Hacker

There are other folks who currently fly for them, ahem, and haven't heard such a rumor.

What's the source of this rumor?

FWIW, according to the AF Historian, in a 100% unclassified source, there were. Thanks to the anonymous tipper who pointed the way to that.

Hoping someone knows some history of the USAF PJ community and might be able to help shed some light. I met someone at a party who says he was an officer PJ, essentially, back in the late 80s and early 90s. The time/location/atmosphere of the discussion didn't really allow me to pin down much in the way of specifics; he said he had been a USAF doc attached to JSOC at Ft Bragg, and had done the same training that the PJs did in terms of Airborne school and some Navy diving school, but he was quite clear in saying, "I wasn't actually a PJ, though." He described being part of a couple of SOF-type adventures abroad, pretty entertaining but seemingly humble storyteller. He sure seemed to speak the language of actual former USAF and didn't peg my poser-meter when we started riffing on Big-Blue specific stuff. Afterward, though, I just wondered how someone could go from standard 1-each military doctor to being the equivalent of a modern-day CRO. I don't know anything about how JSOC and USAF Rescue work, I'm just curious if anyone knows about USAF officers, doctors, being attached to JSOC and doing PJ-type stuff back in the day.

Mission employment, and the relative difficulty of it, is the answer you are looking for.

They really are this stupid.

I think you're seriously underestimating the magnitude of the staffing crisis at the regionals. "Plenty" is not an accurate term. I know of a guy who went to jail for manslaughter....drove his 2-seater Porsche with two women crowded in the passenger seat while drunk, and the drive ended in a fiery crash that killed one of them...and who was hired at the regionals (by more than one airline, actually). So...I am certain our disgraced IP he could find a regional that would hire him with a little looking.

I'm sure there are a ton of regional airlines that'd hire him.

I was actually over on the east side of the course at Pylon 2, so I didn't see it (fortunately? unfortunately?). I heard the mayday on the race control freq, and watched the second jet do a battle damage check with the pace plane through my camera. The best part was talking to Marilyn Dash, who was doing the commentating on the NBC Sports and internet live feed, after the incident. She is known to be quite "colorful" with her language, and she told me, "I've never come so close to yelling 'OH SHIT!!' to an audience of untold thousands as when I saw that midair." I think that would have been epic, personally...but probably not good for the commentating career. Looked like you were having fun with the Patriots, tho. And, yes, of course I will hoist a brew with you at ICAS -- wouldn't miss it!

The aircraft doing the passing has to keep the aircraft in front of him in sight, and pass to the outside and no lower than the lead airplane's altitude.

I did, but it was probably overkill -- based on the questions they asked, they didn't look beyond the summary page of my printed-out digital log.

Outside professional flying just requires chief pilot permission at my airline -- and numerous guys have that permission. Most that I know of do airshow flying or instructing.

Punctuation Nazi sez: inappropriate apostrophe use, remain in AETC one more tour.

Attached below. Hacker's Blank Logbook(1).xls

Personally, I'm looking forward to the storyline next season of him getting his clearance revoked, and his Article 15 with General Discharge, or maybe an FEB. An acceptable alternative would be the story of him getting kidnapped by ISIS and starring in his own special internet murder video.

Those guys didn't sacrifice anything, other than a bit of dignity in having to brief their bros on the ins and outs of sky-dicks.

Definitely a homophobic, anti-LGBT term.

It is also a BUFF base with LA tail codes somewhere in the Virginia or DC area. Also one that can be easily serviced by the USCG station at Elizabeth City. That's not even mentioning the path he took to work on his bike.

Well, that's gay.

I guess I'm just a dinosaur, but I am just now starting to look at this stuff for GA flying. Well timed thread, thanks for the inputs. I use Jepp FD Pro for work, but several guys I've flown with have put ForeFlight on their iPads as a supplement, so I am going to try that out, too.

Don't worry about that, it won't likely be an issue.

Did his sword get a DFC too?

If you look at what kinds of ordnance they were shooting (a lot of forward-firing stuff like rockets) and what kind of deliveries they were doing (high angle dive bombs, which have substantially less sight depression from the flight path than the 10s, 20s, and 30s that jets routinely do), then it makes sense why the long nose wasn't a problem then but it would be now. Regarding the location of the exhaust, the Enforcer engineering team did a lot of testing about the design, location, and placement of that stack, and left side vs right side, how far forward, how far back, etc, and the way it is on the PA-48 was the best of the three designs (between the Turbo Mustang, the PE-1/2 Enforcer, and the PA-48 Enforcer). A lot was initially learned about it from the YAT-28E program which used the same engine and gearbox setup, but was apparently a huge IR target. When they flew the PA-48 Enforcer against the threat laydown at Tolicha Peak and Pahute Mesa up on the Nellis range, it did very well in terms of avoiding detection and tracking...so ops check good. I don't have it in front of me, but the "production" Enforcer design (which was going to have the shorter nose and stacked cockpit look like the A-29) had some changes to the design and location of the stack, but it was still basically there at the left wing root. YAT-28E: PA-48:

The purpose of the exhaust location here, just like on the Piper Enforcer, is to hide it from any low-aspect IR-SAM or MANPAD with the wing. There is also a secondary "blown wing" effect by putting the exhaust over the top and increasing lift. On a different subject, the reason this thing is a non-starter is that long-assed nose. It is the same problem the Piper Enforcer had, lookdown angle needed for dropping gravity ordnance. Most fighters have a lookdown angle of about 15 degrees...and this pig doesn't. The PA-48 Enforcer had a lookdown over the nose of about 5 degrees. So, you can't see the target through a HUD at the moment of pickle. Kind of a bummer for a dedicated ground attack airplane. That's one of the main reasons the PA-48 was a bust in the 70s and 80s (it was tested out by the AF twice, and rejected twice). And it is the big reason for the short nose and jacked-up cockpit angle on the A-29.