Steve Davies

How very sad that this chap in Offutt should invoke the 'shame on you' line at something so harmless. I would call that a major overreaction. He's probably the sort of man who would also object to a USAAF WWII nose art calendar on the basis that it depicts female nudity.

Did you forget the <sarcasm ON> tag? Or do you mean the Elmendorf guy made it realistic? If neither: what is realistic about an officer in the USMC attempting to launder money without first concealing his identity? And what's realistic about someone who still needs help shifting $17.2m 18 months after he initially found it? Finally, is an 18 month+ tour realistic for a USMC Captain? Me thinks not. If anyone falls for this, then they are both stupid and greedy. They deserve all that they get.

Humps Sorry to hear that your first visit back in some time coincided with unusually wet weather, even by our standards! I opted to go to Duxford instead of RIAT, which means that I was very luck with my choice! Are you guys departing tomorrow or Monday? If the latter, then you could always drive up to Duxford and catch the show tomorrow...

The RAF exchange guy's 'tash is nowhere near as good as Squadron Leader Pablo Mason's from 1991 Gulf War I fame: Mason was a hugely contentious character, but you can't help admire that he went to war with such a massive handlebar. FJ guys certainly aren't.

Humps I would hold onto those memories fondly - the 'summers' in those days were much better than they are now! Out of interest, are you coming here with some Hogs or something else? I probably won't be there, but if I am I'll try and look you up.

Bring wet weather clothing; it's British summertime.

Huggy Thanks for the correction on the Deptula part - if not a FAIP, can you confirm whether or not he was prematurely-graying? I always apply the 10 per cent rule to any story I hear from Air Force pilots (and particularly old Eagle jet drivers), although this one must be at least 20 per cent true as I have actually met "Bashful", one of the seven dwarfs!

On a related note: a little known story and humorous diversion. In the very early years of the Eagle, the Aerospace Medicine people stuck their oar in and started telling TAC that they needed to hire shorter guys into the Eagle community because they were better able to handle the Gs. It was more than coincidence then, when in the fall of 1975 the first ever B course class to accept FNGs consisted of seven freshly-graduated UPT studs who were all vertically challenged. Meanwhile, the comparatively-tall and prematurely-greying Dave Deptula also joined the class as the first FAIP to go to the Eagle. The IPs quickly named the motley crew 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs', and all seven of the shorter guys were named appropriately ('Sleepy', 'Bashful', 'Grumpy' etc). Some of those guys still retain their Dwarf call signs to this day. TAC eventually told AM that it would hire people as tall or short as it wanted, since there was no evidence in the jet that any one group was better than the other at sustaining Gs.

Not so. I cracked one of my car windows a few weeks ago with what amounted to little more than a very gentle collision with a blunt object. I have also been run over and cracked the windscreen of the car that hit me (explains a lot, I know), yet I walked away from it with little more than a dead leg and a sore head. Sounds to me more like the 'victim' was just extremely unlucky and hit his noggin in just the 'right' spot...

The OP, who clearly has a contact at Shaw, mentioned it. Since no-one knows exactly what happened and when, that's jumping the gun.

Indeed, congrats to CH! Beers are on me in a few weeks' time. I raised my glasses, as per M2's suggestion, but then I couldn't see anything so I have put them back on again.

Re-reading the press report, I don't suppose it's easy to have faith in a police force whose senior officers cannot even formulate a proper spoken sentence:

LJ Obviously, it's for a jury to decide how to interpret someone's actions in the context of written law, but for me the key part of your quote is this: Without all of the details, I don't really see how you can call him 'fair game', but working along with what has been reported: pushing someone because he groped your missus displays neither extreme disregard for human life, nor a substantial step toward committing murder. It also seems to me that he probably did not deliberately or intentionally push him so that his head hit a nearby car. It's obviously a subjective issue, but that's my take.

Out of interest, will the AF be inclined to allow this guy to carry on working in the squadron while the legal process gets underway? Would that be a decision made at squadron, wing or higher level?

The premise of the original point was that trumping this up to make it a case of attempted murder is plain ridiculous. I don't recall him saying that it was OK to assault another individual.

Sounds like a a total waste of police time and resources. Aren't there real criminals in South Carolina who need to be dealt with?

Can't be bothered to reformat the text below, but this is taken from the GAO's latest report and provides a useful update on the ABL.

Lindsey The Air Force currently has one in the nose of a 747-400 and by all accounts it works quite well. See: ABL

Pretty entertaining!

Oh dear.

Then go and post somewhere else. Baseops has been a Troll free site since I registered a few years back, and I think the regular posters here would agree that that is exactly how we want to keep it.

Blu4 has done a good job of kicking this salacious story in the nuts, but since since some people will miss this, this is a response from a guy in Dozer's squadron: