JarheadBoom

Hell, the protest I watched outside the front gate at Futenma in '94 was far from the first expression by the Okinawans that they wanted the Marines out. Guam has been kicked about as the new location for all USMC forces currently on Oki for quite a while. Far better idea than that "floating airfield" bullshit from '96 or so... On topic, I agree that this would send the wrong message to NK and China.

Saw those halos an awful lot when I was flying on the other aircraft, in the other service; we just called it "static sparks". Nice read on how he came up with the name.

Depends on how you define "that bad". - NJ is anti-gun. REALLY anti-gun. Not quite as bad as CA & NY, but it's close. - NJ is the highest-taxed state in the US, ahead of the likes of CA, NY, and Taxachusetts. - Sell property in NJ, and don't buy another property in NJ? There's a tax for that - the "exit tax". But if you have to live in NJ, south Jersey is where it's at IMO. It can get a little redneckish, but I'd rather deal with south Jersey rednecks than north Jersey wannabe-NY liberals.

I'm guessing you've never been stationed at McGuire. The supporting agencies on base (ALL of them) run the show; MX and Ops are a distant 2nd and 3rd, respectively, on the priority list. There are people at Finance, MilPay, the Med group, the Wing, etc. who will literally expend more time and energy pawning your problem off on someone else, than what they would have needed to just fix the problem and get you out of their face. Despite their best efforts, the flying gets done... but it's a hell of an effort sometimes to overcome the retardism that runs rampant at this place. Some folks I work with who've spent time at other bases think it's something in the water...

4 on the CMP. I got a Service Grade SA Garand (1955-ish s/n) from them a few years ago; couldn't be happier with it. If you put in the remarks on your order form that you'd like a WWII-era receiver, they'll try to accomodate you. Be aware that if they do, the receiver will likely be the only WWII-vintage part left on the complete rifle (a good thing if it's gonna be a shooter). www.surplusrifleforum.com has A LOT of knowledge and experience. Use the search function liberally.

Finally got my scanner working right... A picture from better days. Southbound, Hudson River, from the gunner's window of the CH-53E. * edit: user error

At home, searching for a .civ job online. Saw something on Yahoo (text, no photo) about a possible aircraft crasing into one of the WTC towers, and thought the same thing Stitch did - “how do you hit the something as big as the WTC on such a perfect VFR day?” I figured some doctor or dentist had stroked-out, or had a heart attack, and driven his Bonanza into the building. Wandered into the living room where the TV was still tuned to Good Morning America from my wife's off-to-work routine, and saw the picture. Knew immediately it was a Boeing or Airbus, due to the size of the fire. I remember thinking about how bad things must have been in that cockpit, to end up over Manhattan and into the WTC. Then I watched the second impact... and immediately realized that my previous thoughts of "bad things" had taken on an entirely new meaning. We flew past the site on the night of Sept 19, 2001 - the last time I remember flying up the Hudson. At 1000'AGL, we could smell the smoke from the fires still smoldering in the pit.

I passed through the Deid at the end of July. We were told specifically during the silly in-processing/Right Start/whatever-the-fuck-it-was brief that ABUs, flightsuits, or AF PT gear were the only acceptable clothing. Nothing said about clothing "similar to" PT gear.

A smackdown, with class. Awesome. SFC Woods - Sheriff Boyer - Whiner -

Well, at least someone made a good decision in this clusterfuck. to the SAS blokes, and to the family of the soldier killed. And... a big to the NYT.

KC-10 V3 says basically the same thing. Since I haven't seen that happen yet, even on missions where we have the Silver Bullet aboard, I'm gonna go with "Not Gonna Happen" for $100, Alex.

I've gotta ask about this (I'm not picking on you or your AR, Krabs - I'd take yours in a heartbeat if I could): What is the reasoning behind a short barrel with a long flash supressor/flash hider/muzzle brake to get to the 16" min barrel length? Krabs's case isn't that bad, but I've seen some with 3", 4" and even 5" muzzle devices "pinned to make a legal 16" barrel". Why?

It's not a requirement to be a resident of the state your ANG/AFRC unit is in... but it will likely be a factor in the hiring board's decision. I know in one of the recent hiring boards we had in our SQ, the candidates' state of residency (and their willingness or unwillingness to consider moving closer) played a part in the final decision. Probably a minor part, but it was definitely discussed at length between board members.

I think I see a BOB in that pic... Oh, almost forgot the tits:

Not sure what the Army calls it, but the Marines have the same thing (in desert MARPAT, obviously) and call it a "combat shirt". Re: what the AF will do if the Army ditches the ACU? Probably nothing... until we get a new CSAF. Then the vicious cycle will begin anew. This shit is ridiculous.

There's only 59 KC-10s. How many hundreds of C-130s would be getting AMPd? One KC-10 was actually modded and flown with glass in the early 2000s. The program $$$$ got canxd, the aircraft was de-configured back to the original steam gauges, and (according to a few crewchiefs I've talked to) has been a COM/NAV, GAC, Electrics nightmare ever since. Techsan: Nice pics. Did they make T-255 a KDC-10 yet, or is it still a DC-10? Pics of it from Jan. '09 show no boom installed...

Hell yeah. I remember watching "The Making of..." show about that intro when it first came out. Thousands of man-hours making the model of the town, dozens of takes for the camera operator to get the moving shot synchronized to the music just right, etc. On a related note: how many of you remember that manual set-top cable box that's in the very beginning of that intro? Even better... how many of you remember tweaking the dial between channels, trying to get the Playboy channel or Spice to de-scramble? Or was that just me...? A cousin had a ColecoVision. I freakin' LOVED Time Pilot.

NO NO NO... I pulled that up just to jog people's memory - I never made it to the actual show. I auditioned as part of a program I was in at school at the time; there were hundreds of kids auditioning for the show. I got cut in the second-to-last round of eliminations before they settled on the first group of actual show contestants.

You shut your mouth. If they canx the funding for this again, we may lose the funding for our new BCUs, too... * BCU = Boom Control Unit; the computer for the KC-10 fly-by-wire boom.

Hell yeah. I made it to the semi-final eliminations to be one of the first contestants on "Double Dare".

I couldn't resist clicking this website's banner on another forum I frequent... R/C Predator

I'd really like to choke-slam the next person that tells me they can't perform their job because "it's shift change"...

Come to the KC-10 and experience both! * Now, before you -130 and -17 guys get spooled up... yeah, the -10 doesn't do tac, or dirt, or really high-threat areas, or airdrop, or anything not on a pallet... but we do plenty of Channel ops. Not ironic at all. What your FE buddy described is called "consolidation" - you consolidate small remaining fuel loads in -135s into the -10, so the -135 guys can go home, and the -10 crew can continue orbiting and rack up more hours/contacts. Saves the -135s from having to dum... I mean adjust gross weight, or fly around for hours with their gear & flaps hanging out in the breeze. What your FE buddy didn't tell you is the other reason for the -10 to receive fuel. It's called "force extension"; usually used during a dual-role mission, where we're carrying cargo & pax, along with dragging fighters someplace. The weight of all that ass & trash takes away from our available fuel load, so a number of -135s will be positioned along our route of flight to top us off, so we can get the cargo/pax/fighters to their destination in one hop (if the shit has truly hit the fan). The fighters will often cycle across one -135 boom while we're on the boom of another -135 during this process, to ensure they've got enough gas onboard to make their diverts if they go tits-up. Yes. It's a relatively new thing, and a pain in the ass because of the operating limitations of the -10, but there are AD crews doing it, and figuring out how to make it work. There's been some discussion of getting the Reserve involved, but I don't see (from the outside) how that would work out. And the -10 passes through Bagram during certain times of year for cargo.

I've heard the same thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68Yv2NPAJ_w

Dude, paper vouchers get faxed to Ellsworth for processing. As soon as Ellsworth sees a page that is the slightest bit hard to read (NOT illegible, but hard to read - that's their words, not mine), they reject it. Without telling you, or what's left of your home-station Finance office. They only recently began providing reasons for rejection, and only after direct intervention by both WG/CCs here... plus a few words from the AMC/CC. At McGuire the AD uses DTS, and since they've got the bugs worked out and assigned quality people to monitor it, they've been getting paid far sooner, and with far less asspain, than us AFRC folks who are stuck with paper. I'd MUCH rather be using DTS at this point.