Hacker

A fair-ish point, but how would sharing him having his good-idea-fairy shut down empower other folks who've had similar experiences? Other people who've had it happen are probably well aware of the consequences and are all ready just as cynical about Big Blue as he is. If there were an altruistic motive here, it could simply be as a warning to others to not do what he did the way he did it...but it is pretty evident that's not the case, given the title of his piece and the punchline in the article.

An interesting topic, but unfortunately that "article" linked is basically a big whine about how big AF didn't buy into his idea even after it was presented multiple times to multiple different levels and authorities. If there's a point in there, it is completely obscured by his "woe is me" story. Guess what, dude: lots of us have "woe is me" stories about our careers, we just sport bitch about it to our bros at the bar, not publish articles about it trying to point the finger at The Man. All ideas don't have equal merit, nor do all ideas deserve equal further consideration. Even more importantly, while sometimes the "view from the Captain level" offers important insight that senior leaders may not be seeing or have not considered, often it also shows that the Captain-level is completely ignorant of higher, strategic-level aspects that outweigh the Captain's great idea. Culturally, the AF tolerates free-thinking. -- but don't you dare act on any of it, lest you risk any semblance of having a "good career". If you are willing to take that risk, then fire away. More officers should be willing to take that risk for a greater good of American airpower, unfortunately when given the choice between putting it all out there and advancing the larger cause and protecting the security of a "good career", most of us choose the latter.

If it is anything like Huggy's numerous previous "retirements", I'm sure he'll be back on active duty sometime soon.

I haven't checked on it recently, but some of the MAJCOM supps to 36-2903 in the past have said the A-2 was no-go for flight.

Just think of all the nasty ball sweat and flightline kitchen farts that have been right where that gorgeous watch is sitting on that ejection seat. If the T-45 were out in the fleet as a companion aircraft, test aircraft, and adversary (e.g. as the Talon is with the B-2, U-2, F-22, and formerly F-117) they would probably see things differently.

Part of the issue is his act in the months/years prior to the shootdown. 800-hour wingman. Not exactly what you'd call a well respected aviator in the Viper community even before that whole ordeal.

So they really meant "chop" the C-27.

Obviously not, based on the wet diapers we've seen in this very thread and others.

YGBFSM. Put on your man-pants; this is the military.

No, that changed circa 2000.

Working like a champ for me on Firefox 31.0...

Unfortunately, the author's background and experience is highly relevant to the ideas presented in the article. Someone with no training or practical experience in air combat who is proposing "innovation" in that area is like virgins writing papers on how to improve their readers' sex techniques. For example...his "Figure 1" image of a machine performing VID based on shape recognition in some EO sensor. Great idea...except any pilot who has that same view of a full-frame planform of your adversary in the HUD could make that same identification with probably the same level of accuracy. More importantly, someone who has actually engaged in air combat knows that such views are extremely rare and reflect something that is a component of maybe 1% of the BFM/ACM/ACT scenarios out there. Again, it is like someone who thinks that every girl loves anal and a facial "money shot" because that's what seems to be in all the porn they've watched. Conceptually, he's not wrong; eventually there will be technology that will be able to have the SA to make autonomous decisions faster and better than humans currently do. Machines will be better able to ID, better assess range/position/energy/maneuvers of an adversary, better know ownship energy state and capabilities, and will be able to more perfectly select the correct tactic, and execute the control inputs to more perfectly execute the maneuver, time the shot, etc. Everything will be better than what a standard 1-each human could do. That time is just not now.

All anyone needs to know about that article is:

In all honesty, anyone who says this neither has the clearance or need-to-know to even be informed on exactly what the Lightning does bring to the table, nor the knowledge/experience to understand what that stuff it has means to the missions Lightning will be tasked with accomplishing. There are a lot of things that are not so great about the Lightning. To cast those deficiencies into believing that it is not worthy of replacing the Viper and Hog is just ignorant. To even think that the legacy platforms are even remotely equipped to deal with the threats of the next 20-30 years that Lightning and Raptor will have to deal with it just ludicrous. With that kind of logic, let's go dig out the A-1s and O-2s from the boneyard so we can really go to town in the CAS world. Let's park all of those F-16CJs and whip out the F-4Gs, let's junk the Growlers and get the Spark Varks flying again. These are ALL aircraft where people cried that the world was going to end because the aircraft replacing them wasn't as capable as the aircraft being replaced...and guess what: somehow we've managed to just squeak by with those under-capable "replacement" MDSs. In a double-digit-SAM and Flanker world, the Viper, Hog, Eagle, and Hornet are just not going to cut it with the margin that we need to ensure that we will win with the least amount of flag-draped caskets.

Have worked for him twice -- one of my "I'd fly into hell on his wing" leaders. I hope he goes far.

I vote that we blame it all on "fighter pilot culture", and the solution be that we tear down and eliminate it from the AF. That worked with sexual assault, right? I think some of you guys might be surprised at how instantaneously Big Blue can take a fast burner and turn him into a zero if he dares cross whatever the line-of-the-day is. Today, that line is sexual assault. In the past (and maybe now) that included DUI. There are other hot button topics that cause binary "burn the witch" reactions, regardless of the arc the accused's careers is on.

A plan which consists of not being able to do it no matter how hard they plan or throw money at the problem. This is sort of like saying, "a plan to transition capabilities of the F-15 over to the Cessna 172". Yep, all we have to do is come up with a plan on how to hang that radar and those AMRAAMs on the Cessna, here, and we'll have it all sorted out.

There are actually some U-2s that fly out of Palmdale and Eddie.

In short, LBFMs will be used to reduce the number of deployed sexual assaults on military members.

And they were so much cooler then, too....

There are actually four different "dear boss" letters that have gone around the AF in the last couple decades. Outside of a few specifics, the overall gist remains the same even if the flavor changes.

Tell them to drop the lip service about "taking care of your people" and the "I care about you" speeches with their subordinates. I'd rather hear them tell the truth; their allegiance is to "the company", and they will gladly throw you and your career under the bus if it will make them look more attractive for promotion and/or future job opportunities. That, when forced to choose between sticking up for one of their subordinates who has been perhaps wronged by Big Blue and doing what is "right" for the Air Force, they will choose to decide based on what's best for the Air Force rather and what would reflect on them personally best (this is especially true when it involves hot-button, high-visibility issues like anything remotely involving or associated with sexual assault). At least it will save the poor Airmen who are fed these lines (lies?) from day one of joining the Air Force from having their hearts broken when they find out such sentiments just aren't true.

If you go back and read about it, you'll find that there is not a lot of enthusiasm surrounding the previous crossflow program, mostly because of the results compared to the costs the last time it was done. I don't have all the numbers in front of me, but I was going through IFF/FTU at the time that previous wave of crossflows was going through the pipeline ('99 timeframe) and on into their first tours in ops squadrons. The fact is, many crossflow pilots didn't end up performing as well as hoped at all stages of follow-on training (IFF. FTU, squadron MQT, etc). Some of them did great, of course (I know a couple that went on to perform well above average in the F-15E community), but statistically they did "worse" (in terms of pipeline training washouts and issues in operational units). Most of the crossflow pilots that were my classmates and squadronmates were superb officers with fantastic officer performance records (and extremely good dudes to boot), but that didn't always continue into performance in the cockpit. It wasn't a "talent" issue with the crossflow pilots so much as it was an "experience" issue; one has to acknowledge, weather it is politically correct to or not, that there are significant cultural differences between the fighter community and other flying communities (although the bomber community is a somewhat close relative) that translate to differences in skills/airmanship in the pilots that come from those communities. What makes an aviator great in the MAF isn't the same thing that makes an aviator great in the CAF. On the most basic level, the crossflow pilots, for the most part, were not used to being single-seat decisionmakers at much higher speeds, and much higher Gs, while hand-flying significantly more aggressive/dynamic maneuvers. Many times the core airmanship just wasn't operating well at 400 knots and pilots were just behind the jet (sound judgment, just not fast enough); sometimes a thousand hours on autopilot in the flight levels did not translate to having hands good enough for even basic admin formation work, much less more complex BFM or surface attack. This isn't unique to the crossflow folks, though; this is the same thing seen many times with ANG/Reserve fighter units that hire non-fighter guys and send them through IFF and fighter FTUs. There was a big wave of those guys about 8 or 9 years ago (mostly A-10 units at the time, but I don't remember why), and they had an unusually high washout rate, too, with some guys who did superb being the exception rather than the rule. None the less, the end result was that there was higher attrition of the crossflow guys compared to straight pipeline students, and the fighter brass largely decided it wasn't that much of a benefit. Again, not that the crossflow pilots were idiots or anything (in fact, quite the opposite -- most of them had impressive OPRs/jobs/awards, seemed to have been superb pilots in their previous lives, and were really great dudes), but their previous flying time had given them habits and airmanship that did not dovetail into success in fighters. All that being said, when Lorenz made the T-38 track at UPT "universally assignable" several years ago, one of the rationalizations that I heard discussed numerous times amongst AETC staff dudes was the future crossflow potential. Specifically, I heard a lot of folks talking about how F-35 was going to ramp up at some point in the mid-future, and the AF needed a T-38 trained pool of pilots who could quickly move over to train for that (remember, this is the same time period when the numbers of students going to fighters had been choked off to a mere trickle). Remember that even in the 98/99 crossflow, only T-38 trained pilots were eligible. I don't think T-38 trained MAF pilots would be a "starting point"; I think they would be the only ones eligible.

I'm surprised there weren't Article 15s for all involved with the Combat Proud video....

https://www.airforcetimes.com/article/20140130/NEWS06/301300007