Hacker

Yes, exactly. I've never seen any tower like that, and as I looked at the photo and considered being out there where it's blacker-than-a-bag-of-assholes, fatigued at the end of a LFE sortie, and I saw that...that might very well tumble my internal gyros. If "day man" thinks that's weak, well good for him.

The 14.7" barrels are constructed at that length specifically so an A2 flash hider would take the length to 16".

Man, that Y-shaped tower might be enough to cause me to lose SA....

Translation: I want to fly for SWA, but don't want to pay for the type.

Fox, fox! Oh, not that kind of drone?

Of course it depends. Hell, I've been that guy. That being said, even high-time crusty experts who have been away from flying for even a little bit lose their proficiency quickly, and that was my point.

No -- that is not one of the SUPT options.

This is the second half of the equation -- proficiency. We all know that flying is a perishable skill, and the more high performance the task, the easier it is to lose proficiency in executing that task. I mentioned that many of these guys are not "professional pilots" for a reason: they have day jobs, and usually high-powered and high-pressure day jobs. They don't think about and execute flying day in and day out like a professional pilot does. There's a reason the USAF has RAP and "beans" and all the other required continuation training events during the course of the year, and proficiency is the answer (weather RAP is an effective means of doing that is another discussion all together...I mean, do you really want the old attached dude who is alternating between CMR and non-CMR every month on your wing on night 1 of the war?). Civilian guys don't have RAP, nor any other mandatory program to keep them sharp on the non-FAA required items. It is entirely up to their own conscience how much they dedicate to staying sharp, and there are certainly a lot of pilots who don't recognize how much and how quickly they can lose proficiency. Again, not a spear at non-military dudes -- I know plenty of civilian guys who are great sticks and make sure they spend the time and money required to remain proficient. But, unfortunately, there are also many who do not.

Without throwing spears at anyone in particular, this is the crux of the issue with many warbird owners and operators. Because of the costs of owning and operating, the pool of people involved seems to get more and more focused on "rich guys" every year. So, we're generally talking about corporate executives and business owners, who have varied personalities and backgrounds, but very rarely do they have a background in professional aviation (or, more specifically, military aviation). Add to that the fact that there are not a whole lot of military pilots who have much of an interest in civilian aviation (who can mentor these civilian pilots in the ways of high performance jet aviation), and you get the state of business as we see it. I have an acquaintance who is a civilian-trained pilot who performs a lot of warbird and jet training, and he described the state of airmanship and discipline in the civilian warbird community as "universally terrible". This is not to say that there's something magical about being a military-trained pilot that endows you with some sort of superhuman skills and discipline that mortal civilians cannot ever attain -- of course that is not true. But, as we all know, the military raises aviators to fit a particular mold and have particular attitudes about flying that just also happens to marry up to high performance jet flying very well. Civilian training runs the gamut from terrible to excellent with zero consistency, and anyone with enough money can eventually buy their way into ratings and airplanes. In addition, there is not one central group that oversees the standards these civilian pilots are flying to: there's no SOF or Ops Sup or DO or CC or OG that is waiting to hammer anyone who strays outside the lines that Big Blue has for how you fly his airplanes. There are some voluntary groups, like NATA or FAST or EAA Warbirds of America or ICAS, etc, who have self-imposed standards and try to police themselves, but ultimately that policing and participation is voluntary. Guys can take their toys and go home if they don't like how they're being treated. That's the fundamental difference.

Sometimes exchange assignments will appear on the AFPC assignments page for your particular airframe, and sometimes you'll have to do the legwork yourself to see if something is available.

There certainly is a legitimate area of discussion with respect to flight discipline and motivations of a portion of the owners/operators of high performance civilian aircraft. There have been a number of fatal accidents over the last 5-10 years in warbirds and like aircraft that are directly attributable to pilot error, and were closely related to some risky behavior like low level aerobatics or other "non-point-A-to-point-B" flying. I've related this story before, but at EAA's warbird operator forum at Oshkosh in 2010, the main topic was this safety trend. One of the CAF's flight safety guys stood up and noted that every single accident in the previous year had been pilot error, and that most of those accidents involved some questionable judgment. He compelled everyone in attendance to "take a long, hard look in the mirror" and figure out why that was. The implication being, of course, that the current batch of owners and pilots were engaging in some risky behavior and poor judgment. The additional factors being the widely differing training and experience levels of the operators, as well as some personality traits which fostered a culture where people were hesitant to comment honestly on other guys' behaviors. The discussion amongst the pilots showed that they knew it was an issue, although they differed widely on how to fix it. The follow-up is that at this year's operator forum last month, the main presentation was about airmanship, judgment, flight discipline, and it got right to the point. I didn't attend the jet group's forum, but I understand that it, too, was very pointed in its discussion, having had a pretty poor year (mostly because of the acts of a couple of bad actors that have given everyone a bad name....reference the Santa Monica pier flyby a few years ago). Obviously not ALL of the owners and operators are a bunch of hot-dogs. In fact, I'd say the majority of them pretty firmly are not. But the aforementioned differing levels of training, experience, and proficiency are definitely a HUGE problem, and the personality issue is a cultural one which has evolved over years of the changing face of membership in the warbird club, and will take many years to evolve (back) into something that allows for the brutally honest criticism to be given and accepted in the hopes of safety and improvement. That being said, Huggy shacked it with his description of the airshow performer world. It is a tight-knit group that loves what they do, and do it because they want to. They appear to do a good job of regulating themselves, as they know the FAA is always there and ready to start regulating things for them if they won't take care of things internally. Certainly there are differing levels of experience, skill, and commitment to disciplined and safe flying, but it seems to me as an outsider that the overall culture of the ICAS bunch is very safety oriented, as they know that is keystone to the airshow businesses future survival. LJDRVR's question of, "is it worth it", is ultimately irrelevant. These airshows are largely put on and participated in by people who want to do it. A spectator's (or even a single potential participant's) personal risk/reward analysis really doesn't matter, since there are tons and tons of people for whom spending the time, effort, and money to train for, and participate in, the airshow circuit is worth it. Just as there are tons of people who are performing in IAC competitions all the time out of the public spotlight, just because they can. Same reason people are going to FAST clinics and learning how to fly formation, just because they can.

Short answer: yes, there are limited opportunities for exchange flying with the USN, including jobs that feature carrier ops. Perhaps a half dozen or less per year for all the different fighter MWSs. They can be competitive positions to get. The majority of the jobs I've seen, though, are not carrier-qual positions. They're in FTUs or aggressor units, etc.

You can hear at the beginning of that video, the narrator say, "....signature switch break-up," meaning some kind of cross-over maneuver to split up. I'd guess it probably involves the left wing going right and the right wing going left. Lots of aerobatics teams do that type of maneuver and looks impressive from skull-on.

That was Huggy's version of the Brian Schul "groundspeed check" story.

...which is exactly why you see certain people in certain airframes at certain shows year after year after year, haha.

Except it is a weird shade of blue.

Good article, but focuses completely on equipment and ignores the AF's eat least equal problem of our slow (but increasing) drift away from a focus on combat airpower and appreciation of the tenets of that combat airpower. We could have all the platinum-plated toys in the world, but if we don't have people who are trained, motivated, and supported well to operate those toys we are doomed. Conversely, highly motivated, trained, and supported airmen can do wonders even with only average equipment. Great quote from the article, though:

I suppose he could have maneuvered against something in OAF '99.

Pretty awesome when you can not only use a term that the controller doesn't understand, but also the pilot using it clearly doesn't understand.

Without a doubt. I actually DID try and hire him, but he wasn't available when I needed representation.

While I'm not "sure about that", unfortunately I've had a lot more personal experience with ADCs than that. While their experience and abilities run the gamut, they are not as experienced as the actual SJAs (theoretically, at least -- I'm sure there are outliers in both parts of the job). Think about it -- most ADCs are Captains and SJAs are Majs, Lt Cols, and up. Again, the real issue with ADCs is that they are public defenders who are many times dealing with a good number of cases simultaneously and can't dedicate all of their efforts to your case. But, the constant is that neither of them (ADCs or SJAs) can hold a match to a good civilian attorney who was formerly an SJA. Regarding Bud Day, the only experience I've had was as a recorder at an FEB for an IFF washout. His style was very aggressive and he did, indeed, completely tear apart the case and get his client reinstated in the IFF program. His understanding of how the AF training system worked -- especially with regard to how the course training standards for grading worked and his knowledge that IPs can sometimes write comments about graded maneuvers that do not directly support what the CTS says for a particular grade -- was key to his courtroom victory when I observed him. It was quite impressive. His overall style was very aggressive. That being said, my understanding from speaking to other attorneys who have worked with him (or even against him) is that his style is becoming decreasingly effective in the current AF climate. Reportedly, his opening statement usually revolved around him tossing his Medal of Honor coin on the ground in front of the board or jury, and saying "there are two sides to every coin....." It was apparently heavily reliant on the respect value he personally had as a MoH recipient rather than a cunning strategy as an attorney (combined, of course, with a very type-A aggressive style overall). Based on a good number of people I've seen in the AF these days who would potentially be board or jury members, not only would many not have any idea who Bud Day was or what he'd done, but many would also not be impressed even by those things he's done. In other words, that respect value is decreasing, EVEN amongst flight-suit wearers (such as might populate an FEB). A non-tactical background pilot I flew with last summer went on a tirade about what a rogue Joe Jackson was for landing his C-123 at a closed airstrip against orders and that he should never have been awarded a MoH for such a blatant violation of flight discipline...so you never know what some folks might find of value.

Including what kinds of repercussions? Is there an FEB-like process wherein you can permanently lose your rating to control aircraft as a result of that incident?

That's an enormously important point. What I especially love are Commanders who get angry when people lawyer up. As if, when threatened with UCMJ action or having their wings taken, they're just going to open up, pour their heart out, mea culpa, and everything will be all right. All will be forgiven, right?

How is a visual approach "lazy", exactly? Because it requires actual airmanship and SA? With the alternative being to type it in to the FMS and let the airplane do the thinking for you?

If the ADC said that, he's smoking crack. The guys who are ADCs aren't veteran former SJAs, they are the junior guys. ADCs are like public defenders -- they're over-loaded with cases, and can't spend the kind of time on any one case that a civilian attorney can. In addition, ADCs generally don't have the depth of experience that a good former-JAG civilian attorney will. I've seen it in action personally, and not only could the ex-SJA civilian lawyers run circles around the SJAs they were opposing, they were also doing a healthy bit of teaching to the poor ADCs who were assisting them. No comparison, in my book. For anyone who ever has the opportunity to be represented by legal counsel in proceedings against the US Gov, I highly highly recommend hiring civilian representation in addition to retaining the services of the ADC.