country, mostly in big cities. I think socialism and open support for violence against the right is taking hold of a larger and larger percentage of the population. The question is, when will the dems find a way to remove themselves from the violent leftist progressives? Let the progressive’s behavior and ideas stand on their own outside of the Democratic Party. This country desperately needs bad examples and we are about to get two of them, one in NYC and the other in Seattle.

Don’t want to veer off topic too much and fantasize this plane or that one but…. this jet, yes it’s a kit plane, could be the basis for what could be a great ACE CT aircraft https://www.kitplanes.com/viperjet-redux/ Like a modern Folland Gnat, small light quick nimble and cheap in jet aircraft terms. It would be modified some for sure if adopted for an ACE or CT aircraft but the basics I think are handled.

Your age is a pretty glaring factor. It’s extremely hard to get hired by a fighter unit when you’d be going to UPT near/at the age waiver requirement. It happens occasionally, but data shows it’s very rare. I think many units won’t even entertain interviewing someone who’s in that position, regardless of how stellar their app is otherwise. When a unit sees your app vs. a very similar app (but the guy is 23), they’ll take the 23 yr old 9.9/10. Your best bet is keep submitting apps, but hit your home unit with all you got - put in the extra time to interact with pilots as much as possible, make it known ASAP to them you are excited to be a CC, but your ultimate desire is to fly in the Wing. Your home unit is probably your best bet given your timeline. If no luck by 30, I’d start throwing out apps to heavy units if you really want to fly mil. If you don’t want that bad enough/fighters or bust, then so be it, but be at peace with the decision and never flying for the mil (if it comes to that).

It feels like a pipe dream, but I hope there is a successful movement on the “near” left (e.g. the mid 90s Dem mindset citizens) to establish a new party and send the Dems the way of the Green Party. AOC, etc. can enjoy their irrelevancy on ballots and in the public square. We don’t want everyone to be in lock step with one party - we need rational debate and different ideas, as well as shifting leadership over time (e.g. not having one party dominate for decades). But we also do not want a socialist shit show party who hates everything about America and wants to completely reinvent it into an abomination.

easiest problem to solve and a no brainer.

I have heard rumint of a program similar to ACE as a possibility in the near future for AFGSC, although I have no idea where the process for that contract currently is. Personally, I have seen the benefits of flying GA while struggling to find flying hours after UPT in the Air Force. Getting back in the jet after a few GA flights feels much more natural and the airmanship and SA bubble is much greater. I would go so as far to say a program like this would have a significant positive impact on retention as well. Job satisfaction rapidly improves when the option exists to fly consistently and feel safer while doing it, not to mention the adventure of increasing the types of flying pilots can be exposed to. In the last couple years at least, I have seen the wait time for CAF assignees after IFF/T-38s exceed 12 months from last T-38 flight to MWS initial qual/B-course dollar ride. In my opinion, spending millions on training a pilot and then sitting them for a year is unacceptable, and we must find a way to bridge that gap. The additional crisis is the backlog of co-pilots/wingmen struggling to find hours to just keep currencies. When we aggregate the extra flights required and the safety impact created by decreased proficiency, I absolutely think some version of this is necessary.

To pile on, everyone always gets screwed. The people who get screwed the most are the property owners. The people who get screwed the (distant) 3rd most are the poors who get to benefit from "affordable housing." The people who get screwed the 2nd most - close to the 1st most - are the people who never get mentioned: the people who would otherwise be able to afford said apartment at market rate, but unfortunately inhabit the 'in between' - the wide span of those individuals being too rich to qualify for "affordable housing" but to poor to afford luxury apartments; i.e. the entire middle class. This is all to say that there is no such thing as "affordable housing" - but such is the core nature of Leftists' favorite social programs - none of them describe what the thing really is. In reality, there is only "taxpayer-subsidized-housing-for-a-select-few-lucky-enough-to-be-among-the-chosen-few-to-receive-it-housing." If there was truly "affordable housing," you and me would be able to purchase it at that rate, but as we all know, we can't.

Yeah while it's an interesting conversation in an academic sense, the simple reality is that the people who view flying as an unfortunate necessity and impediment to ladder climbing are not going to do anything but the bare minimum to train and keep pilots trained. The bare minimum will be discovered by gradually reducing flying experience until too many planes crash to ignore the problem.

Correction applied, thanks for the input as I strive for accuracy in my posts. Yup, lotta questions to try to seed the discussion. I see the value, looking back at my AD AMC tour, and I think it is possible unless things are way different now than then for a new CP (probably an Lt and not a Capt CP), especially in that first year at their assignment. The CT program the Global Hawk was about $90,000 (05-06 dollars) to fly all the RQ4 pilots for the year, maintaining ASEL INSTM currency per the FAA LOA that was in effect at the time that covered Navs directing the GH as Mission Commanders when it was in the US NAS. Dirt freaking cheap. ACC HQ squashed it as they whined they couldn’t set it up all their projected bases for the GH so nobody could have it, because you can’t fly a Cessna in Japan apparently. That was one of the reasons I requested my GH assignment, it was a great benefit while getting a RPA tour done, then the bait and switch happened. Total bullshit and not even penny wise, it was less than the color copier budget for an FY, no kidding. An example to consider for the HAF staffer lurking on this thread: Google AI says a -46 per flight hour cost is about $12,000 and a Gamebird GB1 would be about $400 per hour. Checking their AFMAN 11-2KC-46 Vol 2, to go from FP to MP you need a 1000 total and 400 -46 hours. Substituting 300 hours of GB1 time with a good bit of that being solo to really build airmanship would save $7 million in flying hours and I’m confident in saying likely deliver a stronger upgrade candidate than one with all -46 time.

Correction: ACE did not end when SAC went away. It remained within the newly-formed ACC until summer 1994 (maybe '95) when General Loh cancelled the program literally overnight. In my opinion, this was one more indicator of the lack of understanding that officers like Loh and many of the other ACC generals with fighter backgrounds had WRT to the non-fighter platforms under their command. Although I was never in ACE, I have many friends and classmates that flew as ACE co-pilots, or that were assigned to ACE as instructor pilots. I have a lot of experience with the CT Program at Beale, which ran in conjunction with ACE until the ACE portion was killed. You pose a number of questions, Clark. Bottom line: the ACE Program was a cost effective and solid aviation method for getting low-time co-pilots some much-needed quality flying experience. Not to mention, it made pilots very happy that they were able to fly... actually fly anywhere they wanted to go, and work on developing their new aviation skill sets. Imagine that... happy pilots working to better their fundamental aviation skills. For a brief period of time, Beale RQ-4 pilots were flying Beale aero club aircraft in an ACE-like program. Pennies on the dollar. Of course, it was cancelled. But it showed that with a tiny bit of thought and effort... and not much money... something positive could be done. The short-sightedness of Gen Loh and his staff was very unfortunate. Bringing back an even better version of the ACE Program should be done today. In both ACC and AMC.

I don't work for Beehive but have visited their facility a few times. At AFA they rolled out their 100LBN thrust engine which is a game changer. If you know anything about affordable munitions space the brewing fight with China has spawned several program to mass produce cruise missiles and other munitions at a cost 1//10th to 1/20th of legacy munitions like Tomahawk, JASSM and JASSM-ER. The opening 72 hours of a fight with China are likely to consume nearly every weapon in stock (50,000 units), so the services have launched an effort to greatly increase quantities at a much lower price point. Companies Like Anduril are trying to mass produce Barracuda for less than $200K. Believe it or not the high cost component in these systems is the engine and current providers charge around $120K per unit. Beehive is driving to get that cost (en masse), down to $25K.

I've gotta go dig in my tubs of ol' USAF shit to find my "WSO Hater Union" card I was once presented at a roll call. Looks like I have others to pass that along to here. Wish I could remember the occasion for which I was awarded it.

Access is all that matters, which might come back to bite them in the long run.

I didn’t want ENJJPT. I only want heavies. So I didn’t volunteer for ENJJPT. I've been on heavies my entire career. Other than now flying RPA's but Fighters aren't for me and I know I can go to ENJJPT and potentially drop a heavy, but ENJJPT is geared towards fighters. I'm in my early 30's and just want to fly heavies to finish out my career. When I first joined, I worked on MC-130Js then cross trained and became a flight engineer on KC-10's.

I'll say it, my rep here is shit anyway. Make America Great Again.

You started a whole new thread to tell us you don't care? Weird.