JS

I have never been through the FEB/SIB thing, and hopefully never will. But my question is this: did you have any avenues of appeal? I mean does the word of one person, even if that person is the AMC/CC, overrule what a board of (hopefully) your peers decided with regards to flying??? Did you seek any legal counsel on the matter?

Bingo, bingo, and bingo. For the record, though, my friend has an accounting background (and CFP) and has been working under another advisor who "owns" the already established clients for about ten years now. So there is no insurance selling crap going on in that office. But you are dead on, these positions are sales positions, that's why they are the only ones "hiring" qualified people into this economy. A few years back, I briefly toyed with the idea of using my engineering/MBA background to become a financial advisor, because I had a background in numbers and business and really kind of enjoyed investments, etc. I signed on with a company whose name shall not be mentioned here, and they had us out for an information session. The quality (or lack thereof) of these kids was fucking horrendous. I met multiple 20 year olds with nothing more than a high school degree, I met a hillbilly car salesman (perfect fit for this type of sales industry, by the way), a gym owner, a hot flirty chick with an IQ of around 80 (another perfect fit for this industry) and all kinds of other non-qualified people who were basically hired sight unseen. After all, there is really no commitment on the financial firms with regards to hiring. Most of these jobs are pure commission, although I had heard that one or two of them offer first-year regional airline pay for the first year, then they literally hand guys a phone book and tell them to cold call or knock door to door (Edward Jones). Amazing. My CFP friend had also heard of these sales companies requiring their future "advisors" to bring a list of 20 names of friends/relatives to the interview in order to help guide them in "launching their business" and "developing clients," and other bullshit. But I will give this company credit for honesty, after a bunch of outliers got up and told us about how much money they made as advisors, one chick straight up told the audience that insurance sales was where we were going to make all of our money. There really is none of the "sexy" stuff like picking investments, etc. They only required you to take the Series 6, not 7, which means all you can do is sell mutual funds and can't really pick individual stocks, options, etc., and actually build a customized portfolio for people. And of course, all these sales outfits have like 3 investment funds - conservative, balanced, and risky. It was quite the sham, and needless to say, I got out before I even got in. I have learned more on this thread and from reading internet articles than most of these kids and personal trainers disguised as "advisors" will probably ever know. Anyway, sorry for the rant, but stay away from these sales fucks at all possible costs. Get you some good term insurance based on an online calculator of insurance needs, build an emergency fund, and do 15 minutes of research into which retirements funds would be good for you based on your risk tolerance, and you will have conquered the "three pillars" of financial planning, all without paying these fuckos thousands in commissions for completely unsuitable whole life insurance policies. And if they are wealthy, like some of the more successful "advisors" are, then it is because they are good at selling whole/variable/universal life insurance policies to people who would do well with cheap term policies and investing the difference, which can sometimes be at much as ten times the premium cost for whole life versus term life. Any time you hear the words "whole, variable, or universal" next to life insurance, you need to run, not walk away.

Wow. Great point about using the State 529s. One of our very close friends is a financial advisor, and when I asked her this very question 4 years ago, she rolled her eyes at our state plan and immediately recommended for me to invest in the USAA 529 plan because the state plan is "crap," is what I think she called it. But our state is on that list for a state tax deduction (we are not talking much money here, but every little bit helps), and the expense ratios vary from .3-.6 versus USAA's ratios varying from .7-1.05. The 1 percent expense ratios can really sting - especially if the entire fund is only chugging along at like 3-4 percent return each year. I will get with my friend again and she if she can elaborate. Maybe she was thinking that the returns and professional management of these state run funds are not up to snuff. But on the basis of cost and tax breaks, it seems like it would be cheaper/better to go with a state fund.

Yeah, you can PM me if you want, but I just logged into USAA and clicked on the 529 link under investments. You obviously link your USAA checking/savings account to it, and can feed it money monthly, through one-time contributions, etc. If you want to know more about the pros/cons/details of a 529 plan in general, you can read some basic articles online like these two good ones: 529 Basics 529 Questions In summary, you can pretty much contribute an unlimited amount of money to it, contributions are after tax dollars, any growth made over the years is tax free if used for education, and the account is in the parents name, so it doesn't affect financial aid as much as it would if it were a general investment account in the kids name. Other than that, you just set it up like a regular investment account and pick some mutual funds, or one of those age-based funds that adjusts from more risky to less risky as the kid gets older.

I was wondering that with the beginning of football season. Are all flyovers officially not allowed at any events?????

Yeah, feather puts the blade angles basically parallel to the wind, giving you an almost zero-drag configuration, which is quite the opposite of a speed brake. Going into reverse in flight is a good option, and it will get you down in a hurry......in the simulator only! I have done it a few times. Ha. I think the problem with Ground Idle or Reverse in flight is that there is no guarantee that all 4 engines will go from Alpha (flight range) to Beta (ground range) at the same time and at the same rate. There is a mechanical/hydraulic stop in the propeller unit that must move to go from the flight to the ground range, and if one engine goes into ground range before the others, you get massive asymmetrical thrust and possible "loss of the airplane," is I believe how the Dash 1 phrases it. It also says this can cause "extreme propeller overspeed." So basically, it is not designed to be in ground or reverse in flight. Back in the day, before all this 7.0 and 8.0 gibberish (in the early 5. something days), a crew accidentally had two engines pulled into the ground range in flight. It had something to do with the way his hand/wrist was resting on the throttles and had somehow pulled the two of them back. When they slowed to the proper speed, the FADEC put one of those engines into the ground range, followed by the second one a few seconds later. I think they recovered the airplane only about 1000 feet above the ground. Dang, that really succinctly sums up all of the problems of this bird. All that shit has been a problem for over a decade now, and I agree with you - there is no excuse for that crap now. My only nitpick on your paragraph: why would you need utility hydraulics in HOTEL mode while offloading/onloading? You have good brake hydraulics. The very nature of HOTEL mode brings the torque produced down to about zero, which is part of the reason why there is no torque for the hydraulic pumps. Here's a great scenario - you are planning on doing multiple assaults to a real assault 3000' training zone. On your first one, you "test the brakes" with about a 3-4 second application. You turn around and are facing the 3000' strip in front of you, prepared for takeoff. How much brake energy do you have left for a high speed abort in that situation before you get hot brakes?? If I recall, there are no charts for a situation like that, nor does the BE number in the box help you because it did not take into account that you just did a partially braked assault landing 30 seconds earlier.

I have seen much more experienced guys do the same thing. We had a LtCol former schoolhouse instructor fumbling around with it and was about to write up the microwave.

Ha ha. You should have been around in the early 2000's. Really, they should have a 5.0 or 5.1 emulator out there just to keep comments like this in perspective. Ha. On a serious note, the guys are right - the nav database updates I believe have to be paid for, and the details depend on the contract as to whether or not Honeywell or Lockheed does them and how much they cost. I know of a simulator or two that is still using the 2008 database because they are too cheap to pay the per-unit upgrade that Honeywell charges. Also, you should be able to cut cards with the TASM software, as long as you have the right software and the map database info. But honestly, with all of the small issues, and the fact that nobody there has any experience with the J-model outside the schoolhouse presents its own set of problems. Perhaps the two governments could talk to get a USAF exchange pilot there for a year or two to be the experienced guy to answer these little questions. I am sure there will be dozens of guys knocking down the door to volunteer for that job. Or, on a much more realistic level, I know there are several small private contractor companies that supply subject matter experts and crewmembers to some of our various allies for situations like these. You can basically hire these companies, along with a few experienced crewmembers to help out for a few months/years, or however long it takes. I have seen that done before with pretty good results in the C-17 and the C-130J. Good luck.

Great suggestions, DUNBAR. It's no secret that the law field is extremely overmanned with high unemployment, but there are also still good law jobs out there. A friend explained it to me this way: if you are in the 1/3 of the class (assuming a good law school), you can probably get one of the "good" jobs with a private firm making decent money. The other 2/3 go into public service for $40K/year, or are unemployed. I think I went off on a 2-page rant a few months ago about how deceiving statistics can be, and how the must useless and misunderstood statistic is the "median salary" for fill in the blank grads - MBA, law, engineering, medical, etc. The thing about lawyers is that their pay (if they are lucky enough to be employed) is extremely bimodal. In other words a good chunk are making big bucks, while the rest are either unemployed or making shit pay as an assistant prosecutor or something. We have two public lawyers in our ring of pretty close friends, and the security guard manager, nurse, accountant, financial advisor, engineer, military officer, and (gasp) teacher all make a lot more money then the two lawyers do. As much as I hate graphs and bullshit statistics, I think this illustrates the problem pretty well: https://www.nalp.org/salarydistrib Of course, this is "reported salaries," which is code for a huge under-reporting of lower salaries or some other hidden skew factors. But it still makes a fairly accurate point, I believe. The way I look at it is law school is a big gamble as to whether or not your school is on "the list" of elite schools to secure one of the great jobs, and whether or not you honestly think you can out perform over 2/3 of your classmates. And even then, there is still no guarantee. But if your passion is the law, and money doesn't matter, then that is a moot point. But the high unemployment issue is not a moot point. To answer your original question, talk to one of your JAGs. We had a personnel girl in our squadron have the military pay for her to go to law school and become a JAG. Seemed like a pretty good deal, and those deals are definitely out there if you dig.

Hmm. The control panel of the site should have some special tools, similar to malwarbytes for home PC users, that can search and scrub that crap from the site. Otherwise, there are likely free anti-malware tools out there for web hosts. As I mentioned, perhaps why the site is being shitlisted by several blacklist services is likely because there is indeed malware somewhere on this site.

I just did the FSDO thing and it worked like a charm. They put me in touch with the "military" FSDO, who just got out of the Guard a year ago, and it was about as easy as filling out a job application for MacDonalds - name, address, and two questions about drugs and crimes. He took a copy of my Form 8, looked at my Mil ID and FAA licenses, and gave me the temporary. Oh, by the way, he said if you let it expire, you have to get the CFI the old-fashioned way. in other words, if you used the Mil-comp to get it the first time, you can't do that again if your instructor tickets expire.

It doesn't have to do with a certain computer, organization, web browser (well, sort of), or location. It has to do with the Domain Name Server you or your network is using, and whether or not flyingsquadron.com is on the blacklisted DNS that your network is looking at. The AF uses a different DNS than do private internet users, etc. Plus I don't think Internet Explorer (which is the only browser the Air Force uses, right?) used the same DNS blacklist lookup table that Chrome/Firefox browsers do. And even if it did, an organization can change to a different DNS if they saw fit. Either way, I believe research needs to be done to get this domain off whatever blacklist it somehow landed on (assuming a good scrub of the host was done and there is no malware lurking in the background of this site). I think that above posted Stopbadware is a good place to start. Then they should be able to get this website off the blacklist if they follow that link on stopbadware.com

Classic, Hoss. Actually, I remember reading an article or a thread on that difference many years ago, like back in the UPT days when I actually did intentional upside down flying. It might have even been on this site. So I did indeed know the difference, I just figured if I said "I was flying some aero" instead of flying some acro, the FNGs might thing I was talking about flying with an aerodynamics book or something. The sad thing is that so many grammatically incorrect things have made it into the mainstream that sometimes you can sound like an idiot when you actually use the correct words. Oh, well, I ain't going to waste all day thinking about it. Ha.

To answer the original question - if you have the cash to burn, start your IFR rating. If not, take the cheap route and do the MS Flight Simulator route and get your "instrument rating" through that. It will give you basic familiarity with the IFR system and instruments as well as radio calls. Radio calls is something you should definitely start perfecting right now, as they will only get better as time goes on. And sure, you have those stupid, non-standard fucked up radio calls for the VFR pattern for the first 1/4 of UPT, but after that, most all radio calls you make will be the same ones you learned about in the civilian world - especially in your instrument training if you did any. Don't read AFMAN 11-217, or any other AF manual regulation, they are written to not be understood and to confuse people, and as a CYA for "leaders" to crucify people if they fuck up. Start with the FAA's Instrument Procedures Handbook (download for free). It's much more user friendly and will teach the basics that transfer over to most all aviation. If you come out of there knowing what an enroute chart (high/low), SID, STAR, and IAP are, and you can read and interpret each, then you should be ahead of the game quite a bit. Don't use the FAA's Instrument flying book, because it is all centered on steam, 6-pack gauges. Also don't dig into many of the pure regulations with regards to instruments, because the AF does that differently just to be different from the FAA and make life harder on UPT studs. I invested a little cash to take several acro rides beforehand. It was nothing like UPT acro, but it seemed to help a tad, like HOSS said, with not getting sick and energy management. Know the boldface and ops limits cold. And if you have time to get into the system gouge, you may as well start on that. But again, probably the best advice is to enjoy your free time now, because you won't have much in UPT. They will ultimately spoon feed you everything you need. But for my personal situation, I studied in advance and I think it helped; I did pretty well in my first three checkrides and then dropped to about average in formation and in the T-1. So take that for what it is worth. Ha ha. I love it when people use the wrong fucking words. It makes me want to drop a load of ordinance right on their freaking head when people do that.

Search for Google Webmaster Tools and then verify ownership of the site (you have to upload a buried link of HTML code, or use alternate means). This should allow you to at least see what Google and these malware scanners are seeing as far as the reason why the site got blacklisted by Stopbadware. There is a good chance that there is indeed malicious code hidden somewhere in the background of the site and it has compromised user passwords, IP addresses, etc. https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home

Not what's causing the problems. It is not an issue with anyone's individual computer, otherwise it would not be happening to every single user who happens to use Chrome or Firefox. It has to do with this site for some reason getting blacklisted on one of the malware lists (secure DNS lists) that Chrome/Firefox use. By the way, in Chrome (sure FF has similar options) you can go into settings...advanced....and uncheck "Enable phishing and malware protection" as a way to permanently get around it. Of course, that comes with it's own set of dangers, but I don't think I have to warn anyone of that.

True. And then we will force out the most experienced warriors in favor of keeping leadership/queepy fucks who have their focus on Master's degrees and fundraisers.

Wow. Phenomenal book. And I don't just mean a book that was fun to read or just exciting; this was one of only 2 or 3 books that I have read in the past decade or so that really made me think and has changed the way I view the US, war, and the global political/economic/military system. My liberal-ass brother made me read this back in 2006 or 2007, a little after it first came out. At first I thought it was easy to write off some of his stuff like when he talks about Rambo and Top Gun having a huge influence on American culture, but then I thought it through and he makes great points. This is one of the few books that I consistently recommend to others and consistently bring up in late night philosophical (read: post beer or scotch) discussions about why we have such a war-like culture. On a sad note, I believe his son, an Army Lt, was killed in Iraq around the 2007 or 2008 time frame a few years after this was published. And as a former Army officer himself, it's difficult to write Bacevich off as a liberal freak with no skin in the game considering his family's military heritage. Yeah, that has been brought up before in circles. I read a few articles a while back - during the heat of the Iraq War when Afghanistan was building up. There were a few articles in the NY Times, I believe, where they talked about this very topic. The enemy has indeed learned a lot about the way we wage war and out TTPs. I think I even read about how the Chinese would have people in OIF/OEF land sniffing radio and electronic information to gain a better understanding of communications, codes, logistics, etc. The good news is that we also gained a ton of experience that can't be had by simply watching a war from the sidelines. I think in the end, what we have learned and the experiences our guys have outweighs the cost of revealing part of our hand to our real, potential future enemies.

I have had Maudite a few times up in Canada. Good, Belgian-type brew that packs a punch. Also good up there (and down here where you can find them) is La Fin Du Monde (end of the world). It's a Belgian Tripel, and also packs a nice punch. Both by the same company based out of Quebec.

Wow. Didn't realize N/A water was allowed in this thread. Kind of like bringing a celibate to a whorehouse. So to counteract the effects of the above 0% beer, I will post this 10% Double IPA to thus get an average alcohol content of around 5% between the two posts. Seriously just tried this last night, and it was pretty good for a Double IPA: Snake Handler Double IPA by Good People in Alabama. Pretty malty, with a slight smell & taste of alcohol. I tried to let it warm up a tad and the alcohol taste subsided a little. Really good though. Overall, I am not a huge fan of any Double IPA that I have tried, and I much prefer regular IPAs. Good people makes a basic IPA, which in my opinion is their best beer. The regular IPA is still over 7% alcohol, and it is much less expensive compared to the 10% Double IPA. As of this writing, Good people is only available in Alabama and Tennessee, so if you are in the Maxwell area, it is definitely worth a trip to try out some of their brews. They have a beer locator on their website that will point you directly to every bar, gas station, and supermarket that has their beer in the zip code area you type in.

Their Octoberfest came out two years ago. Not bad, but not great either.

I agree big time about the HB being sub-par. It is very fake, expensive, touristy, and the beer is average at best. I was not impressed the first time I went there, and even less impressed the second time when the wife wanted to check it out. I'm not farmilar with Augustiner Brau, which means Augusteiner Brew. Are you talking about the Braueri - brewery?? Anyway, I am not sure if it is the same place, but there is a biergarten/restaurant called Augustiner Keller near the Hauptbahnhof train station. On my third visit to Munich, I found this place recommended on Tripadvisor and it was the best experience I had there to date. Basically if you take the train in and make a left (North) out of the station, you walk parallel to the tracks in the direction you just came for about 2 blocks, and it is hidden on the right. It didn't look like much, and was in a train/industrial neighborhood (I think several of the breweries are actually located in that area, but it is not a big social or tourist area). But the bergarten was huge with a cool self-serve food/pretzel area and all the standard beer choices - weiss, helles, radler, mass, russ, etc. And I didn't see or hear any Americans at all, so unlike Hofbrauhaus, it was very local. Probably the coolest thing I was was these stocky German dudes rolling out the old-fashioned looking wooden barrels of beer. They would literally tap a crude looking metal tap into the barrel with a mallet and start pouring. But unlike our pussy 1/4 inch taps that take 10 minutes to fill a pint, these taps looked like they were about 1 inch in diameter. They were filling 1/2 liter and 1 liter glasses in a matter of seconds. The dude would have like 3 or 4 glasses in one hand and with the other hand would somehow swap out the full ones for empty ones on the counter all the while keeping the hoss of a tap wide open. And yeah, I second you on their helles being probably the best in Munich. Their weiss is good, but not as good as Franziskaner or HP if you ask me. But I would definitely try to find one of the more local biergartens as opposed to the Hofbrauhaus. Going to HB Haus is like going to Pat O'briens in New Orleans and claiming that you experienced true Cajun culture and atmosphere as opposed to just being surrounded by 100% tourists.

So how do you actually renew it with your IP form 8? Take it to the FSDO? Online?

Just curious. Are you guys using your CFI/CFII/MEI at all, or are you just padding your resume a little?

The local Costco for me has the big Chimay Grande Reserve bottles (blue) for $10, which is the cheapest in town. Not a bad deal for .750 L of one of the best beers around. I also tried the Chimay Red the other day, and I don't think it holds a candle to the blue. Make sure you use a big chalice to let the air hit it and to smell the fruits and flavors.