Hacker

Personally, getting all huffy over some extremists like this is a complete waste of energy. There is no argument you can make or velocity of punch you can throw which is going to make them change their opinion. They are so far beyond normal, rational thought that anything you do to show them just how far away from center they are will be completely ineffective. Best to just recognize them for the whackos they are and, so long as they aren't causing any violation to anyone's life, liberty, or property, let 'em be.

If you do some research on the "church" you'll find out that they're really not much of a church in the sense that most of us know it. They are the same thing to Christianity what suicide bombers and terrorists are to Islam.

I don't know what kinds of squadrons a lot of the people that are answering here are in, but every squadron I've been in has had a "wives' network" which is always informal but still wields all the Power of the Force. It's not something that wives are going to 'join', but it's more out of necessity that spouses will participate. When fighter squadrons deploy, generally most of the husbands are going to be gone for a length of time simultaneously. Spouses generally have to stick together during deployments for a lot of reasons -- anything from making sure lawns get mowed (sts) and cars get fixed (I know, sounds chauvanistic but I've found these are generally true problems) to just plain old mutual emotional support. Most of my wife's best friends at each duty station have been other wives from my squadron. The same thing holds true for those other squadron wives...and when you get groups of inter-linking frineds like that, *bang*...there's your network. Information, good and bad, spreads through the network like wildfire. The leadership can even use the network for good and squelch rumors by releasing the right information via their spouses. If any pilot out there thinks that the leadership doesn't get wind of when their wife is complaining about something that happened to their spouse at work, they're dreaming. I see a lot of petty complaints from men on here about the hens getting together and clucking about. I also see some spouses here saying that they're going to Fight The Power. Good luck on that for both sides. The spouse network is there, for better or worse, and the Force is Strong with Them.

Well, I certainly did not assert that IFF was too tough of a program for a FAIP, IP, or anyone else. If it was that tough, then the pipeline students wouldn't make it through! No, my point regarding FAIPs has everything to do with attitude and nothing to do with stick-and-rudder skills. Most T-38 FAIPs, if they approach the training with the proper attitude, do extremely well at IFF.

You might be surprised at how many T-38 FAIPs, especially, show up to Smurfs thinking that they have it all figured out.

Chicken, beef, same-same. Guys from my squadron who flew during the shock-and-awe portion of the war, but went home prior to 30 days after 17 March, aren't eligible either. What a f*cking joke. Guys who are over there now flying "Operation Noble Baghdad" can get it, but those who flew back when the Hadjis were actually shooting back *don't* get it.

No, the moral of the story is that FAIPs with fighter follow-ons, no matter how hard they wanna believe it, don't know a f*cking thing about being a fighter pilot.

That's the best words said *yet* about this issue. I have been previously accused of UCMJ violations, and I was basically immediately declared guilty by everyone (leadership, mostly) just by being *accused*. I can tell you firsthand what a miserable feeling that is, especially when you legitimately *are* innocent. For me, I had my day, and cleared my name. Let Brimer have his day, too.

The accusation was never made that he wasn't a skilled aviator or instructor. He may have been, I don't know. Unfortunately, that has no bearing on the actions he is being accused of. The issue, as I understand it, had to do with his conduct regarding test material and his motives for distributing that material selectively to students. There is actually more to the story that people are talking about, too, and I'm surprised that hasn't been brought to light (although it appears nothing illegal transpired in that realm). Judging from what I see from many Tweet FAIPs that go through IFF, I think he had a skewed view of what "cooperate and graduate" and "if you ain't cheatin, you ain't tryin'" is supposed to mean. It certainly does not mean to act how the IP and students acted in this scenario. Unfortunately, the students in UPT have to look to the IPs as mentors for guidance on things like this. Since they don't have any experience in this area, they have to trust that when an IP says something is 'okay' that it really is. In this case, it wasn't. So, IMHO, we had an IP with some poor judgment and a group of students who had some really poor mentorship. Back on the original topic of HerkBum's post, I have seen many pilots who are very skilled and knowledgable in the airplane have some appallingly poor judgement while on the ground.

Anyone who washes out of IFF or FTU must go before a Flying Evaluation Board (FEB). The purpose of the FEB is to answer the question "is this person fit for aviation service?" If the answer is 'no', then the person can lose their wings or keep their wings but never fly again. If the answer is 'yes' then the FEB can recommend a course of action for the individual -- either to be re-instated into the training program which they washed out of, or to be sent to some other rated flying job. What *usually* happens is the Wing CC is able to offer a waiver to the FEB, and that waiver essentially says "we'll spare you the risk of going to an FEB, and we're sending you to some kind of non-fighter aircraft." Most guys end up taking the waiver, and from IFF most guys go to BUFFs or BONEs. The force shaping initiatives only apply to personnel who wash out of or quit *initial* technical training (in a pilot's case, SUPT). By the time a pilot gets to IFF or FTU, the Air Force has all ready sunk a significant investment into that pilot and would prefer to keep him/her in *some* kind of cockpit so long as the FEB finds them to be a safe aviator.

This is nothing new... Recall this piece, written by a USAF fighter pilot who had recently returned from an exchange tour. He posted it on Col Hackworth's website circa '99 while he was in ACSC, and relates the situation regarding medals during ALLIED FORCE:

No...they pushed about 40 miles north from one of the north tanker tracks (Dog North?) and close to the Baghdad Super MEZ to support fighters that were working the F-18 shootdown near Karbala. As far as I know, nobody else involved in that operation (two guys in my old squadron were the initial OSCs for that search...) were awarded *anything*. That's okay...at least they're not eating as much crow as the B-1 crew that were awarded DFCs for "killing Saddam" on a TST tasking. One of the guys who was on that crew apparently was awarded his DFC while flying T-6s at Moody (and after Saddam was found alive-and-well). Reportedly the Squadron Commanders briefed everyone to not laugh when the citation was read!

No, the nametags really are that big at Lakenheath, and her name really is that long...

As RAMSTY mentioned, qualified females have applied on the bast two boards. Two made it to the finals last year and two made it this year.

Well, I am not gonna go that far by a long shot. I'm not trying to heap on some God-like praise of her skills by my comment, just note that she was a better flight lead and IP than many of the other IPs in the squadron. Not the best...just better than some of them. Every pilot I hear talk about her making it on the team automatically starts implying that it was strictly because of her gender. I haven't heard one pilot in the discussion consider the possibility that she got there on merit. I merely wanted to relate that, in my experience, she was a legitimately good fighter pilot and didn't make it to the Team due to some kind of gender quota or batting her eyes and shaking her stuff in the interview. On top of that, she's a cool one to have in the bar and can out-drink, out-curse, and out-sexually-harass the vast majority of fighter pilots I know. I'm interested to see how she tempers those "skills" now that she is a recruiting tool (no STS required there...).

The discussion on that forum reminds me of the opening slide that a UPT buddy of mine (now a F-15C IP at Tyndall) used on his job brief at SOS:

I flew with her in the 336th at SJAFB and I can assure you she's just as qualified as a fighter pilot than any of the other guys on the T-clones. She was a better 4FL/IP than most of the guys in the squadron. I don't think everyone is constantly looking at their AFORMS printouts and yardsticking their experience against what it takes to apply to the Thunderbirds. Hell, I don't know the min requirement to get on the team, but it's only because I really don't care and have never looked into it. [ 07. July 2005, 17:14: Message edited by: Hacker ]

A little thread hijack... Back around '02 I was out at Nellis for WIC support, and the Cocks were flying red air for the F-15E division. For some reason on this particular day, my 2-ship was tasked to tag along with the red air 4-ship to go against the WUGs. They used the callsign "C0ck"...and gave my 2-ship of F-15Es the callsign "Beaver"!! The call to tower that "C0ck MARSA Beaver" was #1 for takeoff was funny enough, but on the Highway Departure, as we passed Indian Springs, we checked in with Range Control as "C0ck and Beaver"! The controller paused a sec, and when he keyed the mic you could hear that he was laughing... Controller: "Say again callsign for range entry??" C0CK 01: "That's <extra enunciation> C0CK and BEAVER for the XXXX range time." Controller: <laughing even harder> "Copy C0CK and BEAVER....heh, cleared scheduled, cleared tactical!"

All right guys, calm it down a little bit. We're getting wrapped up in some minor terminology issues here that, obviously, don't make sense. The problem is, boys, an airplane does not get a RWR indication for a surface-to-surface anything. If it was a SCUD, a Seersucker, a FROG, an ABABIL-100, or BM-21, any airplane out there would have had zero indications outside of the visual acquisition of the smoke trail at launch. These weapons are not radar-guided, so they would not have some kind of radar pointed at an airplane to aim them prior to launch. The other problem is that outside of the BM-21 rockets I don't know of any S-S missiles being used against aircraft over in Iraq. So are we really talking about that...or was FB311 actually trying to describe a ballistic SAM launch, which happened a sh*tload of times in Iraq because the SAM operators were scared of the HARM. EDITORIAL COMMENT: Thanks, Weasel Dudes!! So...to translate the post -- there was a ballistic SAM launch at the 135 and 130, they got no RWR warning, it flew out in front of them, and they flew through the smoke trail after the missile passed. The boomer saw the launch and was scared because the guys up in the front office did not maneuver. The 135 co-pilot had all the SA while the pilot was scared and whizzing his trousers. The grizzled Gunship crew laughed about it.

10K over Karbala on the 2nd week of OIF when I was shot at by two ROLANDs. Both of them detonated less than 100 feet behind my tails. There's not enough $ in the world to make me go back to that place/time again -- EVER.

Wearing the nametag on the shoulder comes primarily from wear of a loaded survival vest, although you'll have F-15C and Viper guys tell you it's because of the COMBAT EDGE vest. Guys were doing that long before the counterpressure vest came along, though. The reality is, they're both good reasons -- the name can't be read under either item of gear, and also can get caught up under that stuff.

Looks like you *have* learned something in the mighty Smurf! There's still a long way to go after OB-4 solo, but looks like you've got the right sight picture, so good luck. Let's hear an update when it's time for DB-4. For what it's worth...you won't "smell the cordite" when you shoot the gun in real life (unless you're going to a Hog). As a matter of fact, the actual gun shooting is pretty anti-climactic -- it's the part where the bullets impact which is really cool.

Wait until your first Phase I or Phase II ORE/ORI...then it will allllllll make sense! The short story is that they're simulating generating sorties while in a chem/bio attack environment. Pilots will wear the regular helmet with the mask up and visor down to simulate wearing the the Aircrew Chemical Defense Ensemble, which is basically a complicated gas mask you can fly with. It's easy to damage the real thing by wearing it in an exercise, and because the field of view is pretty poor through the eyepieces, it's safer to fly during an exercise with it simulated. I don't think he's going to go fly with the flak vest on...it's likely just there while he's on the ground prior to getting in the jet and going. [ 07. June 2005, 20:02: Message edited by: Hacker ]

I was told yes by the LS techs at CBM - even the clear visors.

Gotta love those in the cockpit shots showing a dude's hands maneuvering the jet, yet there are OFF flags on the instruments. [ 02. June 2005, 01:09: Message edited by: Hacker ]