Hacker

That billboard was about 5 miles from my house where I grew up in Seattle. Of course, I was way too young to get the joke when it was there.

At IFF that's something IP flight leads will occasionally do...give #2 the lead on RTB, for instance, to test his SA on the profile and NAVAID setup. IFF students are actually required to lead an RTB a couple times during the course.

Strippers in the bar was also a common tradition in Vietnam...

All the Flight Commanders at Moody had a meeting yesterday with a group of AETC staffers who are "fact finding" regarding cheating for the AETC/CC and CV. I am confident, after talking with these officers (two pilots, one JAG) that AETC has the proper perspective on the difference between gouge and cheating.

At Seymour the 335th and 336th share the same building. There is lots of interaction between the squadrons. I was in the 336th, and flew with the 335th on many occasions when they needed a pilot, and we "hired" guys from their squadron when we needed people. We have a similar situation at Moody with the two IFF squadrons, too.

It is fiction, but it was based directly on Anderson's UPT experience. I agree--this is the best book out there about the UPT experience as a student. It is a little out of date, here in the SUPT/T-6/T-38C age, but it still is really informative.

As I was watching last night, I couldn't help but think of the SNL parody that Dana Carvey did of Bush 41's post ODS speech... The one where he only had to say, "Operation Desert Storm...." and he would get a gigantic ovation for a couple minutes.

Beaver, that is an excellent graphic of our HAGS exercise on sortie OB-1. Oh...wait...that's GOUGE! BURN THE WITCH!

Is that anything like the remote-controlled egg? My ex-girlfriend used to love that one...

Students don't really transition to IFF so much that the program itself is a transition -- a transition from White Jet student to Fighter Pilot Wingman. If you haven't flown the T-38C in SUPT, then there is a 3-flight, 3-sim conversion course prior to starting IFF. For the IFF syllabus itself, students have 4 tactical formation rides to get their admin right prior to starting BFM. We definitely teach a single-seat decisionmaking mentality, with the back seat IP's job being to teach you the tactical portions of the sortie (in other words, he's not going to instruct you on how to fly an ILS, but will definitely grade you on it, as this is a task you should be fully competent in leaving SUPT). The only time that the 'pitter is just a safety observer is if the ride is a "solo" but the weather won't allow an actual student solo flight. It's certainly not correct that grades don't count at IFF: there is still a minimum passing grade for each maneuver and flight. What is meant when students say that is it's non-competitive. In other words, at SUPT, your grades matter because you're competing with your classmates for tracks, assignments, or whatever. At IFF, all of that is all ready decided, so there is no tangible benefit to doing "great" versus just "good" (aside from picking up a DG or Top Gun trophy). That's called honest feedback. You'll be debriefed on every aspect of your flight, and the standard is "perfect". Since there hasn't been a perfect flight yet, that always leaves us something to debrief. As for "you're always wrong", it's a challenge for some pilots to understand the wingman mentality: that the flight lead is calling *all* the shots, and the wingman is there to provide support, and *not* to have an opinion or make any decisions. If you are just a "sponge" and do what we tell you to, you'll be just fine. This is especially harsh at IFF since it is the first time most wingmen-to-be have ever been exposed to this type of environment and we (as IPs) have to set the correct tone early. Attention to detail. How can I expect my wingman to remember how to execute a 3K defensive BFM gameplan if he can't even remember what the *specific* objectives were for the sortie? Is it student harassment? I thought so as a student, but as a flight lead later on in my flying career it was very clear why it was done that way at IFF.

I was in your same shoes when I was nearing Track Select about 6 years ago. I saw a lot of great aspects of both lifestyles and had a tough time deciding which to go with. For me personally, it all came down to someone pointing out to me that the negative thoughts I had about T-38s/fighters all had to do with my fear of washing out somewhere down the line. I didn't think I was good enough for it, I guess, so I was leaning toward what I thought was an easier route. So, if that's where you're coming from too, I'll say that being scared of failure is a really lousy reason not to take advantage of a great opportunity for some really exciting flying and a very satisfying career in a fighter or bomber. I'm sure that you can find some equally exciting flying out of the T-1 track, but in the end that just wasn't for me. Never! The intensity of your studying will trail off significantly when you're done with your FTU, but it will never completely go away. The thing about it is, the studying takes on a different flavor the further up the chain you go. At some point, you are studying because you're actually interested and want to get better, rather than because you have to in order to pass the next ride. For me, the pendulum went completely the other way when I was deployed for OIF: I was thinking, "I should have spent *more* time studying in the vault!" Spending lots of time in a vault studying and planning sounds pretty imposing as a Phase II stud, but the reality once you're operational is that it's not as bad as you think. Choke yourself!! "Flying" a UAV is no more actully flying than playing a PC simulation (it just costs a lot more when you crash!). Seriously, I'm sure you'll have ample opportunities to get into the UAV community during your 10-year hitch if you want to, but don't voluntarily go there before you've even tried actually flying operationally. They wouldn't think of re-tracking a T-1 student that washed out into T-38s, so why should anyone expect it the other way around? T-38, T-1, T-44, and UH-1 students are considered separate-but-equal. If you're out of SUPT in the T-38, you're out. I am 6'2" and have no problems...and know pilots significantly taller than myself that also have no issues at 9G (other than the normal pain of doing that!!). This is in *no* way a slight to the heavy drivers, but the way I've always thought about it is this: There are probably not a lot of fighter guys out there who have ever thought to themselves after their career is over, 'man, I wish I would have flown a C-5'. I agree with your assertion that it would be cool to see the world rather than just fly around the flagpole. For me, the excitement of tactical flying outweighs my desire to fly to lots of places in the world and stay overnight. I guess in the back of my mind I'm thinking that I can get that fix during a 2nd career with the airlines if that's what I choose.

What this all seems to come down to in my book is this: 1.) Everyone with USAF wings has used gouge or had a bro help them pass an academic exam in one way or another -- that is part of the pilot culture, just precisely as Beaver posted above. 2.) Nobody in a leadership position is willing, once the spotlight of publicity is shined on that practice, to stand up publicly and say, "yep, that's how we do things." They have to get suddenly self-righteous, hide behind "integrity first", and point fingers at those who have _obvious_ integrity issues because they've cheated! Burn the witch!! This is the exact thing that happened to me in my OSI investigation in 1999 at SJ, folks. The specifics of my case and the CBM one are slightly different, of course, but the core two issues I noted above are the same. I had an ADC lawyer that told the representative from the ACC IG at the time (an O-6), "if you charge my client with cheating, then I'm going to demand that you level those charges against virtually every other pilot and WSO on this base!" So, my question is this: Is academic gouge -- and the razor-thin line between that and outright cheating -- going to be the AF's next witch hunt? Hoooooo-boy, if it is.

Unless forced to by their Wing/Group/Squadron CC.

'95 Ford Probe GT.

It's much easier to just put earbud earphones on under your helmet. Koss makes a pair of earbuds that have foam cylinders that block outside noise just like the EAR yellow foamies do. Not only does it eliminate the possibility that when you key the mic, you'll transmit Jimmy Buffett for *everyone* on freq to listen to (heard numerous times in the CAP during NOBLE EAGLE!), but if you're on a crew airplane you won't have to make the entire airplane listen to your tunes. I have a patch cord as was described above, but I use it to pipe radio and intercomm into my DV camera versus putting music into the intercomm.

There are two schools of thought on logging your military flying time in a paper or electronic logbook. One: Keep all your hours, civil and military, in a paper/electronic logbook you keep yourself. The up-side of this is that you will be able to keep remarks with all your sorties and that will be good when you want to review them someday (perhaps for a job interview). The down side to this is that you will have to keep up on comparing your logged hours to what AFORMS logs. I did this for about 3 years and then quit because most of the time when I located "errors", the errors were mine (in other words, my personal log was wrong and AFORMS was correct). Two: Keep a logbook for your civil flying and let the USAF track all your flight hours. The down side to this is that it will be tough to show your experience to the FAA when you want to go for higher ratings (you'll have to show your logbook *and* pull a certified copy of your AFORMS printout), and if you want to use your instrument checkrides to fulfill your BFR requirement, you have to double-log the sorties. The up-side to this is that when you go for your airline interview, the HR people will only have one set of logged time to look at instead of two. I have heard more than one instance where the HR folks discovered discrepancies between the AFORMS times and the private log times...that brings the validity of *all* your logged hours in to question. So, it's your call. There's no right or wrong way to do it. I wish that I had kept all my military time in my civil logs, but it's been several years since I stopped doing it (because of the airline interview horror story I heard) and it's toooooo late to catch up.

Just to pile on... As Toro said, there are places over the CONUS where supersonic flight by military aircraft is allowed, as well as spots away fron land out over the ocean. The supersonic corridors that military bases use for supersonic flight (syllabus training and FCF) are specifically identified in Letters of Agreement (LOAs) with the FAA. There is no single rule that says "you can go supersonic always if you're above FLXXX" or "you can go supersonic if you're XXX miles off shore." The rule in the FARs (14 CFRs...) is that no sonic boom shall be allowed to reach the ground, so these LOAs are designed to ensure that it doesn't happen around the population. As Piperpilot2004's post noted, even being offshore several miles away, a sonic boom can propegate and reach the landmass. In addition, there are a couple of FAA-designated spots for civilian aircraft supersonic flight, and those flights must be pre-coordinated with the FAA (e.g. aircraft at the National Test Pilot School, etc)

My question is this... What flying community has a need/use for a handheld GPS? It has no place in a fighter cockpit...I don't know anyone that uses one in a pointy-nose airplane. The one time that some guys tried to use it in an F-15E turkey shoot, they missed the target and their timing was all f*cked up. For point-to-point navigation, I much prefer an INS (especially if it's updated by a GPS, a'la EGI) which is tons more accurate than a commercial off the shelf reciever and is all ready hooked into the ships' systems. I think a handheld GPS is great in a GA airplane, where you're only doing 100 knots anyway. So, if you can't use a GPS to fly an instrument approach, and it isn't really useful for point-to-point navigation, what's the purpose of having one?

Depending on your mission for that day, those tasks (plan, brief, fly, debrief) might just take up your entire day. Remember that each pilot has a "desk job" that he's responsible for (scheduler, training officer, weapons shop, etc), plus any number of additional duties. That's what comprises the rest of the hours in the work week.

TS is the highest actual security clearance level. There are, however, tons of "modifiers" used on top of TS. For example, one of the most widely used is "SCI", meaning Special Compartmented Information. Another one might be CNWDI, or Controlled Nuclear Weapon Design Information. There are thousands of these specific modifiers that limit access to only those who are authorized that particular program or compartment of a program. When the F-117 was a super-secret program, it was still only classified "Top Secret"...but it had numerous modifiers on top of it that limited access to only people who needed to know about it. The reality is, though, when it comes to security clearances, you'll get what you need to do your job. In my old job we used to say "those who have a need to know, will know soon enough". In other words, you won't be out there trying to get yourself a higher security clearance for coolness value. If your job requires it, you'll get it -- otherwise you won't have that job! You won't accrue higher clearances just by making rank, either. Clearances are for specific jobs, and if you're not in a job that requires one, you won't have one. There are SrAs out there with clearances probably higher than any one of us will ever have...and then when they transfer to another job that doesn't need it, they'll be "read out" of the program and they will no longer have that clearance.

As of about 2 years ago, there was an *immense* backlog of SSBI investigations (the one you need for a TS clearance) at DIS -- something on the order of 5 years. Like M2, I had my 5-year reinvesigation delayed nearly 2 years because of the backlog. I'd be very surprised if they were "leaning forward" and accomplishing SSBIs on cadets who -- as of yet -- didn't need them at all when they're having a tough time completing them on those of use who really need them for our actual jobs on active duty. The SSBI is going to include a much more in-depth look at your history than the NAC that was accomplished for you to get a Secret clearance. In this one, DIS or the FBI will visit some of your listed references to interview them, as well as talking to people who *aren't* on your list. When my initial SSBI was being done when I was a 2Lt, I got a call from someone who I played sports with in high school, but hadn't talked to in literally 5 years and was *not* listed on my SF-86. He said, "the FBI visited me asking questions about you..." so they're pretty thorough with who they talk to. Make sure you *tell* the people who you're listing as references on your form so they are not surprised when someone in a dark suit flashes a badge and asks about you. As for the phone taps, that is complete crap. I was once read in to a classified program, and as part of all the legal hoopla I had to sign a paper which explicitly said that "they" could listen in on my private phone line at will. I had to explicitly provide them permission to do this. Of course, if I hadn't, I wouldn't have gotten the clearance for the program. So, the idea that as part of a routine cadet security clearance investigation they're phone tapping...that is a load of shite. Now...if your cadet friend hadn't been exactly "truthful" on his SF-86, or some kind of red flag had been raised during the background check, that might be a reason for them to follow and phone tap. If that were the case, there's *no way* the special agent would have told him that it was being done, except if they were standing in front of a judge and it was being used as evidence!!

The tradition is actually just to not wear ribbons on the blues shirt. If you're wearing Class As/Service Dress, officers wear "all, some, or none". Why? I have no idea. The tradition pre-dates the (recent) times when every USAF specialty had a badge, though. [ 27. December 2004, 05:12: Message edited by: Hacker ]

Here is a better shot of the modern F-15E incarnation, minus my ugly mug in the shot.

It's like Red Flag but colder, eh.

He can't possibly top the harassment I've recieved over the last 6 or 7 years over my old www.militarypilot.net website (with my UPT journal on it) or my "Strike Eagle Gouge" website that was the subject of an ACC IG and OSI investigation!