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Normally I would but that lady is a weird type of fat. She looks like a meatball on toothpicks.

Dibs on the trash can, or on the orange and blue corrugated metal mesh waste receptacle?

I pilot I have mentored since he was 14 is a TPS grad and stationed there as an IP. As late as Thursday the wreckage was still on the runway. He mentioned they got back to flying and he decided to go to Palmdale rather than do patterns and see the wreckage on every pattern. It's been tough on the entire test and bomber community, I think there legacy will live on because they touched so many lives.

Everyone has to retire at some point. Guy was a 4-star general with 34 years..where the fuck was he supposed to go from here? COCOM, CSA, or Chairman. Also it’s been well known for some time that USAREUR is downgrading to 3 star command similar to USAFE. Not everything has to be some major conspiracy. Dude probably didn’t see a path forward and decided it was time to hang it up.

DIBS since biff dont want it!

My biggest fear for situations like this is that the cops realize they effed up and drop a bag to justify everything and avoid making him a millionaire. Again, the presence of cameras has helped mitigate that in modern times but still.

Anyone who was paying attention always knew AFFORGEN was simply a force presentation model to be sustained in competition only; in crisis - all bets are off. Y’all keep acting like Trump just started this war out of the blue. We have been in conflict with Iran since 1979 with more Americans having died indirectly from Iranian actions than from any other country. Not to mention the impact to global commerce through not just the SoH but through the Red Sea and the funding of Houthis. We just finally had an administration willing to do something about it. This escalation was bound to happen at some point. We can debate the timing of said escalation but this is far from “Trump’s war”. Now I agree that we may have missed and opportunity and I wish we had finished the job when we had them on their heels early April; too early to call it a shit deal when we don’t even have a deal yet. We can reassess after the 60 day mark. Yes our military is sadly smaller than in the 1990s; blame generations of shitty leaders and politicians who ignored the clear need to modernize and recapitalize our military.

@Biff_T This is where you chime in and say “Save the fat one for me”. 🤮

Short of a dropping nukes or a full ground invasion, I think this conflict has proven we don’t have the firepower needed for Iran to capitulate. It’s not about what the public will or won’t support, because we already proved we’ll go ahead and launch a super unpopular war. I’m talking about the real world limits of our military power. This might be a tough pill to swallow but we had 3x the fighter squadrons we do now when we took down the far smaller country of Iraq in 1990. And in desert storm, airpower was paired with a ground invasion. The notion that we can ramp up to some previously unseen level of air power just isn’t reality. Almost the entire tanker community is deployed already and run ragged with crew rest waivers. We redirected more carriers to the region than at any point in the last 30 years and one of the CSG’s retasked for this thing just completed the longest carrier deployment since WW2. Idk if you guys follow the meme pages but one of the running jokes right now is that big blue basically took the entire AFFORGEN model and threw it in the trash when this kicked off. They just said fuck it and deployed everybody. Now folks are tired and ready to be done with it. There’s no world where we turn this back up to early March levels of strikes, let alone exceed that intensity. We shot our shot, and it didn’t work. And now we’re taking a crap deal to get out of a crap situation. I think this is a super valuable lesson to learn after Venezuela folding like an house of cards got us high on our own supply. If we’re serious about deterring China we need to learn the actual lesson here: we aren’t all powerful anymore. If you want to sustain operations against a determined opponent, you need volume, and a deep bench. We’ve become insanely good at lighting people up night 1 with all the shiniest most expensive toys. But we’ve become terrible at sustaining that pressure over time.

This is beyond tragic. I can't claim to have known any of the crew but I'm confident I've crossed paths with atleast a few during my occasional trips to KEDW. I don't want this thread to dissipate so fast, like how the rest of the websphere has a ten second attention span. We need to keep these bros in our thoughts & prayers as long as possible.

KEND 26-12AF F-35 F-16 T-38 FAIP B-52 AFRC F-16 Bulgaria

Let’s not forget another, Les Aspin and the Blackhawk Down fiasco.

All yours brother...all yours.

Too old (T38) Gotta move on, just for all the decision makers lurking here, hedge, get an interim / second advanced trainer

I’d certainly offer it to boom operators. They talk on the radio, learn approach plates, and are already trusted to not carve their initials into 5th gen paint. I’d rather have instuctor boom E-5 — E-8s become warrant CFIs than civie CFIs teach LTs how to fly. If that’s a choice I’d ever have to make.

The morality of the general public, whether correct or incorrect, is going to prevent us from bringing the firepower needed for Iran to capitulate if this kicks off again. The administration vastly under-estimated the effort needed to succeed. We are world champs at converting tactical success into strategic loss.

Haha England tied Ghana.

No amount of defense spending and rearmament will fix the political rot (is that even a strong enough word) and public distrust of governing institutions in the UK (and most of Western Europe). They need new weapons and an industrial base to match, but how much does the average Brit care about 5th Gen fighters or recapitalizing the naval fleet when their cities have quite literally been overrun with hostile foreigners?

Considering how great the Eurofighter program went this should end up being a winner!

Well, I just bought an EOTEC set worth well more than the rifle, nice now having a 5X magnifier. Windham Weaponry 5.56

@17D_guy I doubt this MOU goes anywhere, including an actual deal. But if somehow a deal is reached, and it looks anything like this MOU, it’ll certainly negatively impact our standing in the region and in the world (like you mentioned - NK, etc.) This is a big fail for Trump currently, and I hope any deal reached doesn’t look like this MOU.

Milton’s post is spot on. I don’t care how politically incorrect it is to say, the next war in Europe is more likely to be caused by Islam. Putin and Russia is a side show. A cultural civil war in Western Europe would be devastating but is absolutely a risk on the path they’re on. Islam is not compatible with western values. The sooner we realize that as a collective society, the better western society will be.

Louis Johnson in my book with McNamara a close second.

Bombing's back on the menu - https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2222408/trump-launches-new-strikes-iran Has this ever worked without deep intel assets ready with a replacement, a la our forays into S. America? We just need to burn the rest of the world's economies to the ground and ours will be fine. K.

KDLF 26-12AF F16 B1 F35x2 T-38 FAIP F-22

Yep, pretty much. The major, unforced error was starting the ceasefire back in April, stupidly thinking diplomacy would “totally work this time” with Iran, then combining that effort with, as you put it: short cuts, threats, mean tweets. Turns out none of those things worked worth a damn with Iran. The momentum was solid, the ass beating was large, and then we just stopped and have subsequently created the proverbial shit sandwich. As someone said earlier, tactical ass whooping without the foresight/capability to see it through to a strategic victory.

Trump started a war of consequence without the support of Congress or the American people and changed a status quo that favored the US to a status quo that favors Iran. Iran has been a problem for a long time, but maybe previous administrations didn’t “do something about it” because there was a high probability or a poor outcome.

This war of totally not unilateral presidential direction did accomplish one objective, the media isn’t wasting their time talking about those pesky Epstein files anymore.

There’s another future millionaire, I hope.

Parts of the building DID need to be turned upside down. Firing caustic people like Slife and Cat-5 were among the good things, but bro went off his rocker with a Stalinistic purge of anyone who he thinks doesn't conform. That being said, previous administrations were not exactly angels when it came to promotions and pushing certain groups. The shenanigans with the promotion lists for women and minorities are completely unsat and if you scroll some of my others comments you will find I've already pointed that out. I think his damage goes far beyond the purge, the Anthropic deal is unreal.

If our president wasn't obsessed with using the stock market as his favorite indicator of his administration's success, we could end the Iranian problem forever. Just a few sorties to Kharg Island and it won't matter anymore. We keep trying to avoid a global economic catastrophe that is unavoidable, but the longer we push it off, the weaker our allies become through their own suicidal policies.

Where do these prior-rated E's come from? Certainly not the USAF. Army helos maybe?

At IPT now… If the goal is quantity, sure. If the goal is quality, there’s a lot to be desired. I’ll leave it at that in a public forum.

I was a courseware author on the KC-46, and I'm currently a F-16 Flight Manual Manager. I've worked with a lot of retired military pilots in both airframe programs who had no desire to fly for the majors because they didn't want to bag drag through airports as an FO in the 40s-50s. A lot of fighter pilots don't want to go to the airlines and work at Lockheed with me because they like doing "fighter pilot shit" and not flying an ILS all the time.

Sadly this is so true. Even lame duckers refuse to make the long term correct decision and just compromise for short term approval. And, we as citizens overwhelmingly respond to the shiny and glittery (hollow) instead of the substantive and enduring. Both sides of the aisle give us what we (the masses) demand instead of what would benefit us long term.

Well given that all the TDS experts on here have gone completely quiet on here since the MOU and the VP just confirmed we've lifted sanctions on Iran effective today in return for literally nothing it's certainly a combo 1, 2, and 5.

I would not waste my time with that lawyer or either of the AMEs you talked to. HIMS is for when the FAA determines you have an abuse problem, which would be hard to argue when it’s been 10+ years since those incidents. In the end, just set up an appointment with an AME for a 3rd class and see what happens. You’ll create a MedExpress account and fill out the pre-appointment questions. Read them slowly and carefully before you answer. The question that probably pertains most to this subject is 18v. Read this website before answering that question: https://pilot-protection-services.aopa.org/news/2022/april/01/the-notorious-18v If you have to answer yes to 18v, and that causes consternation with the AME and he says you need HIMS, etc., then the worst financial case is you’re out $150 or so. Don’t get sucked into paying thousands to lawyers.

Meins!! 🤗🤗

This would be on the AD side, its the same waiver authority for everyone (AF Surgeon Gen), the key difference being whether or not a Guard/Res unit would be willing to push a package up for you. Like I said before the more chips you can stack in your favor, the higher the chance a unit would be willing to put in for a waiver or an ETP if you needed it. I have a friend in the USMC who got an ETP because she was shit hot and beyond persistent and had backings of some very high level people including a 3-star and a Senator.

This MOU is hot garbage. It’s also not a deal and pretty much meaningless. The obvious reason Trump signed this POS is the midterms coming up. We did well for 40 days, then the train went off the tracks with a dumb idea of a ceasefire. Should have never happened, and it just keeps getting worse with this latest thing.

Maybe you should read the actual debates the framers of the 14th amendment had. Neither the declaration of Independence nor the original Constitution addresses this situation, which is exactly why the 14th amendment had to be written. Thank God the founding fathers knew that we would one day have you to be the sole interpreter of their wisdom 🤣😂 I'm not sure how you can have an ad hominem against a political group, but okay. It also happens to be true. As far as the forum for identifying yourself as a citizen, I will accept the least formal and most rapid forum that results in a negligible number of improper citizen deportations. Since you've been unable to identify a single recent case of an American citizen being improperly deported, we could just assume that it hasn't happened. As for the historical cases, those all sound about right. I especially liked the part where the deported citizens got hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation for the government screw up. I'd be happy to 10x that penalty for any citizen involved in a similar miscarriage of Justice. That's not justification to tear it all down. There will always be fuck ups. Until then, from the time you are approached by the authorities (first opportunity), to the time you spend in a detention center awaiting processing with translators available (second opportunity), to an informal meeting with an immigration officer where you are allowed to make your case with phone and Internet access (third opportunity), to the time it takes to board your deportation flight (fourth opportunity), that would be plenty. But again this is all just an exercise false ignorance. You know damn well that proving citizenship isn't a problem. This is functionally identical to the voter ID debates that have been held in such bad faith by the left that it is almost beyond comprehension. It takes the same level of fake stupidity to believe that black people in America don't have access to identification as it does to believe that immigrants don't have access to proof of legal status. Do you have any immigrants in your family? My mother still has her green card number memorized. This just isn't a thing.

What is confusing? Government screw-ups are not justification for abandoning government action. This used to be a pretty standard policy of the left, considering how many of their programs were grossly mismanaged and abused. None of our laws were written for the situation we are in now. It was never a consideration that tens of millions of people who have no right to be in this country would nevertheless be here. The protections afforded to American citizens, and others legally present within our borders, cannot be extended to every person on the planet. It is not hard to prove citizenship. Neither for the government nor the accused party. That there are a few dozen cases out of literally millions is evidence that this is not a real problem, any more than a few aircraft mishaps out of millions of yearly flights are indicative of a widespread aviation safety threat. The recharacterization of deportation as some sort of punitive action similar to incarceration is the exact trick being used to slow down the process for the ultimate goal of preventing deportation entirely. Same with the refusal of an asylum claim. If you get on a plane to America without a Visa or passport, you are not allowed to leave the airport until you can be seen in front of a judge. You are put on the next flight back to your country. We have the ability for the vast, vast majority of illegal immigrants to quickly confirm their illegal status and return them to their country of origin. Since the problem has been allowed to grow to the tens of millions, there will unsurprisingly be some mistakes along the way. If those mistakes are measured in a fraction of a fraction of a percent, I don't have any problem with that. Once again, show me the American citizens being deported or denied entry back into the country by an intentional process and we will have some sort of agreement. But you can't show that. If you believe the people here illegally have a right to the resources of our country, we just have a fundamental disagreement. I do not believe they have any claim to medical treatment, education, assistance programs, or voting rights. Along those same lines, I do not believe they have any claim to our judicial system, unless of course we are attempting to incarcerate, fine, or otherwise restrict that human being from anything other than their unlawful presence within our borders. Once again, it is simply intentionally naive or disingenuous to act as though we can't figure out who the vast majority of the illegal aliens are. They didn't come here from Mars. They are overwhelmingly from countries south of our border that have fully functioning governments with records systems that track their citizens just as we track ours. The left is just trying to make this about something it isn't because ultimately what they want is for them to stay.

It is “incoherent” to you because you are blinded by your hatred for this administration. This is actually the first military conflict I’ve ever seen with clear strategic objectives (1) Attrite their military and military industrial complex (2) Ensure FON in the SOH (3) Iran does not possess a nuclear weapon Also please a huge shoutout to our kick ass Airmen across every platform and specialty who projected power under circumstances that none of us alive to this day have experienced. That extends to all the guard and reservists who were involuntarily mobilized and knocked it out of the park.

The best fighter pilots in the world have been trained on an old piece of shit for decades. Stress and repetition, that's all you need. I'll take the graduating pilot who spent 300 hours in an analog dinosaur that kept him at the edge of his ability over the one with 100 hours in a state of the art, modern-day-relevant Gucci trainer. Cheap, simple, plentiful, and fast. That's all we need. But as usual, every acquisition is a vanity project for the good-idea fairies we call generals.

A few thoughts: This deal is going to be ass, but any deal no matter how bad is better than continuing the incoherence we’ve witnessed over the last few months. Any amount of cash given to the Iranians, be it pallets on a c-17 or sanctions relief or a $300B tip option on a square reader, is pennies on the dollar compared to the economic damage this thing was going to cause if we continued through the summer and ran our strategic reserve dry. I am happy to let Trump claim the win if it means we get to stop the abject retardation and putting our folks in danger for little to no strategic gain. The “biggest state sponsor of terror” line is so tired and silly. First of all, with the materiel we left the Taliban, there’s zero chance we aren’t the biggest state sponsor or terror on an absolute monetary level. You can say it wasn’t intentional or it’s all biden’s fault but over the years our blunders and failed interventions have financed and engendered more terrorism than anyone else.. by far. But more generally i just dispute this framing. “#1 state sponsor of terror” implies there have been countless Iranian backed terrorist attacks in our homeland. Except the reality is WE are the occupying force in the Middle East and the Iranians have financed groups that have attacked our troops in THEIR hemisphere. Still fuck Iran and every American service member killed is a tragedy but I think we can be more accurate/mature with our language and say “Iran acts against our interests in the region.” Their sponsorship of militant groups that attack our troops is no different than us attempting to arm Kurds to overthrow them. Just be honest and admit we have opposing interests and neither of us really consider morals when we are deciding who to finance to fuck over the other side. I know this point is bound to get a bunch of pearl clutching over “moral equivalence” but I think it’s more productive to acknowledge that our countries operate in our own (or Israel’s) interest with very little regard for what is morally “right.” Ultimately we’ll have a lot more to discuss once the text of the MOU and the eventual deal go public. Because we can’t be sure what’s in it. But what we can be sure of is the reaction: The left will hate it because it’s just JCPOA but with more money and more steps The zionists and neocons will hate it because it isn’t total war with Iran And the maga loyalists will love it and see our president’s months of unhinged waffling as completely vindicated and a totally brilliant negotiating strategy.

Another airline guy checking in here and honestly the only thing that makes an overnight suck is if it’s too short. I hate getting into a cool vibrant city getting put up in the airport hotel. Time for my 6900th shitty hotel burger and fries.. After staying in pretty much every major city in the country multiple times I can confidently say they’re all great. They all also have their rough parts. Use common sense and avoid the rough parts. If you can’t find a way to have a good time on an overnight in LA or SF with some of the best food and bar scenes in the country idk if you can be helped. It’s not that scary guys avoid skid row and the tenderloin and enjoy the rest of these massive awesome diverse cities. On the subject of bodily functions I’ve seen more bachelorette puke on the sidewalks of broadway, 6th, and bourbon than I have human shits in all liberal cities combined. By a factor of ten. Go have a good time and stop letting Fox News convince you these places are scary