Scooter14

My class had a weird one, we had an assignment day at the pool at UPT, since the O-Club was closed the Friday prior to Memorial Day. The OG let us have the pool and some lifeguards the day prior to actual pool opening day. We had some kegs and the junior class grilled for us. We all lined up in flightsuits and bare feet, sanitized, and took our places on the diving board. Our Flight Commanders read little bios on us that we wrote on each other, so they were pretty brutal. Really brutal, actually. We thought our Flight Commander would screen and censor them a little, but he let us have it. We then had 17x24 pictures of all the possible aircraft made up and mounted on foam posterboard. 4 other IP's sat along the edge of the pool as "judges", but before we took the Nestea Plunge, they held up 4 planes (or a boat or a tank, whatever they felt like). Once the student surfaced, only one plane was left, and that's what you got.

I only went in there in T-1's, so I couldn't tell ya. Looking at the IFR SUP though, it appears you are correct. Give 'em a call though, you never know... Fly up initial and rock your wings, then look for lightgun signals from tower. They'll like that.

OK, so if it's gotta be in a tent or a sandy place or just somewhere where people might want to kill you... Thumrait for OEF was a blast. Your beer card reset at midnight. None of this Al Udeid 2 AM bullshit. 20 oz Amstels=1 beer. 20oz Atlas=1 beer + 1 midmorning run to the shitter. No hat/no salute in tent city, there was about a 6x9 foot patch of opstown where uniforms were required. Trips to the Brit Bar, it was the most fun you could have without a reflective belt on in a tent city. Bender would have loved it.

61-2669 was a converted C-135B. Never had a boom. They were built for MATS (later MAC) for high speed transport, but were more difficult to load. They had TF-33 engines with reversers. The same line was converted to some WC's that eventually became OC-135's, a WC-135W (61-2667), a WC-135 test-bed for the 645 MATS Det in Majors Field, TX (61-2666) and some RC-135S "Cobra Ball" aircraft (61-2662, 663 and 664 which crashed on Shemya, AK around 1983). Casey 01 was always a KC-135E. It was CINCSAC and CINCSTRAT's DV bird for a while before it left to become part of the PACAF DV airlift squadron. I got to tour this plane about 8 years ago before it left Offutt, and it was also a sweet ride. I spoke with a friend of mine in that squadron just the other night, and he said 589 has a boom, but they don't have any boom operators in his squadron right now, so they haven't been using it for any AR, but they could rent a boomer and do it. Berg, do you remember if 589 is air-refuelable?

...and now the jackass (Scooter) who hasn't flown a cell hop since last semester will take this golden opportunity to STFU and let the guy who does it every day (Hoser) talk so others can learn.

Swingin, I think I'm missing something, too, unless you guys are using visual signals like in Tweets. My bovine aircraft is unable to do visual freq changes, so we have to say it over the radio. Even if we do brief "push" vs. "go", I'm still gonna check the flight in before I make the radio call for the flight.

2 Hey, wait a minute...

Good point. Why on earth would you want to make sure your flight is up on the right freqs. I'd just rather switch freqs and start talking so the other two tankers behind me monitoring the 8 ship of Vipers on Comm 1, the Command Post controller who won't shut up on Comm 2 and Boston Center on Comm 3 are completely devoid of any SA wahtsoever. It saves lead from actually having any responsibility at all. Brilliant!

I think my class all got one set of wings, but you had to buy the ones that we brough to the auto hobby shop to use the butter-knife sharp band saw to score them within an RCH of breaking so you could actually break them.

Scoobs, Those were actually relavent questions. Nicely done.

Yes it is possible. We have some folks who have been mobilized since late 2001. Add those years to their active duty careers which spanned 12-15 years, and they will be able to swing the full Active Duty retirement, ie retire and draw pension immediately. Not to get too off track, but the amount of points you get in a year directly correlates to participation both nside and out of the unit. For example, some guys will do their UTA's/AFTP's and AT and a couple trips, and that's it. Bums will try to pick up more trips. Some folks (like myself) will volunteer to deploy with other uits. There are opportunities to do 3-4 year AGR tours with the Reserves, and also at various MAJCOM headquarters, etc. The HQ tours may not be appealing now, but if you are looking to retire, and that 3 year tour will round out your 20 Active Duty points, and allow you to retire with Active Duty bennies, it becomes a little more appealing, especially for guys who have a good amount of time invested on the Active side. The point I'm trying to make, without being too redundant, is that if you don't get picked up full time somewhere, there are many different ways to get paid and get points, you just have to be a little creative sometimes. AirGuardian is the master of this...where has that guy been?

Holy shit that's funny

D'Angelo's? I don't blame the chain, just the dude who rushed my order. I'll eat there again, it's usually real good stuff. [ 12. January 2006, 08:37: Message edited by: Scooter14 ]

Not so much

So, I get alerted last night to go refuel a C-5. On my way in, I stop by a local sub shop and pick myself up a chicken cheesesteak sub. I order it up, go and use the bathroom, and when I come out, it's done. "Hmmm, that was fast" I think to myself. I start to get hungry during mission planning, so I eat the sub just prior to the brief. We step, preflight, no big deal, except I have a funny feeling something's not right. Just drink some Coke, it's only a 2 hour mission, you'll be fine, right? Takeoff, climbout, level off...on time. We check in with FRED and turn outbound to go get him. At about 60 DME on the A/A I can't take it. Pilot, you have the aircraft. Run to the back, lift up the lid of the crapper and there is a nice big wad of paper towels jammed in there. No time to move it. Wham. Up comes the sub. Back to the front, just in time to make our turn in front of the C-5. Got about half the fuel offload done, then it's back to the back. Repeat about 6-9 times in the plane, then a couple more times on the way home, until about 0900 today. Sweet.

We wnt there in the TONE a couple of times. I hooked my only ride in T-1's there, as a matter of fact (if you are going to go around after flying a shitty single engine approach, and you are below 100 ft AGL, use BOTH engines), but they have a red MiG-17 in the hangar next to the FBO. That was cool to check out. [ 22. December 2005, 20:30: Message edited by: Scooter14 ]

"I'm a little jet guy, but this is a big jet" That was a hit with the tanker toads at the Died. That, and the Navy's "All Hands" commercial with the pirate songs.

Does somebody have a little turbofan envy?

CHEESEHEAD FIGHT! [ 22. November 2005, 23:23: Message edited by: Scooter14 ]

That was FL415, light as hell on our way back to Kadena. Don't cheat us out of that last 500', bro. (I wish they had a Jim Beam bottle icon with crossed golf clubs behind it, it would be appropriate for any reference to that deployment) We weren't pilots at the time, so does it count?

Yeah, the lights. You know what? You can see all the pretty lights from inside the ****ing observatory as well, which would keep my pink, hairy ass from hanging over the edge of one of the buildings built by the lowest bidder with no way to get back. [ 21. November 2005, 20:03: Message edited by: Scooter14 ]

I love it! Ahhhh, the real reason for the reflective belts. When that sun runs out of hydrogen, CENTAF will be READY!

It took me a good hour to get up the nerve to ride the BIG SHOT on the top of the Stratosphere in Vegas, and I only did it because everyone else on my crew did it and I wasn't gonna get laughed at all the way back to Omaha. You'll never get me back on that damned thing ever again, especially after this happened. :eek: I don't like heights, and I hate when people stand at the edge of the cliff and lean over and look down and say "look, it's no big deal!" I am definitely not afraid of flying. [ 21. November 2005, 19:38: Message edited by: Scooter14 ]

I don't see how anyone can even think this anymore. It's beaten like a dead horse every three weeks before every class has a track select. I know class size is a factor, but unless you have 8 guard fighter guys in your class, which you never will, it ain't gonna matter. Besides, who gives a shit what Joe Herbivoregonnabe thinks, you won't see him once you start -38's anyway, unless you weren't FAR-ed. [ 21. November 2005, 19:32: Message edited by: Scooter14 ]

I'm pretty sure that's true...nomex+blues=bad. parka+blues=OK if it's cold out. Offutt let folks wear them in the winter. Some people would be wearing them into April, and they looked like tools. And remember, it's not how you feel, it's how you look... (Most of you kids won't know who that guy is, but some of the more seasoned folks may remember) [ 17. November 2005, 21:00: Message edited by: Scooter14 ]