LJDRVR

What a total failure of leadership. A wing commander gets indigestion because one of his men is *gasp* not wearing a hat. "I'll tell you Margie, I can't believe what's going on in this unit, some heads are going to roll!" The Colonel whips out his smartphone and fires of an angry e-mail to his ops group commander. Out comes the silly threat of grounding. With all of the important things a flying organization needs to concern itself with, this ARW's denizens are now focused on who's gonna get" popped" by the leadership.

My God, I can't stop laughing.

No it isn't. ALPA has commented publicly on how this is not the NTSB's normal MO. My personal opinion? Deborah Herseman is a political animal and is under pressure to throw the pilots under the bus ASAP.

What the hell is wrong with you idiot officers? Nine pages of semantics about your feelings and blah, blah, blah... When you are told by the NCA that openly gay people may serve, you salute smartly, STFU and get back to work. You're aren't paid to have an opinion. You are however, paid to enforce standards. Uniform standards. A male wearing nail polish? What's that got to do with his sexual orientation? (Which is none of your business, BTW.) You guys cry about the idiot shoe clerk NCO who called you out on something silly like PT gear, but you'll let slide facial hair and black fingnail polish? Drag the little dirtbag into his SNCO or commander's office and correct the situation on the spot. Explain to both parties present how dissapointed you are that the most basic of grooming regulations are being so blatantly disregarded. Give the little shit a lawful order to go home and fix it and explain to all the next time you see the young man out of uniform you'll have him arrested. What's become of the USAF I served in? Max, have years of high altitude airline flying rotted my brain? Isn't this how we used to do things?

I respect the hell out of his politics. Not because I'm a democrat, but because Senator Inouye represents a vanishing breed. Men who served their country. First in the military, then as elected officials. And unlike these money obsessed, do-nothing pussies we have in congress now, these men actually served their constituents. Made difficult decisions. Compromised. Were not blinded by money and power and influence. Barry Goldwater George McGovern John Glenn Daniel Inouye

Holy crap!

Rutgers to boot! An outlier for sure. Rutgers to boot! An outlier for sure.

I wonder if "Duwayne" was the one shot? What a horrible life sentence of name for a kid, huh? Nobody named Duwayne is going to be the Nobel laureate for physics or become President of the US.

I watched her video. I thought she was above average. YMMV.

Rick is pretty amazing. I read his column for years in airways and have his book. Totally humble guy who's just had a lifelong love affair with airplanes. He retired a few years back from FedEx and lives up in Friday Harbor Washington. When he was in new-hire class at Tigers, they were doing the around the table meet and greet. Rick had commented on how he had just returned from Laos, having flown there as a civilian. One of Rick's classmates commented that he had spent a night there once. "Where would that be?" Asked Rick "Tchepone." Replied the man. "Are you sure?" Rick asked. (Pathet Lao, artillery, not a place to visit.) "Yes, that was the place. You see, I was shot down there." "We were both smiling at that point. Everybody else was silent, listening intently. "When was that, do you remember the date?" "Sure." he said, and told me. Something strange rang a bell. A loud one. This was rapidly becoming one of those strange, rare, haunting moments when when you have the feeling of having been there before, when some cosmic forces align to turn our lives around , that special meaning is taking place, when what me might call a coincidence becomes significant and special. Some call it synchronicity: a lovely perhaps spiritual phenomenon. "You callsign wasn't perhaps Playboy, was it?" "YES" How did you know?" Because I was flying the Skyraider on your rescue."

Exactly. I mean it's kind of funny that a motivational speaker is that round, but it sounds like folks are buying her product, so good for her. I'll tell you one thing. Having watched her video, she's a very talented speaker. (And there aren't too many.) And she's likable to boot. If she was thin, we would't be as critical.

Here's some advice: Read Brabus's post. Then read it again.

How about O-7 and above? Not the least bit envious - I get to do what I dreamed about as a kid. And I pay for my lawn care. I shouldn't have to pay for a General Officers also.

Say, that's crazy talk! Setting aside the larger arguments of class warfare, The underlying issue that strikes me is simple: Younger, lower-ranking military folks don't make a lot of money. While nobody is going to begrudge and A1C or First Lieutenant their BAS or BAH, what occurs is as the individual is more self-sufficient, they still get the perks. Again, no worries at the Lt. Colonel or MSgt level, but when a GO is making a healthy six figure salary with their housing provided AND an entertainment budget, they should be paying for somebody to mow their damn lawns.

You make the decision to operate outside of your obligations, promises and marriage? You take your lumps. You always get caught. Always.

Yeah, but he's no longer subject to that part of the UCMJ. I know what you're saying, though. It bugs me when people want to derive humor from Lisa Nowak's misfortune. She was an incredibly high-functioning, intelligent and driven professional who's qualifications and accomplishments are way more impressive than just about anybody on this board. She was also part of a sick and broken culture at NASA that can best be described as 1970's Navy fighter squadron leadership. Like much of aviation, the stigma for speaking up and asking for help associated with her environment prevented her from getting assistance. After she melted down? They threw her away.

Saw it last night - great movie. Of course they missed on a point or two. (Like accelerating to get through the severe turbulence faster.) But it wasn't really an aviation movie, it was about addiction and struggling with what it is to be human again and reclaim the truth. Denzel Washington did such a great job with the character that the less than real dynamics didn't matter at all. Good casting, good dialogue. Really well-done movie. The funniest thing is that my passengers are coming up to me at work. I was buying a magazine in Honolulu to read on my redeye to Dulles this week and some lady asked me if I had seen it yet. "It's really kind of frightening to realize that sort of thing might be happening." She told me. It took all my self control to not answer: "No, ma'am - that sort of thing only occurs at Southwest............... .....and Delta." Too funny.

Lots of good advice. I can tell you from personal experience, you're not going to finish a degree on active duty. There will be too many demands on your time, and your unit may not release you for a commissioning program if their manning sucks. If I had it to do over, I would have joined my local Guard tanker unit as a boomer.

No references needed. It's common knowledge that MRO's use hordes of un-certificated, poorly trained and marginally supervised personnel to conduct heavy maintenance. There have been investigations, loss of repair station licenses, and so much bad press that even the mainstream media has picked up on it. Research it yourself, his post was totally accurate.

Excellent! Thank you to those who responded with an articulate, well thought out arguement. (I was hoping Huggy would chime in.) As I said in my initial post - I'm not married to the idea. And you know something? You're absolutely right. Thanks for reminding me why and keeping me intellectually honest. I still think bullshit acts like climbing from one airplane to the next should be chased out of town by organizers and performers.

That's the best arguement you can bring? Only real men risk their lives and anybody who questions the carnage is a pussy? There is no learning from it and moving on in the airshow business. More than any other facet of aviation, it's the same needless accidents again and again. Over two decades of being beaten over the head with Bud Holland and there's still a large aircraft and crew lost practicing for an airshow, doing loaded up, high angle of bank turns close to the ground. Neil Armstrong was insipred to become a pilot by building models, drawing airplanes and hanging out at the local airport.I think we in aviation aren't going to lose out on any earth-shattering talent if airshow flying is curtailed. I'm a lot more inclined to believe the freedom arguement.

I don't want to make this part of the thread discussing the loss of the fine gentleman who died during the L-39 portion of the Quad City airshow. Here's my question(s): It's 2012. We no longer have to convince the public that our Hisso-powered JN-4's are safe for them to ride in at the state fair. While I'm all for freedom and entertainment and cool airplanes flying close to the ground, Hasn't this gone too far? Haven't too many good people died just so Ma and Pa Kettle can be entertained? Is one human life - or even an airframe - worth ten thousand snap rolls at ten feet? Is the military's funding in danger of being cut just because a couple of thousand people don't get to see a C-17 or a B-52 in flight? I'm not married to to this idea and could be easily convinced with the right arguement. Perhaps the freedom to fly low level acro and share the joy of flight is worth the potential (And often inevitable) loss of life. But I'm not so sure anymore. Some guy losing his life so rednecks can watch his half-baked stunt of climbing from a biplane to a helicopter? Fuck that. Thoughts?

My understanding of the L-39 is that most have the seats deactivated. So sorry to see this happen.

Not a rainman sycophant, but THIS.

Neil was my boyhood hero. I was two years old in the summer of '69 and sat on my grandmother's lap on an Ohio farm and watched. I drew pictures of rockets and airplanes and astronauts. I didn't have the gravitas to become an astronaut, but I served my country and I became a professional pilot. And a sort of amateur Apollo historian. What we did in those few short years are the crowning achievement of our age. Long after Nixon, Woodstock, the Korean war and other pieces of twentieth century happenstance are consigned to the dustbin of time? Young children will read about Neil Armstrong. And memorize the date of 16 July 1969. Hard to see an important part of your childhood die. What an amazing life he led.