billy pilgrim

With horns on their heads?!

That's legal now...

I think someone needs to be holding the LPA's feet to the fire on this one...

I saw this on the internet the other day. Maybe some of the craziness would stop if taxes were raised to fund the budget. THAT would start getting peoples attention.

Hmmm - maybe because Lockheed dictates the price... I am curious to what will happen when they basically have a monopoly on the DOD aircraft (F-22, F-16, F-35). What will win with respect to the F-35 between economy of scale (which was the major "selling point") and Lockheed Martins bottom line? Hint: Not the taxpayer.

Pick your poison... The AMC side is always deployed - but with that lots of flying from what I understand. The ACC side has plenty of non-flying deployments and ALO gigs and UAV's etc... A bit of a shortage of cockpits I think. (Thanks it seems to the F-22 / F-35 acquisition and drawdowns - https://www.rand.org/...aphs/MG855.html ). Due to the pipeline being so long it seems like it would be a lengthy transition from AMC to ACC. I can only speak from ACC experience, but a fairly common theme is let's get you a fighter tour to get you experienced and then we can use you to fill some of our numerous positions that require fighter experience - that involve everything BUT flying fighters. It is my personal opinion that the "shortage" will continue as the new UPT students see what has happened to the T-38 tracked guys and want to steer clear of the gamble. It's called a second order effect I think. The AF should teach some basic economic concepts in PME. Maybe that would help avoid some of these manpower "problems" that just sneak up out of nowhere!!

Ha - awesome. It looks like I just found my masters program... Hopefully they can stay accredited for another year or so.

I wonder if Hollywood has a military advisor... No no! Less BFM and more online masters work / PME / additional duties. See - after the brief you go to your computer and knock out some of that before step - you guys have it all wrong... Meanwhile I bet Cougar got RIF'd and half of Mavericks buddies are in UAV's.

Yes, at least from my experience. The T-38 is much harder to land and much less forgiving than follow on aircraft. The no-flap low approach to a closed pattern can always use practice - especially on Fridays. :-) Ha - Rainmans story reminds me of a brand new Lt we had who got cleared "present position closed" by the tower, noticed he was slow so naturally went full blower and pulled closed to comply. The OG/CC was not impressed. I think the tower guys liked it though, as well as the ten year old kid in the commissary parking lot who now wants to be a pilot....

Haha, do you get to talk condescendingly to pilots?

You do not know what you ask for!! The centrifuge has the distinction of being the least fun experience I've probably ever had. I have NEVER felt so sick than in that thing. You are correct though - there seems to be very little, to no correlation between physical fitness and g-tolerance. The guys that have less natural tolerance really need the core and lower body strength, as well as good technique. Your body seems to adapt as well - i.e. it gets easier the more you fly. I would say that 8-9g's is not 20-30% harder than 6g's, it's much more so. It's definitely not linear. It's also much easier in the jet than in the centrifuge for some reason. But if you don't have to strain for six - it shouldn't be too difficult to get those extra two or three.

Haha - sounds like you missed out on being a four degree. All those keg stands and coeds distracted you from becoming a front leaning rest prodigy! I will take a strengthened core over "social skills" and "fun" any day... I don't know what "the plank" has to do with g tolerance - which seems to be more highly correlated with being short, overweight and smoking.

I just read The Wrong Stuff which is by a WWII B-17 pilot (awesome book btw). The author talks of calling for fighter support over Germany while their formation was being attacked by approximately 50 enemy fighters. TWO P-38's checked in. One orbited overhead the bombers the other P-38 flew directly into the pack of german fighters*, downing two and dispersing the rest. Then checked off station once the Germans were gone. *Do you call engaged? Or is at that point it assumed?

Ha - you're right. Downgrade for T-6 GK. The PT-6 was flat rated or something to 1,100hp. Shame - I think the full rated power would put it into P-51 performance territory. IDEA program anyone? There might be a slight issue with 50% more power and stud over-g's / overspeeds... Might be a tough sell.

Anyone seen The Dictator yet? Any good?

Solid work on the raft preflight above. I felt like I was going to hurl on my dollar ride - despite that it was awesome. Fun going from the 180HP C-172 to the 1,600HP T-6. Ah the scumbag wingman... I would've used a viper but it seemed redundant for some reason.. :-) We've all had some rock-star moments when brand new....

Your attitude determines your altitude!

Every short term problem can be solved by creating a bigger long term problem.

Pile-on (fixed for BQZip01) to the family work balance... I've been reading some history lately - specifically WWII, Vietnam and Afghanistan. There seems a marked difference on the mentality of those who fought in each conflict. The "all in" mentality seemed to evident in WWII across the board - to the extent of some people eagerly volunteering to get to the fight and do their part. Leaving family was seen as a necessity and not questioned or really thought about. In Vietnam, although there were frustrations with the politics of the conflict (No bombing of SAM sites under construction - YBGSM!) I still get the feeling that a lot of the pilots directly saw the effect they were having by dropping iron on the bad guys. Because of this, again I think because they saw that what they were doing was necessary - even if it was to help out the other guys in the squadron or the guys on the ground more so than the Vietnamese. I just read Palace Cobra - Ed volunteered for another 365 to get back to the fight... and that was in a conflict with a LOT of casualties. In Afghanistan, after ten years at war I think it becomes frustrating for the guys on the ground who will go nine months or longer away from their families and probably count on one hand the number of times they shoot their weapon in combat. When it becomes harder to see the impact you are personally having, the personal sacrifices of being away from ones family become harder to justify to yourself. I think for most it's not an aversion to danger or a lack of patriotism it's the lack of seeing a positive effect of their sacrifice. I would bet that most pilots would be less frustrated saying good bye to their families if the flag went up in a major conventional conflict than they do when they're off to a 365 at the Died.

I agree with you on a individual basis this is true, but as an institution as a whole I completely disagree. Here's why on the fighter side: The USAF is able to train about 300 fighter pilots a year. So about two years and ($3-4M) after someone starts UPT they show up at their ops squadron. Of course after MQT they still can only fly on someone's wing as a wingman. The issues of course is that you need flight leads in the formation and so by having too many wingman you are limited. Just like, I imagine, having a squadron full of copilots. Another year or two and around 300 hours ($2-4M worth of flight time) they go through upgrade and become a flight lead. The are not "experienced" until 500 hours, so closer to the last year of their tour, then on to an ALFA tour and then back to the jet and start again as a wingman and progress again through the upgrades. (faster this time of course). This is when you'll finally start to get quality instructor pilots, at around the 1,000 hour mark or so. The point being is that to have a cadre of IP's as well as experienced flight leads - the backbone of a healthy fighter squadron, it takes probably a decade to get there for one pilot (and $7-10M). Once the balance gets all jacked up, you can't just make more - there's no one to train them in the squadrons. No one to fly with the new wingman, too few IP's to put people through upgrade. You've lost the operational expertise. It becomes an insurmountable, can't get there from here problem which takes a long time and a ton of money to fix. So yes, individually we are all just "cogs in the machine" - I am 100% sure no one cares if I stay or leave the service. I do however, think there are underlying issues that don't show up on paper unless you know what to look for. Issues that are easily hidden. If we wait until they become apparent, it will be FAR too late. We'll end up with a few squadrons of fifth generation jets with pilots who fly as many hours annually as some of the countries that we used to make fun of in the vault. Hopefully they fare better than the gunless F-4 in the nam with it's new fangled AIM-7 (8.9% pK with 229 fired). Right now there are not enough jets for these pilots to fly (due to F-22 numbers, F-35 delays and 4th gen retirement). It is my personal opinion that we are driving down the same pre-vietnam road of over-reliance on technology over training. I think that the way forward is more pilots that are able to train in more reliable (maybe slightly less performing) aircraft than a few that fly far less in a "bullet-proof" and "unrivaled" fifth gen jet. When you stop letting fighter pilots fly, or stick them in UAV's, most will want to get out. All pilots like to fly, if the same thing was happening on the heavy side which has happened in the past five years on the fighter side you'd hear the exact same sentiments. The details here are different, but I think on that accord we're pretty much all the same.

I think Jaded needs to do the OPSEC CBT.

I would keep stuff like this away from the RPA guys. No amount of resilancy CBTs would be able to undo the damage done by that. This is indepenant RAND study is a good read - https://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG855.html It forewarned of the lack of cockpits problem as well as the inability to absorb new wingmen and advocated for a separate training pipeling for UAV operators. From that study: "Two other, extraordinary, methods have been used to influence TARS: stop-loss orders and changing the active-duty service commitment. Following the attacks of 9/11, the Air Force issued a stop-loss order, which prevented fighter pilots from separating from the Air Force for two years.5 Becoming a fighter pilot entails a commitment to a specific length of active duty. This commitment can be changed and has been, from 6 to 8 years in the mid-1990s and from 8 to 10 years in 2002 and 2003. Neither of these extraordinary measures can be taken very often." It it BEYOND RIDICULOUS that the band-aid for negligent mismanagement is, oh - just don't let them leave. Problem solved. To quote a buddy of mine - every short term problem can be fixed by creating a larger long-term one. You think the young guys don't see this BS? There's a recent Academy grad in my unit that said no way to UPT because of this garbage... Ten years is a big chunk of your life and if there's no faith that you will be looked out for it becomes an unacceptable gamble.

You can make airplanes faster (or you used to be able to) than a cadre of well-trained and proficient pilots. Once those pilots are gone in number - which is going to happen in the next five years or so if nothing changes - it will take at least a decade and billions of dollars to fix. The Air Force is in dire need of change. The absolute worst thing we can do is nothing. The F-22 continues to have problems and the F-35 is getting slow rolled and running into cost overruns. It seems obvious to me to go ugly early and upgrade 4th gen gets or even make some new ones. Hint - you could use the R&D from these 5th gen programs.* It is better to have these jets in number, which will yield a a force of proficient pilots then to have the latest and greatest in very few number and oh by the way never be able to fly them (whether mx or $$ related, the effect is the same - a weak and hollow Air Force). *I think a parallel is the Seawolf submarine, at least how I understand it. It was to replace the Los Angeles class nuclear attack sub. It was WAY too expensive - Navy bought three and then made a cheaper Virgina class utilizing a lot of the same technology.

Maybe you could utilize "supercruise" to get back faster. Guess this plane won't be going anywhere soon - just read that all F-22 flights need to be in proximity of a landing strip and the AK alert is going to revert back to F-15's and F-16's. Good thing there are now exactly three AD F-15C squadrons. Sometimes I feel like I am taking crazy pills.

What bikes are you guys riding? I've currently got an '04 R6 - standard 600... selling soon - and an '04 Honda RC51. I really like the character of the Honda, but it's definitely not as fast as the R1 I used to have. I looked into 996 / 998's but I hear maintenance can be an issue. Any cool bikes out there? What's your favorite bike you've ridden?