Swanee

In Quantico we had "Guardian Angels" walking around and in all of the TBS buildings on the Camp Barret side. Later they expanded this policy to include the buildings on the main side of the base. The idea was that you had a couple of Marine NCOs patrolling around with loaded M4s IOT facilitate an immediate armed response to a lone or small team shooter situation. IE- a Marine is there to kill the mother######er who decides that he's going to shoot someone. We also still have armed Marines guard the gates- no rent-a-cop for us. Pyschologically it gives a much meaner and more serious force protection image than you may get elsewhere. Talking with the NCOs who stood the duty they didn't mind it all. It was pretty much a 9-5 duty- they were protecting the Marines, not the buildings- so if no one was around they didn't have to be there. And what Corporal or Sergeant isn't going to like being told," Hey Marine, instead of being in the office today you're going to walk around with an M-4 and kill anyone who tries to hurt the Marines today." Interestingly enough while I was doing my time at The Basic School we had some people try to cut the fence and get into the base. The "Guardian Angels" were who stopped them.

There are 4 different types of Hypoxia. Some chemicals bond with O2 and/or prevent your body of using it. CO2 poisoning and shallow water blackout comes to mind. I think that type is called histotoxic hypoxia.

Not as tiny as you would think. At least not in the Marine Corps. Then again- we don't have a huge myriad of bases around the country in major metropolitan areas. While we have the Exceptional Family Member Program- if my wife needs regular medical care in somewhere that isn't podunk (Except for Mirramar all we have is podunk) then she has to live elsewhere. This is especially true with mental health.

Interesting... it was our S-1 (CWO-4 type, old, crusty, been around since Chesty) that told me this. Maybe I'm just a dumb yut-yut but he made it pretty clear that if you're wife/family lives away from you for a valid reason (IE- access to necessary medical care) you rate the higher BAH of the two. As it turns out I get $30 a month more here in Krock than I would if we claimed PHX. YMMV

I live in Kingsville, Tx. Wifey lives in Phoenix. Go to DEERS, change her address- make sure TRICARE gets address change. Presto whammo- she gets a new PCM in the area that she lives in. (My wife is TRICARE Prime FWIW). You also can also get the higher BAH rate of the two if you play it correctly.

Are you having fun when you're flying sailplanes?

How long ago was this?!

Maybe she was a Swede born in Thailand?

Whoa, my bad. A dude like that retires to the islands and drinks scotch while enjoying his trophy wife.

Killed in an A-4 ejection in '91. Wingman never saw a good chute. https://www.tailhook.org/bug.htm Edit: More info on Bug. https://www.military-money-matters.com/Bug-Roach.html#axzz1yCyo68SH

No self respecting A-4 aggressor/TOPGUN guy (with a 'stache that would make Bug Roach proud) would be a primary sim instructor at an AFB. He'd be one of the crusty old guys at one of the RAGs or in Meridian or Krock.... And hinges don't chum their own charts. They just go into stan and grab one that someone else made and task some unlucky JO who was walking by at the wrong time.

It isn't?

Does the AF really have a problem with guys not able to get through centrifuge training to the extent that they have to come up with some type of fitness test? In the Navy/Marine world we do the 7.5g profile, but I haven't heard of anyone who couldn't muscle their way through it.

Thanks for all the help gents- Looks like we're going to head up to Boise and hit up the 1304/5. Hopefully getting the 1355 as well. It seems that the 10th FTS out of Tinker doesn't want to share any of the routes they schedule in northern NM/southern CO with us lowly Navy and Marine types. Some of my buddies in the squadron who have been up that way in the past couple months say that the Boise ANG guys have been great to work with wrt to scheduling routes up there, even suggesting which ones are better to fly and which one are kind of boring.

Depends on what part of the world you're in. El Centro, Fallon, China Lake or Whidbey? Go ahead- as long as you're in a jet painted gray. Flying a clown jet painted orange and white? No so much.

500' over unpopulated areas (everything in South Texas is unpopulated), 250 kts below 10K (though we come in for the break at 350ish, maybe faster if it's Friday). Though we really don't get too low. Lowest VFR I've been not inside the initial is about 1500', and that was coming back from the outlying field after doing carrier type landing practice to stay under the weather.

Wow. Kingsville approach is always more than happy for us to cancel IFR or terminate VFR monitors. In fact they even ask us to most of the time; or they just say something like, " No traffic observed between you and the initial, stop squawk, contact tower, good day."

Actually it is the opposite- call the numbers in AP1/B to schedule the route and the people you talk to have almost no clue what you're talking about. Ask if a range is going to be hot that the MTR leads to and you also get the stupid puppy look. We don't get to do LATN stuff in the training command. We have to fly existing VR/IR routes and we have to be scheduled. Doesn't mean that we can't share a scheduled time and coordinate with another unit MARSA.

Seems like scheduling routes is a PITA so far. So I take it that it's fairly common in the AF world to do the LATN thing and skip the MTRs all together? That would be pretty awesome.

Yeah, access isn't the issue- it's the VR/IR routes that I have to follow. I Just want to know if there are any in the area that are really cool that aren't restricted to only Turboweenies and Devil's Whirlybirds. Or if not, Anyone else have some recommendations (besides LATN) other than Whidbey and PHX/Yuma/El Centro? I've got 5 low level legs and 2 log legs (trying to get 4).. So I'm figuring one log to get me out of South Texas. ONAV from there, then one log to get me back to Kingsville from the edge of Texas. If I can get 4 then I'm headed up to Whidbey as I can get to SLC from Krock in 2 hops. Thanks for the heads up on 137. There is also one that goes over the Sangre De Cristo mountains, Through Eagle Nest, across Bobcat Pass and Angel Fire. Word is that it was an old F-111 VR route. When I was a kid the old man and I would watch them fly over. Would be sweet to do that run. But apparently a base commander doesn't want us Navy/Marine folk using his route (he denied a buddy here who tried to schedule it last week). Bummer.

Sorry, went away for the day yesterday, just got back to some internet. CNATRA limits us to 500'AGL, OPNAV 3710 says 200'AGL and we fly 360 knots true. Unfortunately we need to be on a VR or IR route. I'd like to throw the below 10k below 250 and go anywhere, but the Man won't let us. Our NATOPS isn't like the Hornet NATOPS that lets them fly faster than 250 below 10k because of line of sight over the nose issues. My old man tells me stories about the glory days in the 70s and 80s flying A-37s and A-10s doing the LATN thing. Alas, not everyone can be so cool.

Gents- I'm putting together a T-45 low level CCX in a couple of weeks- thinking about heading to Denver. Does anyone have an experience with the VR/IR routes around there? Are any of them any good or is there somewhere else I should look? I wish I could get up to Whidbey and fly the 1355, but I don't think I have enough legs to get up there. And I want to stay away from southern AZ and CA because everyone goes there and I want to do something different. Thanks for the help!