Leaderboard

Sample size of one school (unrelated to AF training) - vast majority of young CFIs suck (and we’ve ran through a lot in the last year, hired from all over the country). Their work ethic and maturity are significantly lacking is the best way to sum it up. Now add in their complete lack of experience and unwillingness to acknowledge that - it’s a recipe for bad decisions and poor instruction. I can only imagine this is plaguing these AF-contract flight schools. UPT is, for all the valid BGCs, vastly superior to a standard flight school, especially when trying to produce military pilots at scale.

Don't you remember Red Dawn? Wolverines!!!

Turns out doing a demo without the most basic of formation flying skills is not ideal.

I have a new theory but no data. Was there a Coldplay song playing on the airshow PA?

Dibs!

Blast from the past!

Dibs though. I’d definitely still vote for her

Maybe someone called Winchester on our munition levels. - - - - Like @busdriver is saying, take all their money. Every fuckin dime or whatever they use as dimes. And any rich asshole from Iran. Seize their money, take their shit.

Time for Linebacker 3.

Pretty well…until we took a break.

Sydney Sweeney in a one piece or bikini is still hot as hell

The only airplane with a side opening canopy I want to see at an airshow is an OV-10 or an F-104.

How's bombing them into submission going? Asking for our nation.

The only way I could explain the lack of Air Force supervision over the schools is the same reason the whole concept sucks: every school has a different management composition and style, every school has a different pool of cfi's and every school has different aircraft. How could the AF possibly expect any kind of standardized result.

Oh weird, the IRGC, effectively a terrorist organization, can’t be dealt with via diplomacy or ignoring them. Shocking.

Well played...

Thanks all.

Yeah.. not holding my breath

On the tanker in a fighter...meh. Take an under-powered Gunpig to the tanker and hold position for ten minutes while you onload 35-40K. Your CG dramatically shifts WAY aft and you fall ever further behind the power curve with the throttles bent forward and bleeds off as you refuel to 10K over max peacetime weight. That is not just a combat situation, that is every ocean crossing...each one is done with a waiver. AR in the Gunpig is no joke and not a pickup game. Does that translate to the six ship diamond pass in review 18" from another jet for a show then march to the crowd line in your overly tight blue or red jumper...probably not. The most precise flying I've ever done was not in formation but was to ten feet of altitude and one knot of airspeed shooting 27M from the friendlies (one knot can make a 10' miss on the ground), basically across the street as the team was about to be overrun. Had another shoot on night three of OEF shooting in nearly 70 knot winds...imagine the defensive egg on its side, going up wind is great as everything slows WAY down and your bank angle gets low, downwind is like riding a bucking bronco, 45+ degrees of bank, maneuvering three dimensionally as you try to put the thing on the thing and push the trigger. Anyway, matters nothing more than a fun conversation, USAF is run by an Eagle dude again and the last thing he will do is surrender ground to the other than the fighter tribe. We have FAR bigger problems to solve right now.

The central question was never whether Iran was a challenging environment. Nor was it whether Iran posed a serious threat, had the potential for nuclear weapons if they put their minds to it, fired ballistic missiles, or occasionally conducted special operations that targeted western citizens. All of that is true. The question was whether those conditions compelled the methods chosen — or whether they were invoked to justify choices that were poorly aligned with the United States’ own stated objectives.” He (smartly) doesn’t mention the clear “unstated” objective: to distract from other political difficulties that were becoming unmanageable. Once evaluated by that criteria suddenly everything starts to make perfect sense.

I think this sounds like a solution in search of a problem.

Hopefully someone kicked some rudder because lead got lucky with having enough space to eject. Since everyone made it and are OK: Rejoin to the piggyback position? Is that a new Ace and Gary maneuver?

Howdy! If you have access, the PSDM has been published! https://myfss.us.af.mil/USAFCommunity/s/knowledge-detail?pid=kA0Rw0000000tAzKAI

Today I flew out to visit one of these ift flight academies. I sat down with about 15 of the students off premises. Included in the group were a number of second lieutenant Academy grads and some X enlisted fighter maintenance second lieutenants . So I asked about Duty days and one of the girls said she had been on scheduled duty for 14 straight days. Alll of the students said this was not unusual even though they knew contractually the Flight Academy was supposed to schedule a day off after 7 Days Of scheduled duty. Rarely would any of them go to the scheduling office and demand a day off, either for fear of appearing weak, unmotivated, or because they're just trying to get through the program as quickly as possible. I wonder if any of them realize what the consequences would be if they knowingly flew on the 8th day and had an accident. I personally do not know. Would the Air Force get involved? Would the FAA get involved? I cannot find any FARs that put limits on consecutive days of training for students. All of them agree that the Management areas of this Flight Academy are completely stove piped and never talk to each other, mostly because they don't care. One CFI actually knew that because of the winds , nothing would be accomplished on a particular instrument training fight, but he literally said, "I don't care. I'm 2 hours away from my 1500 for my ATP so we're going." The management and the cfi's literally have no vested interest in the well-being of the Air Force students, it's all about the hours and the money.