HeyEng

There is also an issue with the engine anti-ice. The LEAP engine nacelle lip uses more composite materials than the legacy nacelles and can catastrophically fail if the anti-ice is left on in dry conditions for more than five minutes! The AD warns this could result in “an un-powered off-field landing”! https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/08/10/2023-17197/airworthiness-directives-the-boeing-company-airplanes

This is a good video of how those mid cabin doors are used and de-activated. I suspect that some of the bolts were either not installed or not properly torqued down and the door moved up when it hit some turbulence.

Yeah, I could not get that video to load up for some reason.

Timelapse video of the recovery of the P-8:

And I think “Old” for a tanker or bomber is different than “Old” for a fighter. The AF has reluctantly come around to my way of thinking and will purchase some F-15EX. I always thought that Big Blue should have taken advantage of the continuing product and design improvements that Boeing and Lockheed have done on the F-15 and F-16 lines and sold overseas and have been replacing older airframes in their block groups.

Well if the Belgians are trying to implement a one world government we don’t have to worry since they cannot corral their own multitude of political parties and different language regions! Belgian is like you unemployed brother in law sleeping on you couch, who tries to shoehorn himself to get invited to an event on your side of the family for the free food and drinks!

People often asked me if there is anything to do at an overseas base if you could not get off-base. They were surprised that there were restaurants and clubs to go to, I guess they assumed that that it’s something like Full Metal Jacket. I joked that at Ramstein the Belgiums sole purpose in NATO was to run a night club! Apparently I’m not alone in my belief that they are the black sheep of NATO! https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2023/09/shared-threats-unequal-efforts-belgiums.html

Subsequent photos show that the fuselage is cracked open so this aircraft will probably be written off. The P-8 has been one of the better DOD acquisitions and had a relatively smooth testing and fielding especially when you compare it to the KC-46!

A P-8 Poseidon slid off the runway and into the water in Hawaii, possibly due to WX. No injuries reported and from the photos the damage looks minimal, but an inspection might reveal a hull loss if there is major damage to the MLG trunnions and engine pylons and wing spars.

I think you would have better luck finding someone on Cults3D, Thingiverse, TurboSquid, etc and go on their message boards to hire someone out. Chances are someone has already created a file for the aircraft you want and it just has to be exported to the format you need.

News Nation probably has been the leader in covering all the UAP stuff and they just broke the story that there were possibly UAP/balloons spotted over the arctic circle prior to the Chinese spy balloon incident!

C.W. Lemoine breaks down the “Air Force Era of Transformation” on his podcast.

This pilot is suggesting that there might be more trouble on the horizon for UPS!

On a completely unrelated matter, the Navy found the poor scapegrunt not guilty of setting the Bonhomme Richard on fire. I don’t know what the rate of not guilty Court-martial convictions are in the Navy but I’m guessing they are pretty low so I’m guessing the case against him was pretty weak! https://www.2news.com/news/seaman-recruit-found-not-guilty-for-destroying-navy-ship/video_f95d432f-bf23-5bf3-944b-4d5975ed92ec.html

I don’t doubt that circling approaches are a necessary training requirement, I just wonder if it’s necessary to do that type of training in a T-38. On another note, when I worked at ATA we used to regularly do a “circling” type of approach on the 727 in to Midway airport although technically it was a visual maneuver but the pilots who had training in circling approaches did much better than those who didn’t.

As a former FE in the AF as well as civilian life I never had the pleasure of flying an aircraft with wings the size of credit cards so this video was very informative. I never realized that the T-38 was a category E approach aircraft but it should have been obvious since the wings are essentially scaled down from an F-104. The author states that we have been crashing T-38’s on circling approaches for 50+ years so I have to ask, is this type of training really that necessary on the T-38? https://youtu.be/huYvrZm_Y_M?si=UnqokXrEaumim5Mi

I’m in the process of reading John Nichol’s book “Eject! Eject!”. It is the history of the seat ejection system with heavy emphasis on Martin Baker. I purchased the book after watching an episode of Ward Carrol’s podcast after he interviewed this author.

And it was not just limited to NATO countries either, the Soviets had similar plans for Sweden. The Russians learned the hard way not to tango in mock dogfights with Swedish Viggens and often stalled their aircraft with trying to turn into a Viggen at low altitude! Soviet sports and Olympic teams were filled with Spetsnaz agents and were more “free” to wander around in target countries without a KGB keeper that their teammates had to endure!

Gen. Mark Milley was interviewed by CBS Sunday Morning about the Chinese Spy balloon. Apparently the flight was never intended to fly over CONUS and the sensor equipment was never activated. What was really interesting is that he was never asked (or it got left on the editing floor) about the other balloons/dirigibles that were shot down as well!

The DIA responded to a FOIA request from the Black Vault about the origin of Covid and they released a very heavily redacted document revealing very little information in their effort to clear up the mystery of COVID’s origins! https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/dia-releases-heavily-redacted-documents-on-covid-19-origin-raises-more-questions-than-answers/?fbclid=IwAR1ecaNxh1LQQpbUkK-SIWFUn_-Op1UwPzR9CNDy6M-5hHa2RFznk_nEi9w_aem_AfIAp6C21UOEbBJR9GdmIG9PLIA3ZA_Ix7Tgs86oFJDIrmFM8VfkBcZYOZiiiVTtrlQ

I expected that to be a Babylon Bee or Onion article!

It’s also important to remember that a disability rating for a service member is completely different from a civilian. A bum knee or shoulder might just be an annoyance in civilian life but could disqualify you from worldwide deployment and curtail further military employment. Take the AF fit test for example. The AF expects you (males at least) to be able to run a timed 1.5 mile course with little regression for ages 18-49 (after age 49 you get three more minutes) and in any weather environment! There is also a certain amount of fudging going on with VA claims too. I remember one SVO who wanted me to claim all sorts of things I thought was dubious at best. He also had no good answers on what disability claims might affect civilian or GS employment. I can certainly see some individuals being talked into claiming benefits they might later regret.

I can guarantee you that any grunt you talk to who had to train Afghanistan soldiers would tell you that they would fold up like a cheap chair the minute we pulled out and told someone in his/her chain of command. That message got filtered out before it even got up to corporate. Big Blue was not any better! Anyone with a brain could see that mandatory deployment as part of your career progression to do make believe jobs and running around ensuring airmen had their PT shirts tucked in and wearing reflective belts was a logistics nightmare! I ran into so many airmen deployed in Afghanistan and Manas who had no clue what they were doing there other than to do “busy work” and count the days when they returned stateside!