Smokin

Hopefully it will get zero use ever. But if I found my self in the chute over any of our current AOs, I'd be very happy to have the little extra firepower. In any modern conflict, good guys will be enroute fast, but so will every bad guy who sees or hears about it. I'd gladly trade most of that BS long term survival stuff in for bullets. Unless Korea kicks off, an isolated pilot is probably either dead, captured (and will be dead in a very painful manner), or already rescued before he could even think about being thirsty let alone hungry or sleepy. This is long overdue and should have been SERE's absolute #1 priority 15 years ago.

Except for the fact that it clearly says "therapy dogs". If some cadet thought he could sneak in a mascot as a 'therapy dog', he shouldn't have a mascot. Not because it is dishonest, but because he's a pu$$y and doesn't deserve a mascot other than the butterfly he caught on the flowers he planted in his window to look at while he meditates and does yoga.

Absolutely not saying this is the reason, but I've seen a lot of guys get too comfortable with too high of energy states during SFO's. Not the end of the world when you have two departure end cables, but suddenly you need to divert to a civilian airfield and you could have problems. Again, not saying that is what happened here, the SIB will tell us, but an emergency divert to an airfield like this is something to keep in mind next time you practice an SFO.

Not bad. The vast majority of Americans are grossly ignorant of our own history. The bottom line is that American exists today because the government attempted to enact gun control. It was 243 years ago today that the British arrived in Lexington enroute Concord to confiscate guns. The American militia in Lexington were grossly outgunned, but fought to defend their freedoms anyway. Our forefathers fought and died to fight gun control and now Americans are eager to give up the very freedoms our forefathers died defending because those guns look scary. Along the line of the linked article; the British were hands down the most powerful military the world had ever seen to that point. They were beat and besieged in Boston by a 'well regulated militia'. As we have seen ourselves in Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, don't underestimate a motivated group with some guns even when faced with the worlds most powerful military.

Did someone mention filing a lawsuit? That was the first thing I thought of when I heard they were going to put that policy in place. Hope he takes them to the cleaners and scares other companies from entering politics. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-guns-lawsuits/oregon-man-20-sues-walmart-dicks-over-raising-gun-buying-age-idUSKCN1GI2CG

Not so sure, maybe the protection is too old; it looks like the whole region from WI to NY to OH is getting creamed.

Do not go to the B-course yet. You want to be through and done with this stuff before that starts. Most B-courses are hard enough for guys who are happily married, let alone someone going through something like this. Talk to your flight commander. He'll talk to the SQ/CC and he should be able to roll your class back. Last thing you want to do is to try to tackle two of the more difficult things you will likely ever do in life at the same time if you can avoid it.

Regardless of where you end up going, few people seem to realize that (at least a few years ago when I shipped one) the travel to/from the port to drop off and pick up your car is a duty day. Not leave, not permissive, just straight up tell your CC where you're going and you go during the work week like you were going to work. You file a travel voucher and you get ROUND TRIP mileage to the closest port. When I've done it, the round trip mileage more than covered whatever cheap one way ticket I could find for the other half. I don't think you get per diem, but it's also been a while so check out the travel reg.

Makes sense for elk hunting. Otherwise, not so much...

Counts as normal pay, so no. You only get tax free up to the maximum enlisted rate, which is fairly close to that of a major making flight pay before the bonus. Since combat zone exemption is pretty much already max'd out as a major, the bonus goes above that amount and is taxed. Obviously your tax bracket may be lower for the bonus, so you do save tax money in the long run, but not tax free.

"Points", at least as far as most guard guys talk about points, don't matter, it is the active duty equivalency days that matter. If you look at the PCARS on vMPF, the far left 'AD" column is what you care about to get the active duty retirement. Even for AGR guys, that number will be less than the total points, but the AD number is the one you care about in this case. The ARPC website says you need 20 years AD service, I'd assume that means you need 7300 AD days, or 7305 if they really wanted to be exact. Also a good idea to keep check that yearly, I've had to have them fix it multiple times for me. A bit dated, but from the horses mouth and I can't imagine it has changed: https://www.arpc.afrc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/366456/officials-offer-guidance-for-active-duty-retirement/

Timing is everything and there is no justice. You could get fighters and spend your first decade doing theater security where you basically do the same training as if you were at home. Or you could get the Buff and level an ISIS city a month out of the B-Course. Plenty of both have happened. Put down what you want to do, don't play any games, enjoy where you end up, and don't look back.

That sage green jacket is not a civilian jacket, but a newer flight suit jacket. He probably had a quick TDY and didn't want to bother with checking a bag. Or dropped a jet off a depot and was flying back. Might want to slow your frat roll down a bit.

For the gun argument, I think it makes sense to hope for the best and train for the worst. Ideally, I'll have wall to wall 120's with a Pk of 2.0 because I shoot them in fingertip from their formation takeoff. But when I can never get a lock because he's jammed my radar so bad my MFD says "FCR OFF" and my 9x misses (0 for 1 right now), I'd like to have a weapon that won't decoy or get jammed.

It would be easy to put checklists or approach plates in the CDU for the Viper as a PDF, but the problem is the interface. Since it's not a touch screen and you scroll down through pages via buttons on the side, there's no way to skip down 50 pages to get to a critical checklist I need right now. A software change might be able to make approach plates user friendly on the CDU, but I just don't see digging through the CDU with an EP looking for a checklist.

You can do anything.... once

All the better for the pilots if the Navy goes top rope. Undue command influence should be an easy sell.

I've been at bases where we had to carry alternate fuel for somewhere without rain, but that is not the norm. I've only had it happen to me once in 12+ years of flying, so not common enough to justify the loss in training. Go around and try again. The time it happened to me, it basically obscured the HUD, so no big deal, just don't be a HUD baby. I've seen it happen to friends where it obscured +/-30 of the nose, but that is really rare. In that case, divert. If you can't divert, then you could do a formation approach.

Unfortunately, not only can I imagine it in the CAF but I've experienced it without the transitions you've mentioned. You get a squadron leadership that came from the pentagon or similar assignment and you're likely looking at a guy who's been out of the jet for 3 out of his last 4 years. Combine that with the decreased flying hours over the last ten years and the average fighter SQ/CC has substantially less flight time (experience) than SQ/CCs had 6-9 years ago. SQ/CCs should be the most experienced dudes and leading the first flight in a war. Now the O-3 patch is taking that role with <800 hrs under his belt.

Hughes may be part of the problem, but the real 'problem' with banning items is innovation. As soon as the government passes a law or the ATF issues a letter making a specific thing illegal, people will find a way to get the same result using a new work around that accomplishes a similar result in a legal manner. It's not just the bump stock, but the arm brace and countless other things to work around the law. In modern times when a middle class American can afford to buy automated milling equipment and manufacture their own parts or even entire guns, arbitrary laws banning specific items are obsolete before they even take effect. The problem is only going to get worse as technology increases and prices decrease. I'm actually surprised we don't have a bigger problem with people buying ARs and retooling them to be full auto, but that will probably happen if the bump stock gets banned. But the true root cause of attacks like this is America as a country deliberately walking away from the moral foundation of our country. We have banned God and related religious morals from our government and society while simultaneously crying out against the evils of society that inevitably result. Hatred of people across the political isle is given only cursory public condemnation while de facto encouraged within both political parties. While a problem with both sides, the easiest example is the "love trumps hate" slogan protesters carry just before they start throwing rocks or worse.

Almost every time I have done the M9 requal shoot, there have been cops there doing their same YEARLY qualification shoot. Not a single time has any cop there shot better than I did and I'm a decent shot, but I'm not going to go win any 3-gun competition by any means. Granted these are AF cops, but I've also been at private ranges with civil police and the same general rule has applied. I think the average person would be shocked at the most police departments shooting requirements.

You can see how many really care about making a political statement when the Cowboys threatened to fire anyone who knelt. All stood. Either everyone on that team feels very different than the rest of the NFL, or the NFL players in general really don't believe in whatever it is they're 'protesting'.

Debt should only a problem if it is unreasonable for your background. You went to med school for two years and then decided you wanted to be a pilot? Shouldn't be a problem to have 100K debt. You went on a week long bender in Vegas and racked up 50K in gambling debt? That's a problem. Your no kidding credit history, how many credit cards you've had, etc, is only relevant in so far as it determines if you are a responsible individual that can be trusted with our nation's secrets.

A little off topic, but I'm not sure what you propose is any different than it is now. Guys get selected for school out of their major's board are auto leadership track unless they decline (which you can do now without being a 7-day opt). Others get picked up for school on later looks and join the leadership track. Want to be on the flying track? Don't go to school. Done.

Just the latter? If they really start involuntary mobilizations for individual non-combat deployments, I think you'll see guys across the board start to walk. Even guys within a couple years of 20 active time would consider walking. Won't get sent away from your family for six months only to make unnecessary powerpoints with the airlines. Interesting point to ponder, is a command tour something you can really non-vol someone into? If said commander does literally nothing as a commander other than sleep, eat, and workout, will he get sent home for 'lack of confidence'? With squadron commanders getting fired right and left over the past five years, seems like it would be easy to turn a 6 month tour into a 6 week trip. And since he's guard, if he did get sent home, could big blue really do anything about it if his TAG had his back?