Hacker

I never bought into this new-agey idea that profanity is somehow not professional. It is just one of the tools in the professional's toolbox. One that can be highly effective. What is unprofessional is when that tool is improperly used, and unfortunately it often is.

Clearly you/her and I have very different definitions of "taking care of our airmen."

Ya gotta admit, though, his FB post that started it was pretty damn funny.

When you see people blame "the cancer in AF leadership" for the retention debacle, this is one of the cornerstones of that cancer. At some point in the last 20 years, it became fashionable for commanders to be as "tough" on mistakes made by their subordinates as possible, in a combination of showing they're "no tolerance" or whatever and in an attempt to never allow themselves to be questioned by their superiors about a decision they made. CYA, essentially. Which, obviously, is a 180-degree turn from where AF leaders once were, mentoring and protecting their subordinates and being screens for them. I laugh at the fact that on DD175s, we used to put "on file" in that personnel part of the flight plan, partly in an attempt to protect our own AF pilots against adverse FAA action should they make a mistake. Today, I'm sure Commanders are practically eager to facilitate their pilots getting FAA violations so they never get accused of trying to cover something up under their command.

My violence is "principled", and your violence is "terrorism". Protest should make people uncomfortable....unless those people are elected representatives of the people, in which case it is illegal.

Hate to say it, but if you want to talk about "fundamentals", just about all the major passenger airline stocks that have been artificially kept aloft for the last 10 months are kind of short on "fundamentals" as well. Trying to play that card to somehow make the Gamestop and AMC price increases invalid is thoroughly intellectually dishonest.

Yep...and all of the failing banks and investment houses that were bailed out with taxpayer money in 2008 were also not based on anything fundamental. Still gets back to manipulation being okay for a certain group of people, but not okay for others.

I think this will be the fuze that really kicks off the next hiring spree -- not just at DAL, but industry-wide due to numerous places offering or incentivizing early retirements during COVID. There's a lot of pent-up demand that is hiding under COVID fears and governmental restrictions. What remains to be seen is if how rapidly that demand is allowed to translate into ticket sales.

Sweetness was also the CC of the 435th when you were in Valdosta in '05, wasn't he?

I love how these rumors are born and bred. For one, Rick actually *won* his case where he objected to what he found to be an unconstitutional order to kill an American citizen, and was reprised against by his local chain of command for that objection. Second, he just retired....not any "retirement in lieu of" or any of those shenanigans, but a regular ol' retirement. IIRC it might have been a couple years less than 20, when they were offering early retirements 5-ish years ago. Dude had/has his issues, but wasn't kicked out.

Envy is an ugly emotion.

Except for the fact that the pie size is not fixed....especially in a time when so much "free money" has been pumped into the system by the Fed. So, no...someone getting richer does not mandate someone else getting poorer.

Okay, thanks for clarifying that.

Perhaps I didn't ask the right question in my previous post, so let me ask from a different angle. Is your comment is a criticism of the gatekeeping that exists (and has long existed) in the warbird community which is a barrier to new people getting involved, or a comment on the Collings organization, specifically, with respect to how they operated their Wings of Freedom Tour?

Not that I'm aware of with the fidelity required to be of any value. Most of the checkout and annual re-examination processes rely on actual butt-in-the-seat experience. We are actually somewhat fortunate that in the last 25 years there have been a bunch of fighters that have been modified into 2-seat, dual control versions which allow real hands-on instruction in them. Before that, the traditional method of getting checked out to fly any of the big piston fighters involved a whole bunch of time flying the T-6, and a checkride where you takeoff, fly, and land the T-6 from the back seat. This was apparently supposed to provide such a poor view on takeoff and landing that it simulated the long nose of Mustangs, Corsairs, etc. Even flying the T-6 itself is considered a "harder" airplane to fly than most of the pig piston fighters because of some of its bad habits both in flight and on takeoff/landing. The joke in the warbird community is that to prepare yourself for flying the T-6, go get checked out in a Mustang or a Bearcat. In the larger airplanes, the multiengine stuff, the key is still to have relevant taildragger experience prior to getting checked out....but you still need time in the seat with the engines running to actually get a checkout.

Which is kind of the core problem, IMHO. "Black lives matter" as a concept is really not controversial in any way. Yes, anyone who believes that all humans are individuals and of equal objective value philosophically can confidently agree with that. We might disagree on the degree to which the statement relies on an unproven implication that society inherently values the lives of individuals with a certain skin pigment less than other individuals with a different skin pigment, but that's leading us down a different path of discussion Unfortunately, "Black Lives Matter", the organization and movement is something that is completely different and stands for something that is completely different than the plain English phrase means (as evidenced by their now-deleted "what we believe" webpage. So, just like with a lot of sophistry used in the name of advocacy, not being in support of "Black Lives Matter" (the organization) gets to be weaponized against whomever states it as "racist" (or whatever other word from the deplorables litany one wishes to arm themselves with) by intentionally co-mingling the concept with the org.

There are bad actors who make bad decisions in the judicial system, that have resulted in unequal and unfair treatment, obviously. To distort that to mean the system itself is fundamentally flawed, or that the system is rigged against a particular identity group of people, is not a logical step. Even worse, to declare that the current system is so broken that it has to be torn down and replaced with something more "fair", without being able to specify what exactly is broken with the current system, or what the specifics of that other system that would replace it might be, is a bunch of postmodernist nonsense. BLM isn't at all interested in simply ending police brutality.

Not by a long shot. BLM is protesting for a forced Marxist-style transfer of social power and financial wealth from whom they perceive are the "haves" to whom they perceive are the "have nots"...in the name of "equity" (e.g. equality of outcome; where we all have the same social power and we all have the same financial means). That has absolutely zero to do with the status of being "equal before the law", which is what actual "equality" is in a western democracy. Equality and liberty in a free society comes with no promise of social status or financial wealth, good or bad.

There have already been positive ripple effects from this accident. The warbird organization I fly with has twice in the last 12 months tightened up its training and qualification requirements, and changed its supervisory/oversight strategy and responsibilities. They have even implemented their plan to have Big Blue-style "no notice" on-site inspections of individual units' compliance with organizational and FAA regulations. Of course, there are some key leadership positions in that organization who are retired USAF O-6s, and their solution to the problem (the problem of the FAA whipping out their speculum and hysteroscope to inspect other warbird ride operations) is to bring over the regulatory and supervisory mechanisms that "worked"(?) in the Air Force. Personally, I don't mind; I'd rather deal with a little Big Blue-style bureaucracy than have the FAA go all full retard and basically stop most warbird flying like has happened in the UK and elsewhere. The fact is, if the LHFE goes away a significant number of flying warbirds will never fly again. I know of several famous, rare warbirds that go barnstorming every summer that, without the money from rides or a Paul Allen-style benefactor will never fly again.

Do you have personal experience with trying to fly for Collings? If so, I'm curious what the circumstances of that were.

I think we have to be skeptical of that number based on the evidence that is out there from the investigation. To wit: It isn't outrageous for someone to claim 1,000 hours in a year; I know numerous airline guys who hit this number somewhat regularly. Definitely unusual for a non-military, non-airline guy to be getting that amount of hours, but I wouldn't find it impossible to believe. It is, however, not possible that he flew 5,200 hours in one year. This would mean he was logging 14 hours of flight time per day, every day, for 365 days. And since he reported only 200 hours of time during the "last 6 months" of that year...well, apparently Mac was logging augmented crew time while he was sleeping. But, even that first number has to be taken in perspective of other evidence, like: So, if the B-17 was flying under 300 hours per year total, even if you make the assumption that Mac was flying every single one of those hours (which we know he wasn't - I personally know people who flew 909 during that timeframe, and not with Mac in the seat), where were the other 700-ish hours per year coming from? This would require him to fly *double* the amount of hours he was theoretically getting in the B-17 in some other aircraft on the tour. Remember, Mac was not a professional pilot at any point during his career and Collings was the only flying he was doing. The evidence here shows that there was some amount of "Parker P-51" time going on here. How much? Tough to say...but it could be a substantial amount based on the self-reporting from the FAA medicals. He had to understand that the hour report to the FAA on your medical is an official attestation of your flight experience. I admit, I bought into the Mac mystique too. The way he was spoken about by other pilots, as well as the way he spoke and carried himself, I'd have thought he was some old 'Nam vet, or old fire-bomber pilot, or retired airline guy. I was surprised to learn in this report that he'd only had his multiengine rating since 1999, and that he'd never actually had a professional flying career. The data here, as well as his actions during the emergency, give me many many questions about the authenticity of basically anything said about his credentials or experience.

The root of the issue lies in what people interpret "treated equally" to mean. The philosophers upon whose tenets western society has been built interpret that to mean "all individuals treated equally before the law". Unfortunately that is not a definition that is shared across the political and philosophical spectrum, and that is the crux.

You are. It isn't about the dictionary definition of equity. Just as how the social justice crowd has re-defined "racism" to hinge on power, "equity" has been re-defined to mean equality of outcome, usually with respect to money but also frequently with respect to social power. So, when the term is used in the context of that video, they are talking about social power, and not fair treatment in front of the law. It is a loaded codeword that is intended to sound like "equality" to those not paying attention. This new definition is used commonly in the social science sphere. Here's what Bret Weinstein, a self-identified progressive university professor says about equity:

That is not what "equity" means. It has nothing to do with "fair treatment". Equity means "equality of outcome".