JarheadBoom

I'm far from an AK fan, but that looks damn good.

Personally, I wouldn't mind even a crappy cellphone picture-of-a-picture...

[sigh...] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Emdzsz_XvfA

I seem to recall that a preliminary survey of Afghanistan revealed a metric fuckton of valuable minerals, rare-earth elements, semi-precious metals, etc. If "that other country" can keep the natives happy while giving the Afghan govt. a cut, they stand to hit the natural resources jackpot.

Well played...

Read it a couple years ago, excellent book. The stories of the interlocking, interwoven layers of bureaucracy and security laid on the Skunk Works, by the AF, during the Have Blue/F-117 development made me wonder how the hell we actually ended up with hardware on the flightline.

edit: format

AMC finally cracked the code after a decade of trying, and we are starting our third year of "partial mobilization" in the AFRC KC-10 community (albeit with a LOW committment at the moment). Standard -10 deployment lengths; the days of AFRC -10 crews doing 14-day or 30-day lines are gone, probably never to return. Also, the process for individuals to volunteer to go with an AD crew has been made nearly impossible (personal opinion: so AFRC can maximize their "credit" for supporting AMC via the mob.). For years, whenever our SQ generated some voluntary desert lines, a vocal group of graybeards in all crew positions would always say "Fuck that. You want me, mobilize me. Then I'll go." Then we did get mobilized... and a large number of those graybeards pulled chocks. Troughers who, in the past, could always be counted on to step up and take a desert line, have found .civ employment, and more folks are coming to the realization that this ain't gonna get better. Until they park the -10 fleet, of course...

Once? I could only listen to the first 3 minutes or so (before I wanted to bang my head against a solid object), and I heard at least 4 times where he was struggling with the callsign.

Fuck. Not gonna make it to 7200 points. Since they're not making these decisions based on any operational considerations, this makes as much sense as anything else. edit: format

Haven't got to them yet, but I did read Islands of The Damned by R.V. Burgin, who served with Sledge. Excellent book as well.

I was in the local WallyWorld yesterday for motor oil, and decided to swing by the ammo case for shits & grins. There was actually a decent amount of ammo in it, which was shocking to me - even before Newtown, it's basically been nothing but 20ga and .410 shot shells, with a random scattering of 1-2 boxes of low-demand calibers (.17HMR, .32ACP, etc.). After about a nanosecond's contemplation, I grabbed three 20rd boxes of Federal XM193 (LC13 headstamps) at $10.something each. Not a great price, but better than empty magazines...

I see a .civ chiropractor semi-regularly. Works for me...

It's an AFRC WG and SQ; 90%-ish of our crewmembers have .civ jobs that have to be deconflicted with the Reserve job, so scheduling works a little differently than the AD model of "Guess what, you're flying a local tomorrow". Of course it shouldn't have happened, but it did... for the better part of an entire FY. I'm betting that the same guidance comes again, later this FY. "Fly the allotted flight time, no matter what. We worked HARD to get those hours for you, so you're going to use every one of them. No matter what." Believe me, I'd love to do something about it. But E-6 vs. O-6 usually doesn't end well for the E-6...

I don't know pawnman, but I'd be willing to bet your paycheck that he didn't unilaterally decide that turning JP-8 into noise for 8.0, with no value added, was an appropriate course of action. As directed. Guidance from our WG leadership last FY re: scheduled flight hours: Fly the allotted flight time, no matter what. Didn't matter if scheduled activities canceled, and the scheduled 4.3hr mission turned into 4.3 of pattern-only. Didn't matter if only 2 of 5 scheduled pilots were able to make it in due to __________. Didn't matter if the only 2 pilots aboard were long-time KC-10 pilots, who both can (and did) repeatedly put the jet down well within the first 1/3rd of the runway, smoothly enough to hear the freakin' MLG tires chirping as they spun up*. Fly the allotted flight time, no matter what. The only excuses permitted were MX issues, and those were Monday-morning QB'd repeatedly. When currency is regained and proficiency is demonstrated/assured in the training items available in a KC-10 pattern-only sortie, any further flight time is merely wasting fuel, flight hours, airframe and engine time, and tires. Yet ACs were specifically NOT PERMITTED to justify an early return by stating "training complete", due to a blanket policy that allowed no wiggle room for DOs to tell WG leadership, "Hey sir, this was an experienced crew, who all have their shit in one sock, and don't need to do a dozen T&Gs each solely to burn the hours. Let's save those hours for the handful of new Lts who definitely need the time for value-added training". I'm sure others, in other communitites, have similar stories. * For those who don't know, the -10 is a fickle bitch that will audibly heckle pilots that don't get the touchdown just right, with a cacophony of rattles, squeaks, and other noises from the various interior panels, cabinets, galley, douche booms, pax, etc. Conversely, she will reward a perfect touchdown by letting you hear the MLG tires chirp, 65ft behind and 18ft below you. STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Non-pilot observation. edit: strikeout

I know you were making a different point, but look up what CMC is about to do to Marine barracks rats and unmarried Marine NCOs, partly in response to the SAPR shenanigans...

Sarcasm detector inop? Or, perhaps you should've put that Masters degree to work a wee bit more. The entire quote from B.M. (emphasis is mine, and is key):

One of the Intel folks at Dhafra this summer was told she needed to "get some help" because she was showing tanker crews video of the strikes they had assisted, and was not offended by the videos. Apparently a crew was offended by video of Talib/AQ/insurgents/targets being destroyed, and was even more offended that the Intel briefer didn't find the videos horrific, offensive, and inappropriate (her words, not theirs)... edit: fix quote, format

There's at least one KC-10 pilot-pilot marriage at WRI right now (2 years ago, their desert lines overlapped while I was out there). I know there were a few at one point; I have no idea if the others survived the deployment schedule/upgrade schedule/follow-on assignment shuffle.

I just went through this in AFRC last year. My Secret was up for renewal in April '12, so in Dec/Jan I asked our security manager about "upgrading" to TS. Did the SF86 through eQIP, waited almost 2 months before being contacted to get prints, waited another 6+ months for the investigator to talk to me, and found out that there's a time limit on how much time can pass between your eQIP being completed and your references being interviewed. I was a week away from that deadline before I was finally contacted to "flesh out" my SF86 answers. BL: my TS took nearly a year from start to finish.

Hell, even within the same community we (McGuire vs. Travis) don't have the same strategy for adopting EFBs. Supposedly an eTOLD app is in the works for the KC-10. However, they just recently released (or are about to release) the latest and greatest eTOLD for the mission laptops. The handout I saw in Dhafra addressing it had nearly three pages of exceptions that invalidated the eTOLD, requiring the FE to do manual TOLD... what's the point of an eTOLD calculator that has a larger number of invalid data scenarios than valid data scenarios?

Derate. Longer lifespan on the hot section components that way, plus max blast would probably be available on ADAB's hottest days with a little EGT to spare. Is the -50 to -80 series upgrade something that's been studied before? Yeah, winglets + WARPs probably wouldn't work without a bunch of additional structural work (aka added weight) to handle the extra loading; forgot about that. Might even be airflow issues, now that I think about it some more. edit: clarity

There were also a lot more KC-135s flying, a lot more crews and maintainers to fly and fix them, and a lot more options available to pre-position all those tankers along the way, in those days. I did a Coronet earlier this year that required 9 tankers for 6 receivers - two KC-10s that did the whole drag from beginning to end, and SEVEN KC-135s scattered along the route at various overseas locations. Per the Coronet detail planner who was on our jet for a few legs, if you replaced those two -10s with -135s, THIRTEEN KC-135s would have been needed to do the same mission, with the same restrictions, along the only possible routing for that mission. Any adversary with Internet access is gonna be able to Google and see plane spotters' reports of a large number of tankers leaving the US and fanning out to various locations in the Pacific/Europe/Asia... a blatant indicator of planned major activity like that is an intel analyst's wet dream. Not to mention all the additional costs involved with flying those dozen -135s out to various TDY locations, and paying crews OCONUS per diem to sit and wait for the inevitable "Hey guys, TACC just called; the fighters broke / Wx went to shit at base X / tanker Y crewchief found a bad tire / tanker Z had a birdstrike & high speed abort / ________, 24hr slip, let's go get a beer" calls. TACC has already run the numbers several times - cutting the KC-10 will cost more in the long run if we continue the optempo we've got. Big Blue, if you're listening... 1. MD-10 the flight decks. Common flight deck, and common parts, with the other large DC-10/MD-11 fleet operator(s). GATM-compliant. Reduced repair costs for legacy mechanical instruments that are only getting more expensive to maintain. ~1k weight savings over legacy DC-10. FE crew position eliminated (I hate throwing the eng under the bus, but with an MD-10 flight deck they're not needed just to read the checklists and operate the FalconView laptop and the AR pumps); long-term personnel cost savings. 2. Give the copiglet an AR pump/fuel panel and a whiz wheel for CG maintenance during large offloads. Or... just automate that shit; other FAA-certificated jets manage CG with multiple fuel tanks at multiple arms just fine, without pilot intervention. 3. Re-engine to the CF6-80C2. 6.5k/engine more thrust, better fuel burn than the CF6-50C2 currently installed, and commonality with the C-5M fleet (also the VC-25s; not that those engines would be shared...). 4. Install MD-11 winglets. 2.5% fuel efficiency boost in cruise flight. I know it's a pipe dream, but dreaming doesn't cost any money. Yet.

If you're AFRC/ANG, then you know as well as I do that there's not many AFRC/ANG units that will use a school slot for a non-"connected" enlisted guy to get retrained in a new airframe, just so he/she can score a couple more years of retirement points before pulling chocks for the last time. Especially when they're being flooded with applicants from younger folks who have a lot more time left until retirement, and therefore offer a lot more ROI. In any case, it ain't worth brooding over. I'm sure ARPC will give me all the info and time I need to make an informed decision about what remains of my career, if/when we start flying one-shots to AMARC. [/sarcasm] Back to enjoying every flight as if it's my last...