billy pilgrim

I've done the trailer and the truck with motorcycles before. It can be sporty going up that ramp on the truck as there's a point where your feet can no longer touch and you're committed. Just tie it to the side and it will be fine. Good luck.

I'm not saying I want to design it - I'm just saying our focus is wrong. There is often a disconnect between the engineers and the end user.

While your facts are correct, I don't agree with your conclusion. 1) Offensive capability is MUCH more costly than defensive capability. Example; Stealth technology vs. electronic attack. 2) Sensor fusion is a great concept but still think it's nice to keep a man in the loop. Example; I don't want my jet to have a check engine light - I want to analyze what's going on by looking at the instruments. 3) If long range missiles were so reliable all our fighters would be designed with the same g capabilities as a C-17 and much cheaper, lighter, faster, and have much better range. 4) On tech / tactics - I would say flight that like almost any other technology has a curve of diminishing returns. The Wright Brothers flew in the early 1900's. Less than 70 years later we* put a man on the moon. The F-22 or F-35 doesn't fly 10x as fast as the F-4 or 10x as high - the progression is not linear. I HATE the F-35. Our senior acquisitions folks are in bed with congress who are in bed with LM and the end result is an overpriced, under-performing aircraft that no real fighter pilot wants. Read Boyd - the gold plated fighter returns. We need a Boyd right now to kill this cancer in the DOD. If I were to design a fighter it would have: 10-11g capable airframe Very low wing loading Specialized for the mission (I.e. A-10 vs. F-22) Excellent cockpit visibility LOTS of internal fuel Two motors to provide for a high thrust to weight ratio and thrust vectoring Stealthish design but not at the expense of maintainability Internal gun with lots of bullets Internal reprogrammable EA capability Sensors commensurate with the latest F-35 stuff * real men with slide rules and mustaches.

What's this VHF you speak of? My MWS has a limited VHF capability (but no antenna - thanks acquisitions).

This is an excellent case for more concealed carry. I imagine this would've gone down differently in, say, Dallas.

Is the osprey more fun to fly than an HH-60? I imagine you could fly a helo lower because of those huge props.

What happens when the 64 year old captain has a heart attack and the flight deck door is locked? What happens when someone figures out how to control your airliner via remote control? I can't imagine the cost of two pilots on board is all that significant with respect to fuel and maintenance costs on a large jet aircraft. This quote made me laugh: "If the pilot has an emergency, he rings the bell, he calls her in. She could take over."

This seems absolutely ridiculous to me but doesn't surprise me at all. If you get tagged with a 6 month MC-12 TDY does that add to your ADSC at all? Anyone know?

Last year I deployed to OEF and I flew on a C-17 from Manas to Bagram. I started BSing with the pilot and he tells me to grab a seat on the flight deck for the flight. I had never flown on a C-17 before so it was cool to see and the view is much better up front and it's a really scenic flight through Tjakistan or whatever it was. He probably hand flew for about ten minutes of the flight. It's awesome that the jet will do almost everything for you but there is always a danger of losing the basic pilot skills if you're always relying on the FMS. As far as an Lt saying stupid shit - that shit is standard. The difference is that my forum was a squadron bar and hers was the AF times. Lt's take note.

Bragging. While I was waiting to board the ferry my numb hand and I were thinking about trading in the sport bike for a Harley or a Triumph Bonneville or something. Just then two 75 year old dudes roll up on some I-4 liter bikes. I took it as a sign from God. The flip side of that is how easy it is to get in trouble on a bike. The difference between 70mph and 110mph is only about an inch on the speedometer. Likewise it only takes about a quarter inch of throttle in first to get the front wheel off the ground. When I was a Lt I landed from a sortie at the schoolhouse and my flight commander met me at the ops desk - says the SQ/CC wants to see you. I jokingly asked "Should I throw on my blues?" He said "Yeah - if you can." I'm not sure if he's serious. So after I debrief I head over to the commanders office. He says "Report in." Uh-oh. Apparently one of his O-5 buddies saw me doing a "wheelie" on my ZX6R on the way to work. This was 95% BS as the bike wouldn't really do a power wheelie, in first you could float the front tire 2-3 inches around 13-14,000rpm in first gear. I aggressively stayed in my "circle" and after some pontification on what kind of O-5 would go out of his way to get an Lt in trouble out of his squadron I got a stern warning. There is no more fun for your money than a motorcycle. Chida - Dallas to AK?! I'm impressed. I thought about doing Seattle to Anchorage and taking the ferry back but there's not much in Northern BC and I just completely pussed out. EDIT - spelling.

When I was living in Washington I took my RC51 up to Port Angeles then Victoria via ferry. The bike has aftermarket red white and blue fairings and Yoshimura slip-ons that are fairly loud. Got a lot of dirty looks riding around quaint Victoria BC. 'Merica! That was probably only about 300 miles of riding though round trip. My hand goes numb after about two or three hours on that bike. Did you ride around Europe much? That would be awesome... How do you like your 883? Xaarman - I just got my 929 back to stock. It was a bit of a PITA as the stock muffler has this valve in it that regulates the exhaust at different RPMs. It had a D&D full exhaust but I wasn't a fan.

I would expand this to say that you don't even have to even be "good" at flying to do very well career wise in the Air Force - in fact it hardly matters at all as long as you jump through the right hoops! Hence ~80% of the frustration on BO.net

I would second that. I was hesitant to drop $3k on a watch but I would highly recommend it!

Here's a toast. What a terrible week.

Just picked up an older CBR 929RR. Doesn't seem quite as fast as my old R1 but the finish is a little nicer. Oh and it's light! A Ducati will have to wait a few years (apples and oranges between a Japanese I-4 and an Italian twin - I know... Maybe by then a used 1098 will be a little more affordable). It's an awesome feeling getting back on a bike after a few months of not riding.

Awesome... I'm sure that's smoke but it would be cooler if they were contrails... "Tally cons - one o'clock low!"

Copy - must be fair across the board. The fact of the matter is that due to the level of manning the "bad deals" are fielded by fewer guys and there's more work in general to go around. More work and more bad deals (not to mention much fewer flying due to sequestration) will probably correlate with even lower retention and the problem will get worse. I expect that there are other career fields with the same 11F problem. Root cause from I stand is the Air Force dropped the ball 3-4 years ago with TAMI 21, POM 10 etc... all short term fixes that created much worse long term problems ^^^ that were visible at the time. Fortunately, at the higher levels, since those problems were well outside the one year OPR cycle none involved will likely burden any of the responsibility of any of this. "How did we get here?" If I were king for a day I would immediately mask AAD (so these guys can focus on their primary job) until 0-5 board, fight tooth and nail for more flying hours (perhaps at the cost of acquisitions, i.e. F=35), and scrub AFPC for 11F billets that may be able to be filled by another career field. (UAV/ALO/ISR) until the career field is back to normal strength. I don't see any of this changing. Enjoy flying jets while it lasts and set yourself up to have options if things keep going the way they are going.

Uh oh - just started this as to not add to my UPT commitment past my 10 year.

Simple physics - depleted Uranium tends to make Swiss cheese out of steel.

Haha - yeah, every day is Earth day in North Korea.

I agree with you HOSS that people view others through their own culture. A great current example of this is why the US populace doesn't seem to get why Afghanistan (generally a tribal / Muslim culture) doesn't want to be like the United States - weird. I also agree that the NK populace has been completely brainwashed by a tightly controlled State run media and highly sheltered from the outside (internet etc...). Probably more than any other group of people currently around the globe. I've talked to a couple people who lived in Soviet Russia in the 1980's and read Viktor Belenkos book which talks about why he defected. Granted it's a very limited perspective but the general consensus I've heard was that in Soviet Russia people didn't really know what it was like on the outside, but they sure didn't like it there. Lots of complaints about corruption, censorship, what you could wear, talk about, religious opposition, it could be hard to get enough food to provide for your entire family etc... What VERY little I know about life in North Korea has come from a random documentary or two, Escape from Camp 14 (based on the story of a defector) and Team America World Police / Dennis Rodman. So yeah, take that with a grain of salt. They might be so far gone that it's a lost cause - but I would like to think that most would be ecstatic at the concept of being able to afford as much food as you could possibly eat with just a normal job, while the freedom of speech stuff and being able to vote just gravy... Anyway you look at it, it's a terrible situation for basically all North Koreans.

I can't even imagine what the average North Korean solider will think should he end up in downtown Seoul during an invasion. That solider who is amongst the poorest and most malnourished in the world standing in one of the worlds most modern and wealthy cities, realizing everything he's been told about the outside world is a lie... I think that the smart move here would be to start an aggressive psyops campaign. Somehow (via stealth or low cost drones) drop leaflets, magazines, and aid to the North Korean people until they figure out what's really going on there and then let them sort this one out.

That's pretty ambitious - they most have some solid long range aviation capabilities to get to Hawaii / Tijuana / D.C. My intel shop must be out to lunch.

I thought Welsh was going to fix this garbage. He is very personable and charismatic but I hope that what he says about caring for the CAF (and Air Force) isn't a means to an end but something he plans to do. We will see, doesn't look good currently.

I heard Rainman flew an entire combat sortie in Iraq, from takeoff to landing, in manual reversion just to "See if he could."