Scooter14

Ditto what Berg said. I like how they take the chutes off and then take an East Coast -135 to go do a Guam Business Effort. In Jan 07 I flew halfway around the world to offload 6k. I sure am glad there weren't tankers nearby in Kadena or Hickam or TDY to Guam or anything. Oh, wait...

Bank angle limits? KC-135R - 8 degrees of bank in the flare, 4 degrees in the 3 point attitude. That assumes on centerline or a flat runway (no crown). Land off centerline and there's a crown, take away a degree or two or three.

Whatever you are smoking, I'd love to get my hands on it. The airlines give you total flexibility. Wow. Is that why I can only fly my traditionals once in a blue moon? The ART schedule sucks, but not because 0730-1630 is for bankers. 0730-1630 is for dads who want to actually see their kids grow up and have a life that doesn't revolve around a crash pad. If you live at a hub/pilot base, good for you. If not, well, enjoy the X-Box and leftover chinese food. Throw in SOF, night flights after your ART day, drill weekend and the week after (12 days of Americans held hostage) and all the meetings and associated BS that is the daily life in any squadron (AD, AFRES or ANG) and that's what sucks. Pro - It's a job. Con - You have to work. A lot. Especially when you get to be a scheduler, which you will become someday. I'm an ART. When I got my job, I thought to myself "I'll just get a crapload of hours and punch to the airline." A few of my bros are new hires at the airlines and I'm watching them spend half the month in freaking Newark (no offense PilotKD) and shit, and I'm not so sure I wanna do that right now. I'm really not sure what I want to do in 5-10-20 years, but who cares because I have a j.o.b. right now. M-F is good. Trust me. Let me play hockey on the weekends, fly me once a week, deploy me in my AEF bucket, let me go away for a Business Effort, AE or CORONET to break it up once a quarter or so, and I'm happy. For the most part.

Steve, You recall me talking about the crapper on my old jet? There's a case for OPSEC right there. Now, Al Qaeda knows where the finest ISR crews in the world relieve themselves. The war is now all but lost. Seriously, though. The tanker as most well know has the lavatory just aft of the flight deck. The RC had "torpedoes" or portable urine tubes up front with a curtain around it and the full service lavatory was in the back. In the past, it was just a honey bucket, but right before I left Offutt, the first one with a no shit (no pun intended) airline type lavatory showed up. Tankers are now showing up with the new airliner style lavatory as well. BTW, I love that picture. Especially the big map on the screen. Way to go Air Force. Boom, Negative on Pacer Crag. The RJ has a system called Rivet Glass. As you can see, it's two much bigger MFD's side by side. I never got a chance to fly in one, but it seems a lot better than the tanker. You can pull up all sorts of info, fuel in tanks, etc. You could e-mail via some commercial network and you could even pull op Jepps plates in the test version. Still kept the nav, though.

Oldelpaso, meet Beaver. He speaks both Army and Air Force, which is good, because I have no idea what a BCD or a FECCer is. We're all very proud of him.

Leadville Sounds great, have fun!

From the "If the shoe fits, wear it" dept. Sitting home on BRAVO, just thought I'd share.

Are you fucking high? I like going out there for a month or two at a time, keeps things interesting, but 365 days back and forth on those friggin white busses? You know you won't get your own car...the SrA LAN administrator needs that to get back and forth to the Baskin Robbins.

The Blatchford-Preston Complex OK, good to see it's open. Good to see people moving in. Good to see they actually named it after 379th wing heroes of the past as opposed to "Millenium Cyber Warrior Village" or something stupid like that. My only gripe... Who brought a pink balloon (or any balloons for that matter) to the AOR? I mean, really? It's kind of far from combat, but leave the balloons at home. If you have balloons, I think your hostile fire pay should be revoked. Now, can people have sex here like any other base with dorms? Do dorms=more buildings=more beer like any other overseas base? Slot machines? The possibilities are endless!

Back then there was no war and it actually took longer than the mins to upgrade. Not a knock on the crews of today, but it was a fact. We (the RC squadron) used to only get a limited number of slots to Altus. It took a while. If you could stand out a little, you might get there that much faster. The system now sends you when you have the mins + 0.1 hours, a pulse, no DWI and no Class A. Why go to Stan/Eval and work all day and not fly at home when you are gone 200 days a year? F that, I'll stay home and play lunchtime hockey and/or slack off all day and upgrade sooner. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled semi-monthly academy bashing. For all ROTC's I'm glad I chose the path I did. Free education, my ass. They take it a nickel at a time out your ass. I even used to wish I joined the ANG first, but I'm glad I went ROTC->AD->ANG. If I didn't go ROTC, I never would have met Baseops, CAP-10 and Hydro and if I never went AD, I never would have met Bergman in all his Cheesehead glory. That would have been a bummer.

Back in SAC (and in squadrons born from SAC), being a copilot or junior nav in Stan/Eval put you on a small pedestal as someone who was squared away, knew their shit and were probably going to upgrade a little bit ahead of their peers. We called then SELOs - Stan/Eval Liaison Officers. At least that's how it was in the RC squadron around 1997 when I got there. That being said, I don't think I would put that on my official GO biography. Nah, man, I believe you'd get your ass kicked for that. Then again, I'll never need to even worry about that since I was never a SELO and I'll never have the need to write one of those bios.

Pats 31-24. It'll be close into the half, I'll say 17-14, then the Pats will take the late lead and hold it. I am on alert, so at least I'll remember this game.

Cut it down so it's horrible but within regs. When I first got on Active Duty there was this NCO in the office I was casual at with the fat face, the thick glasses and the poorly trimmed but right to the corners of the mouth overgrown Hitler stache. BTW, last time I saw you when you were my best friend with a CAOC badge, you weren't rockin the stache. Something new? It's not March yet...

Didn't even notice that. Wow...PTs, ABUs and a new service dress all in one year. Good thing we're not paying for a global war on terror or anything like that. All you LTs, you're fired. But not until after you buy a new service dress.

Tanker pilots (O-3 and below) have been shacking up for years.

Does this tracker have Guard guys on it, too?

I didn't get the tickets, so I shaved my eyebrows and drew them back on with a brown Sharpie. Retarded.

Personally, I would have used the old Sammy Sosa... ...but I guess this works too.

Riddller, You'll be fine becuase you recognize the problem. You are going to go into UPT and know you will have to study just as hard as everyone else. You know that there are no laurels to rest on because you were a nav/EWO/WSO/airline pilot/etc. Don't put any unresonable expectations on yourself (like I did) and do the best you can. I went in there thinking I had to be the #1 pilot because I had all this experience and I was the SRO. I worked hard and didn't take it for granted, but when I hooked my first end of block ride, I was shocked. It kind of threw me. A few more mediocre flying performances soon followed. Then, I said to myself "Hey, who cares if you finish #1 or #last...as long as you give it your very best." It makes it a lot less stressful when you accept what you have no control over and just work to change what you do have control over. Less stress=better sleep. Better sleep=better flying. Better flying=less stress. If you can look in the mirror the day you graduate and be satisfied you gave it your best shot, then that's a good day. And the monkey skills will develop. Some pick it up quicker than others. Our Flight CC would tell us it was his job to teach us the monkey skills and that it would come with time. Our job was to learn the EP's and all the GK. If we went to a checkride and hooked for a maneuver, oh well. God help us if we hooked for our EP or GK.

That is low SA to leave that stuff on the 'net, I agree with you 100% on that. Just makes it worse if (when) you wash out. I'm sure she's going to feel like she let everyone down, and that sucks.

I was actually referring to a certain field grader trying to escape a former Soviet republic, but now that you mention it, I vaguely remember something about someone kind of losing their marbles and waking up in Colorado. I don't remember the details, but I was in Tweets at the time in the 8th. The gorilla doesn't ring a bell, though. PM me with a name or something. I'll have to call wacky. He was the Casual Lt in charge of the Casual Lt desk, he had the scoop on everything. ...and if I had a .50 cal on my Tweet, I'd probably be in Leavenworth right now. I struggled at formation as well. Cause we're the wingmen and you know we never miss...

OK, I'll bite... Earlier today, someone had written that she was actually not a bad person and handled herself well when people found this stuff on the 'net and posted it around the squadron. I don't know where that went, but oh well. There's this kid that plays hockey here. Real good skater, I'd go so far as to call him a prodigy. He just turned six, but the league just moved him up to the 9-11 year old league because he skates circles around all the 6-8 year olds. His dad constantly has him out on the ice running drills with him. My kid and I will go to play pickup, and they're already there. I'll show up to play pick up with the fellas, and they are just leaving. He's already been kind of put on a pedestal. He'll probably go to all the select camps, play the tier 1 travel teams, prep school, etc. I think one of two things will happen: 1 - He will continue to grow as a hockey player and if he keeps his speed he's got a shot as a forward at a D1 school, maybe pro. 2 - He'll burn out and leave the sport. I think our "Kat One" might have been in the same situation. Or, another possibility is that for the last 10 years, she's been told she's the "best pilot EVER!" JSUPT has a way of showing you ealy on how not good you really are. People struggle with this. I was a nav before UPT. Everyone told me "Oh, it'll be easy! You were a nav, you'll be fine! You know how to talk on a radio, etc, etc." "Bison 22 Dogface, Contact Spins...WTF does that mean?" I struggled early in Tweets. I struggled all the way through Final Contact. It happens. I saw people bail under the pressure. I saw a couple people just not get it. That's life. Brabus, you seem a little hostile with your post. I'm not singling you out (well, maybe I am) but we are real good at character assasination on this site. I know, we're crewdogs and that's our job. Granted, sometimes the judgement is warranted, but all Kat did was wash out of pilot training. It happens. So she had a website. Guarantee that was Daddy's fault. Like Brick said, if my Dad came home from work one day and asked me if I'd like a MiG-29 ride, I don't think I'd turn that down. I'm just trying to find the evil in this poor girl. It's not like she dyed her hair and tried to escape Oklahoma. BTW, her site said she went to Vance. Brabus, you are at Vance. Let's get the scoop kid. Maybe I'm missing something here, or maybe the pressure just took it's toll. Edited for better wording

That's great. WTFO. You came from Balad. What the hell are you going to bring into the Died from Iraq? Booze? Nope. Porn? Nope. You already processed into all the bullshit that is CENTCOM. What can they possibly tell you at the Died that you haven't already seen or heard 69 times. Someone needs to take the head of PERSCO on one of your missions and see how well they last in a Herk on a steady diet of beef jerky and mountain dew or whatever you managed to horde for a so called meal.

People still pick the C-17 because it's the C-17. No way in hell would I want that lifestyle (no offense) but no matter how much people talked about how you are away all the time and constantly hopping from place to place, people still put it #1. The same think will happen here.

I think I read in the AF Times that everyone (not just aircrew, CCT, SOF, and a few other specialized career fields) is going to get more SERE training. Since they can't send everyone to Fairchild, another CBT (with another password for you to forget and a certificate that never prints properly) is the next logical choice.