Hacker

Unfortunately, Rainman, I've seen the "blues as punishment" at use even in the fast-mover world more than I'd like to admit. Fighter culture has taken a massive amount of battle damage in the last 10 years and is a seriously wounded bird at present.

"Q-3-FEB"? Is there some link between the two in the RPA community?

This is part of the root cause of the clown act in the thread about RPA drivers gettin' no respect. There are a lot of young pilots right now who want to tear down established paradigms because they don't understand why they were developed. All many of these folks have ever known is operation in the permissive environments of OEF and OIF, and while their 'new' ideas may work perfectly fine for those scenarios most of the time these new ideas wouldn't last 5 minutes in an actual denied environment. The closest I've ever been to this is as a Sandy 3/4 rescort on a couple of A-10 WIC support deployments, so I have no real basis of experience to comment on the specifics. That being said, the CSARTF concept has been developed and honed over years and years of experience. A lot of very smart guys from many different platforms have been involved in determining tactics and planning and executing many CSAR operations. I would be surprised if a major paradigm shift like this hadn't all ready long since been considered and rejected.

Direct results from the "everyone is a warrior" mentality.

I don't think we can qualify or categorize the arguments that the CSAF and SECAF were making to the SECDEF in 2006/7/8 based on what we've seen in the public domain. We can read between the lines that Gates flat out disagreed with the USAF's position that we were responsible for maintaining capability in all aspects of air and space power (hence recapitalizing the fighter fleet). His stated opinion was that the USAF was more responsible for fighting the war on the table before us and supporting the needs for the overall Defense Department that he defined as SECDEF than we were for ensuring overall capability. It's not a secret that the SECAF and CSAF were fired because of this strenuous advocation for the overall needs of airpower at the 'expense' of providing ISR for the gravel agitators. None of that amounts to straw man arguments or any of the other logic fallacies that could be named in arguments being made in this thread. It wasn't that the USAF was crying like a bunch of babies who were being denied a new toy they wanted.

That's a big part of the problem: there aren't enough people to have this kind of manning. Even the measures that the AF has been trying for years -- TAMI21, extended/indefinite assignments, nonvols, re-tread Navs, Beta class, RPA-only AFSC and training pipeline -- still haven't been able to make it so that the AF can satisfy all the needs of the supported units in theater AND have enough qualified operators to make it a "normal flying job" in terms of hours and work week. Despite changes to the face of OEF and OIF, there is still an insatiable need for ISR. Without getting into specific numbers, the number of daily requests for ISR by supported units in theater outnumbers the total number of available ISR sorties (including all manned and unmanned ISR assets) over 6-to-1. It's an unbelievably big elephant to eat, even WITH the full-throttle press the AF has been involved in making RPA operators the last 5 or 6.9 years. Anyone who has worked with those supported units knows there are more than a fair share of those ISR 'requirements' that are ground commanders gaming the system or wanting ISR just as a security blanket rather than for a true operational need: IMHO there is a lot of fluff in those requests because supported unit commanders often don't know what goes into generating that sortie in terms of time and effort by the USAF (having spoken to a number of green-Army types, ISR is mostly PFM as far as they're concerned). The ISR cells do a decent job of filtering out some of this when they do the daily ATO matches, but there's still a lot of fluff (meaning a lot of time with ISR assets on station watching things with no immediate value when there are other taskings that would have immediate value to the commanders). Until the supported units can get their requests under control, this insatiable need will continue.

Did you develop this philosophy based on your own experiences prior to 9/11? I see them as the opposite, because that hypothesis certainly doesn't reflect the atmosphere of the ACC fighter world in those two 'eras'. I was raised in the ONW/OSW world, with Squadron/Group/Wing leadership who were all more or less DESERT STORM and ALLIED FORCE veterans. These were folks with a real combat mentality, and between 1995 and 2001 there was certainly NOT the same risk aversion and slavery to the PME machine (amongst the many ills that the AF is currently suffering) that there is now. Here's an example: the night before OIF started, my SQ/CC gave us all the standard motivational speech. At one point, he addressed how we might handle EPs while we were engaged in a CAS scenario: "If you leave troops that are actively engaged, you'd better fucking be on fire or need to bail out. Otherwise, I expect you to stay there and support those guys. Electrical failures...hydraulic failures...suck it up and do your job so those guys get home to see mama alive." These were leaders who had seen real no-shit warfare in ODS and OAF against actual threats which resulted in deaths and POWs from their squadron ranks. They expected their combat experience in OIF (and the previous year in Anaconda) to mirror somewhat those previous experiences where people had to face a real threat and show courage in the face of physical danger. Unfortunately, it is the post 9/11 era (really, the post Shock-and Awe era) which has brought risk aversion and other current poisons in to fashion. I'd even venture that it's the post Johnny-Jumper-as-CSAF-era that has done the most to usher in this current era of pussification. Jumper had a lot of very 'old school' views on how the AF should be run and thought/acted/believed like a young fighter pilot who'd been raised by grizzled Vietnam vets. Let's not forget that Jumper is the one who said, 'if we wanted you to have a Masters Degree, we'd send you to go get one on the AF's time and dime, otherwise spend your time becoming a better warfighter or with your family.' So, your theory is completely out-of-step with my experiences as a fighter dude over that time period.

How so? The most load-sensitive parts of the airplane are the engine mounts and the tail booms.

I certainly in no way suggested that such experience be a barrier to participation in the conversation. Obviously it is not. What I did suggest (and I am surprised that my post could be so significantly misunderstood) is that someone who did have such experience in person against a significant air-to-air or surface-to-air threat would not have ever made the comparison that Blair has in the first place. QED, Blair's combat experience in the Gunship during the surge, in which there was no air-to-air or significant surface-to-air threat, and later experience in the years of un-contested flying in the permissive environments in both Iraq and Afghanistan, incorrectly colored his opinion on what the actual threat to a manned combat aviator is. As a side note, unfortunately there are a lot of folks in the USAF who think that the "combat sorties" that have been flown in the permissive environments of OEF and OIF are typical of all combat air operations, and have let that color their opinions about what capabilities are needed by the USAF to effectively accomplish our mission. Anyway, I seriously doubt that anyone who has ever had to threat react to a guided SAM (or other such no-kidding life threatening experience in a combat AOR) would ever, ever have suggested there be any sort of parity between that and anything a RPA operator faces at any point in his duties, including the drive to and from work every day. That being said...."optically-guided RPG"? DId I miss an intel brief on some fantastic new capability that makes an RPG into a guided missile, or are they still, as the name suggests, just "rockets"?

It's been a few years since I've been in one, but in my last exposure to the fleet it was not, shall we say, aging gracefully.

Ahhhhhh, I see. So, he's never been shot at by something that was actually threatening (e.g guided SAM, aimed AAA) while in an airplane. That explains it. I'm still not seeing the "risk to bodily harm" for the RPA guy.

I think that chapter needs to raise some money for Snyder's family, repaint the rock, and do some community service for some disabled veterans.

Awww, c'mon Huggy -- you've been around long enough to know that it doesn't matter a lick what the actual impact of a certain decision is, it only matters how that decision looks.

I haven't even seen the "don't urinate on the dead" or the "don't have your unit flag insignia be the same as a notorious Third Reich organization" CBTs yet. These new ones must still be way down the road.

This is someone we clearly need to clone thousands of to replace the "warriors" currently occupying large parts of the USAF.

No, I'm not implying that the story was made up or that there was any intent to deceive. I'm saying that his perception of how the aircraft maneuvered differs from people who saw it from a different perspective (back at the ramp instead of holding short at the approach end).

FWIW, the NTSB's initial report is based on the testimony of that single witness -- a GA pilot who was holding short and watched his departure. There are a number of other witnesses who disagree with what was described in the statement.

Which rule is that?

Very, very sad...a huge loss for the warbird community. Howard was one of the giants.

It will be a long time before the flying public is comfortable getting on an aircraft and not seeing someone sitting to their left in the front office. It's one thing in the military, or even when flying freight, but when people who may not be comfortable with flying in the first place have a choice, they will be buying tickets on the manned options for many years to come.

Recommend you guys don't go crucifying the crew from a flight discipline angle without knowing all the facts. "Hearing" that a maneuver is prohibited, or believing that a crew was not qualified to do something, and then all of the finger-pointing, "I-wouldn'ta-done-thats", and armchair courtrooming that goes with it is a bunch of crap....especially when the known facts don't yet support it. It doesn't frankly do anyone any good, except perhaps to satisfy some folks' innner superiority-complex-fueled need to point out someone else that appears to be doing something wrong (no different than the mindset of the uniform infraction zealots just waiting to pounce on the next untucked PT shirt or sunglasses on someone's nugget). Using Bud Holland videos as an example of poor airmanship and lack of flight discipline, and the disastrous potential consequences of those attitudes and actions, is excellent, because he is a well established, well researched case of it. I'd reserve snap judgment (and use of it as another example of poor airmanship and lack of flight discipline) on others, like this Apache video, until the actual facts are known. If it's eventually determined that they were in the wrong, then cleared hot. Until then, master arm safe to prevent frat.

Piano burn...a righteous way to remember warriors. Very strong.

We have identified the root cause. This is the kind of thought process that is killing an organization whose #1 job it is to "get the mission done". This is the type of cancer that needs to be eradicated from the USAF, and is unfortunately being spread as gospel by USAF management at numerous levels...and the young and impressionable are buying it. Additionally, this also gets back to the OTHER problem that yields these types of moronic tirades from the SNCO corps: O-6s and above who allow it to be this way. These Chiefs all work for commissioned officers whose job it is to establish the policy that the Chiefs execute. When a CMSgt is publicly offering critiques on officership, it is because his boss is tacitly endorsing it. We know this because, as soon as an officer critiques said Chief on stepping out of his lane, the Chief is quick to cry to daddy about the insolence of said officer. The circle of life is completed when daddy O-6 lays into the officer for his 'disrespect' of the SNCO...instead of there being any discussion or consideration of the reason the officer offered the critique to the Chief. The O-6s can stop this trainwreck at any time they so desire. It is 100% in their capability, authority, and responsibility to do so.

All I got out of that whole part of the thread was McSalty...stomach...Rainman's cock.

Hot tanker-on-tanker action part deux