Hueypilot

I have...I was an E in the Army Guard, and a poor college student as well. We didn't get a uniform stipend but those BDUs still wore out and I had to replace them out of pocket. I prob didn't have to replace them as often as, say, an AD crew chief, but I still went through several sets in the four years I served as an E-1 thru E-5. In any case, making MultiCam the default utility uniform would mean greater production, and prices should come down due to economies of scale. Right now it's a "specialty" uniform and isn't made in the same numbers as the other uniforms.

Army/AF dudes should make MultiCam their default utilities. MAF/heavy/helo drivers should wear the MultiCam two piece flight suit. Ejection seat aircraft will still get one-piece pickle suits. USMC/USN should adopt MARPAT for utilities and one-piece flight bags for FDUs. That keeps everything associated with Army/AF or the Dept of the Navy. That's about the biggest distinction we need. Three uniform types (two of which look the same...MultiCam utilities and FDUs). That's my two cents.

...Palace Chase...

I wasn't commenting on Helodude's links or his comment, just your statement. When you compare US violence to that with, say, 1990s Rwanda, it does make a guy wonder if you're just another gun ban proponent willing to spin any argument. One more thing, you might want to stop being so angry.

So...being in the US is just like being in a third-world country experiencing genocidal civil war? I'm not going to argue the merits or faults of Helodude's post, because your own statements are pretty idiotic in their own right. And no, I'm not giving up my guns because you or anyone else says so. Try as you might, but middle class law-abiding gun owners are not the source of violence. Maybe if we stopped pretending that they are the root of our violence problem and stopped praising and encouraging gang and "thug" culture, we might get somewhere. I found it highly frustrating that our president spoke as if my guns and my friends guns are the problem while he hosts people like Jay Z at the WH, rapping gems like this: The vast majority of gun violence is caused by illegal handguns, perpetrated by gangs in inner cities. I'm sure British-style gun laws will make them behave.

Some people don't like to read...might be an Air Force thing...

Overall, yes, it's a significant cost, but I was discussing it in the context of going from two to one-pilot flight decks. Costs would be reduced but I'm not sure by how far.

Comparing an approach to a 5000' poorly lit landing zone at a PA of 7000' in an unsecured environment to an approach to a 10000' well-lit runway with precision approach guidance in a relatively more secure environment is not a good comparison. Yes I imagine the tankers flying out of MCF wouldn't mistake TPF for their runway since its their home base and they are very familiar with it. Landing at the wrong airfield isn't necessarily a C-17 specific thing either...C-21s, C-130s and others have done it before too.

You would be sort of correct. Most airlines do not have pensions anymore. Most have funds that the employee and employer pay into, at rates that differ between airlines. Based on the employer's contribution to that fund, and the costs they share in paying for your insurance and other benefits, I figured the nearly double hourly pay cost. Even if you tripled it to $900 an hour, I don't imagine that comes real close to the hourly mx/insurance/acquisition costs borne by the airline. And including all other non-flying employee costs is moot because those costs are unchanged by taking pilots out of the mix.

Heads up to some of of you Legacy Herk guys involved in the musical chairs at LRF...word is that "they" (not sure if they meant local leadership or AFPC) will be more liberal in granting Palace Chase separations for those who want to go to the ANG or AFRC. That being said, come 1 Oct, the AFRC FTU will be working off an operational UMD and will be able to hire non-instructor crew positions (co-pilots, basic ACs, etc). No guarantee of any orders (bumming), but if you can get your leadership to support a PC application and line up work outside the USAF, it beats being sent to RPAs.

"Should". Yes, the should be able to, but we've demonstrated in the USAF that occasionally we don't, because we're too busy getting a master's degree. But flying into those fields involve ops with smaller margins for error than flying the ILS to a well-lit 10,000' runway.

So...on that Boeing 777 flight, the airline is paying the crew something like $350 per hour, plus benefits...so maybe this is pushed to $500 per hour. And it costs less than $500 per hour to maintain the 777? I know labor costs are a major expense for the airlines, but one would think there might be a few other expenses that exceed the pilot salaries for each hour of operation, to include the acquisition/lease costs.

I have yet to see a fighter or tanker fly into a FOB like Shank, Sharana, Tarin Kowt or other similar location. Congrats for outing yourself as an idiot.

I know for a fact that legacy C-130s won't fly a very stable ILS...I can do a better job. The J is a different story, but even so we can't become HUD babies. When I was a J FTU instructor I had to do a PM assault landing from the right seat for a kid's recommend, and my HUD was inop. When I told him we were still going to do it you would have thought I said we were going on a one-way suicide mission from the look on his face. After a normal touchdown sans HUD, he asked how I did that...airmanship and experience...get some. There have been many times my automated C-130J wasn't quite as automated when auto throttles failed, the autopilot was misbehaving, or some other system didn't work as advertised and I had to hand fly. Same in the C-21...it was somewhat common to spend the day without an autopilot. Automation is a tool designed to improve workload and enhance SA, not a substitution for flying skill and airmanship.

53AS was always shutting down. Now the inactivation will occur Sep 14 and not Sep 13 as previously rumored. The TFI squadron hasn't been formally announced but it's likely going to be the 50th with a smaller footprint (same as 52AS at Peterson).

Latest and greatest news is the 50th and 53rd will shut down at the end of FY14, however personnel will continue to flow out until then. A small number will remain when the 50th associates with the 913AG beginning of FY15.

The quote above misses the target...copilots are not there to "monitor the other pilot", they are there to monitor the flight. It may be semantics, but having one person on the flight deck sets up a single point of failure in decision-making and judgement. They acknowledge the workload sharing but pay lip service to it...many times the workload is low, but routinely the workload can be very high even for a two-pilot crew on an automated flight deck. This was posted on APC regarding taking people out of the cockpit...it was specifically referencing UAV airliners, but it applies to the single-pilot idea too...

I realize it can be jammed, but for many situations it would be nice to have the option.

Obviously the idiots proposing this have never flown in the busy airspace in the NE, or flown single-pilot IFR anywhere. It can be done, but the workload (even on automated flight decks) can get very high.

I had an FE tell me once that he could recover the airplane if both pilots were dead/disabled...his solution? Couple the autopilot to the ILS and the airplane will land itself. I called BS and his response was "I know it'll work because I tried it in the sim".

I think you're missing the point...a GPS approach capability shouldn't be considered an expensive add-on technology that takes away from mission capabilities. Rather, it should be an integrated part of the jet, since we all would like the ability to go home after a sortie and not pray that it's CAVU outside. The C-130J is no exception...great jet, great AD capability, but it cannot fly even the most basic GPS approach or RNAV departures. It still uses the same nav system that's in the H3 Herks, just in a slightly more user friendly format to avoid needing a nav. If Joe Bob can afford VNAV/WAAS capability for his bug smasher, surely DoD can figure out how to give a Viper, Mudhen or Herk the ability to recover using those same technologies, albeit a little more expensive so we can have a secure signal... Imagine deploying to a location and all you need is a basic TERPS look at an expeditionary airfield and draw up a new procedure that everyone can fly...

That is a valid point, but mission capabilities don't do a damn bit of good if the crews flying them can't recover because the wx is below TACAN mins and all the surrounding airfields have gone to GPS/WAAS approaches that can be flown by a Cessna 172 with a fairly inexpensive avionics mod... Come on Air Force/Navy, you can do better.

C-17 was flown out a while back.

I did a 365 then about 18 months after getting home got deployed for another 190 days. I made good money, but I'll never get those 19 months of my kids lives back. I'll probably get a black lung disease at some point for breathing all the crap they burn over there. That's on top of the normal Big Blue careerism queep that only seems to magnify while deployed. All that and I could still wind up being twice passed over for some ridiculous square not being filled and shown the door. So I left. For me it was not worth staying for another $18k.

Force trim...always wondered WTF they had in mind when they designed that system. It wants to be an autopilot, but it's not. I think they designed it to hold the cyclic while you drank your beer...