JeremiahWeed

YGBSM. Years of TCTO delays and lack of parts for an egress system? Producing a F-16 B-course graduate who has NEVER seen a tanker? How in the actual fuck does this happen? Those are huge failures on an almost systemic scale. But, I'll focus most of my wrath on the bro-level. What kind of decision process in the mind of a squadron IP makes it even a reasonable plan to take an MQT student to his first AAR event EVER, at night in a single seat fighter while piling on a never before seen mission event as well? Oh, and add in the fact that he hadn't flown in more than 5 days and had only recently returned to regular flying in the last month. We're talking basic common sense here. Do we really need USAF directives (that were ignored!!!) that specifically prohibit attempting new events in MQT at night without a demo pro in the day first to figure out this is a really, really bad plan? Do we really need an RM worksheet (that wasn't calculated properly anyway) to figure out this is a really, really bad plan? Then there's the SOF. Another bro-level failure. We're rolling the dice and just guessing now on a situation that's not addressed in the checklist? The MP actually caught this and tried to get guidance on the fact that the checklist didn't completely address the situation and had steps he couldn't accomplish. No Conference Hotel? WTF? It's truly incredible how badly the supposedly experienced leadership involved in this fighter squadron completely failed this pilot. What an absolute clown show!

Why is an Iron Eagle reference related to the KK universe?

Why are we retiring 30-year-old KC 10 tankers and still flying -135s twice their age? Is it the difference between a/c designed with a slide-rule and extra engineering slop as a result vs those designed using a computer or something else?

I’d feel badly for him too, since eating crap in SA is much worse than dying in a fireball of your own creation or doing same while taking some buds with you. 🙄 At least 3 tries at a set of wings is way more than most guys get. Somehow I think the free world will be okay without another target occupying the driver seat of an otherwise useful fighter.

I don't claim to have my finger on the current pulse of a typical AD squadron. If CT sorties are non-existent, that's a problem, no doubt. However, MQT or FLUG syllabi shouldn't require extensive BFM missions. It's a spot check to ensure the trainee is proceeding at an acceptable pace. Is the MQT student reasonably proficient as a new wingman fighting a full-up adversary? Can the FLUG student fulfill his new role leading and debriefing that mission, setting up the engagements, ensuring safety and adherence to the TRs. If either of those students needs more than a couple of BFM sorties to move on to the next phase, there's a problem.

This right here.^^^^^^ The monthly, building block training cycle is key. You don't do one BFM sortie per month. You spend ALL of your monthly sorties focusing on BFM and then move on to a more advanced phase. Development of muscle memory and "snap-shot" recognition of fleeting opportunity only happens through repetition. Instead of having an engagement always develop from a familiar perch or high-aspect "go" point, now we all can recognize those snap-shots seen over and over through the meat of the engagements in any visual situation we might encounter. The "startle" is gone and our ability to quickly analyze a situation is enhanced. Sure - BVR and longer range WVR employment is the most likely outcome to current combat engagements. But, discounting the value of enhancing the skill of visual maneuvering to a WEZ is to make the same mistake our predecessors made more than 5 decades ago when they blew off the gun and assumed missiles removed all requirement for visual engagements. Success in the visual engagement is still one of the most difficult skills to master. Hoping our weapons and technology remove our need to use those skills is to repeat the mistakes of the past. A well designed, repetitive training program should allow development of basic skills all the way to the most complex.

Uh oh, now I’ve done it. 🙄 So, are all the F-22s and F-35s just missing a seat in your world?

It was designed for two in the late 1980's when the weapons and information interface may have supported two crew members (primarily for the ground attack mission). The inconvenient truth is that the only production line open at McBoeing is the two-seat version. If the USAF had the option to buy a single seat version, my guess is they probably would. So I wouldn't read too much into the extra seat. The fact is that the current data flow available through on and off-board sensors and the interface between aircraft and pilot is stagnated and even hindered by filtering that information through another human linked to the pilot by a simple voice intercom. Hate to burst the bubble for some of you GIB types, but this isn't 20th century fighter employment where an extra set of eyeballs saves the day when an undetected bandit swings your wingline or sensor interface or weapons employment is so complex that another crew member is required to do the job. No offense, just reality.

31 year old data from 1989 hasn’t changed much. 196 total in UPT 86 T-37, 110 T-38

Dafuq is all that ink? We tracking every bomb successfully dropped off the aircraft now? 🤔

FedEx hiring info: The last two classes (8 pilots in March, 10 in April) were all hired into our Hong Kong 767 domicile and will be arriving in HK in mid to late summer. Quick update we received today on future hiring via internal comm: "Due to the increase in extra sections and charters, we were unable to post a realignment bid this spring as originally planned. However, we will begin hiring 757 First Officers right away to shore up staffing needs on the fleet. In addition, we will hire 767 First Officers to staff FY21 aircraft deliveries. The 767 fleet currently stands at 85 with 18 coming into the fleet in FY21 (June 2020-June 2021). In addition, some of the schedule opportunities for the 767 are in crew-intensive international long-haul, which is also driving this hiring need." My takeaway from this is a steady hiring cycle continuing through this year and into next year with probably a minimum of 400 pilots simply for attrition. Many of the companies that made a practice of moving their products as belly freight on passenger aircraft have obviously had to change their mode of transit. FedEx has taken the opportunity to negotiate long term contracts (7 years in some cases) with them and locked in a significant increase in future expected business. So, all things continue to indicate growth and hiring. One other thing I forgot - We had a pool of about 200 that were interviewed late summer into the fall of 2019. My guess is those poolies will take us into late 2020 before more "off the street" pilots are being put into classes. But, I think late summer to fall interviews this year with start dates in 2021 are a realistic expectation for anyone not interviewed yet. Caveat all of the above with an end to Covid BS by this fall if not sooner. We won't dodge that bullet forever if this keeps up.

Yep - I'm a dumass. No one has every held me up as the most observant and I'm staying true to that. 🙄

T-37 with: Stronger wings, 3x hard points per side Tip tanks GAU-2 mini-gun in the nose T-38 (J85) non afterburning engines Beefed up gear Better, FAC style radio suite Cooler paint job

Well FedEx is making a lot of lemonade with those lemons. Hacker’s info is accurate. They’ve also said there isn’t enough time this year or aircraft in our fleet to move all the freight that’s available as a result of the lost belly freight from the pax airlines cutting Asia flights. They are making a metric shit ton of money. Now if we can just convince them to give us lowly pilots a little taste in exchange for all the ass pain we’re enduring out on the line. Once again through nothing other than external circumstances, the cargo airlines might start looking pretty dayum good to those who may have turned their nose up at them a month ago. Whether you reconsider cargo or stick with chasing a pax gig, It is a worthwhile wake up call to some of you guys thinking about making the leap off active duty. It’s been ice cream cones and blow jobs for quite a few years and it’s easy to forget ( or lack awareness to begin with) what a shit show the airline industry can be when things suddenly get bad. Those of you considering pulling chocks without a safety net might want to reconsider that guard or reserve job. It saved my ass when I got furloughed and just prior to that, things were looking just as rosy then as they have been lately. Just sayin’ - give it some serious thought.

A shit-ton of money, successful business ventures combined with an obvious business acumen make you..... a very good businessman and entrepreneur. I give zero f#cks about his opinion on the future of manned air warfare.

So are you talking “1” in the context of the over 40 year old gentleman’s binary rating scale (1 or 0)? or the true 1-10 scale used by youngsters who actually still think it matters if a chick is a 4 or a 7? Just curious 😁

Interesting perspective. Don't know the leader who did the firing. I'll assume what has been posted previously is accurate regarding the expectations of that leader re: the altitude and airspeed of this maneuver. Full up war or not - is it not reasonable for a leader to expect compliance with limits that he set and were agreed upon by his subordinates? Couldn't one make the argument that failing a simple test of disciple in peacetime puts into questions this squadron CC's ability to pass far more serious tests of discipline in a full up war? 600 feet and 350 kts doesn't look as good as 200' and 500 knots. But considering the lack of experience and currency that created an environment where an F-18 speared a C-130 on a night AAR, maybe it's possible little of that currency problem has been solved. As simple as that flyby may be for most current, hard charging guys - maybe higher and slower was all the General felt those guys were capable of at that time. If the jet doing the flyby hit the water and the CC wasn't in the jet, would you be saying the same thing about the lack of "real leadership" over the decision to fire him? Just because someone didn't mort doesn't make the lack of discipline acceptable. What if the CC of the squadron with the tanker mid-air had briefed the General that they wouldn't do night AAR and then did it anyway? Where's the line if not exactly where it's been agreed on.

Nice attempt with the hardass, no slack message. It definitely needed to be delivered to our young-ish wannabe. But.....We’re gonna need to see this again (phhssst.....sound of beer can opening before step).😉 If you’re going to do the finger in the chest attitude adjustment, just do it. Don’t tell them you’re doing it while apologizing and for fcks sake..........Much love? YGBSM!

Your #2 above is basically how FedEx constructs a large percentage of their trips. The same deadhead from "domicile to the city you live in" scenario you describe is exactly how many of our pilots go to work on their trips. The additional wrinkle to any of our deadhead trips is that if you deviate and do not use the scheduled deadhead flights from domicile, the money from those tickets is yours to use to get where you need to go. Those not quite as fortunate to be able to hold deadheads to their actual home city, avoid the classic commute to domicile on their free time by using the money to fly from home to the city in which they begin their trip. Usually they are doing that during the "footprint" of their trip which incorporates the time spent deadheading from base. A paid commute on company time in most cases while accruing airline FF miles and the benefits that come with those. The FedEx contract does not allow us to be positioned for work on our own aircraft jump seats except under rare circumstances. Last I knew, that was not the case with UPS. They make more use of their own aircraft to move their pilots which isn't going to allow the same level of flexibility. While not as good as living in domicile, it's so much better than a classic pax airline commute. Definitely a better option for some of us than holding our nose and moving the the suburbs of Memphis. Fortunately, most of the major pax airlines guys hope to land a job with have better options for domicile cities and if circumstances allow moving, driving to work is the best. I just relocated to Hong Kong in conjunction with a move to the left seat. First time in 14 years that I'm living in domicile. While not quite the same as driving from the DFW or ATL suburbs (I don't have a car here), it's nice to worry less about getting to work.

I was a pure-bred F-15C guy. Every mission I flew that jet I was thankful we had one focus - A/A. That was essential to do that job as well as possible in that jet. While a Hornet has evolved like the Eagle has, I'd guess it's pilots would still be well served by the luxury of a single mission focus. Not sure if we can afford to do that given the limits on airframes and pilots these days. Someone else would have to speak to multi-role effectiveness using 5th Gen capes now. I'd always be a proponent of pure A/A pilots if possible.

I’d never argue against frequent live A/A missile and gun employment. They’re valuable, no doubt. I don’t see them as being quite so critical in 2019. We have so many tools available now to understand and visualize the actual WEZ of a particular A/A weapon. Employment within acceptable parameters is hammered from day one and we can accurately validate that with the debriefing tools available. To compare the inability of a 1960’s vintage fighter pilot employing early generation AIM-7s and AIM-9s to visualize the missile envelope with our current situation is just not valid. Using the Ault report as a justification for increased training ordnance employment is kind of a stretch, IMO. We have video of WSEP shots from multiple angles. We can watch how missiles pull lead, correct trajectory, bad shots, the importance of a quarter plane to avoid gun debris, etc. I watched as many of those videos as I could get my hands on as a new guy. I tried to shoot an AIM-9 as a newly MR wingman but it malfunctioned. I got to see an AIM-9 shot from the backseat another day. All valuable. My first live missiles were employed 6 months later on my first combat sortie. I heard about the delay when you hammer down on an AIM -7 and it takes an eternity to actually launch. It still made me start to say “ ah, WTF.....” until I heard the bitch light and become the great white hope. Would experiencing that in training have made me better equipped to employ it that day in combat? Probably not. There are just too many variables in A/A employment to say a single training shot is going to prepare a pilot for what he may encounter in combat. The Ault report involves ancient lessons that apply to fledgling employment of first generation A/A missiles by pilots without the tools we now possess to wield far more capable weapons. Should we ensure those weapons are maintained properly after captive carry sorties, sure. That’s common sense. Should we have guys shooting multiple missiles every year? If we had an unlimited budget, sure. Sooner in their career than later (but not too soon). Definitely. Necessary for success in combat? Probably not. Just my .02.

Dafuq is she wearing on her feet? 🤨

😂 This is just another way of saying "anyone want to join an ejection seat roulette club"? 1980s vintage F-100 engine I'm guessing? Maintained on a budget. What could go wrong? Sooner or later one of the lucky owners will get to turn their share plus everyone else's into the standard lawn dart when the motor quits. Fun while it lasted. Unless some bozo G-LOCs first. 🙄

Are you sure it wasn’t a “periodic” thing...... oh, wait..... I guess you meant occasional. I was thinking something else 🙄

UFB. The level of dumassery available out there never ceases to amaze me. This genius decides to stick multiple balloons of what has become a legalized drug in more than half our country up his ass - while hiding frickin meth in his car. Never mind the firearm antics. Moron. 🙄