LJ Driver

All, Now that 3849s are complete and signed by senior raters, curious to know if anyone has gouge on what means what. Is there a known code? I am guessing besides the 3849, board looks at ACSC correspondence, Masters degree, and last few OPRs. Stratification of "candidates" and "eligibles" perhaps? I am not a select, so what my SR states in his comments means something. Also, anyone have numbers of how many non-selects get selected on average? Thanks for the help.

Are you guys hearing that spouses can now claim state of residence the same way AD members can? IE I moved from FL to NC this year, FL is an income-tax free state, so she can continue claiming FL as her state of residence. Think this was part of the Defense Authorization Bill last year. This sound familiar?

Fellas, nice work taking a great thread about a dude that did a tough and challenging thing and derailing it into a petty airline training argument about something no one gives a shit about. How about you STFU. Rich, great job.

Dude, take some Midol and STFU about the asswisery. Have you been here before? We give each other shit all the time. I'd think that someone with several hundred posts has actually seen this happen...

This is my point also. Ultimately you are making the money from a $200K investment from an initial investment amount of only $40K. That's the power of buying on margin. Now clearly, if you get upside down it's not so great, but that's the risk you choose to take, or not.

Absolutely right. Further, consider this: -When you buy a house, unless you pay cash for the entire thing, you're buying it on margin. It's one of the few investment vehicles that allow you to still do this. -As a military guy, you either rent, buy, or live on base. If you rent, at the end of your assignment you walk away owing nothing, gaining nothing, losing your total paid monthly rent. If you buy, at the end of your assignment you can either sell or rent. If you sell, even if you break even you'll still make money compared to renting a place. If you can keep a place rented most of the time, with the margin you bought the house with ultimately you'll make money if you do it smartly. A $200,000, 30 year mortgage factoring in inflation cost is ~$82000 in todays money. Naturally interest is added to that, but it's still a deal.

Does anyone know how often the 10 day rule for TLE gets waived? I recently PCS'd and now that my new house is ready, the moving company is telling me they are too busy to deliver for another two weeks. They originally told us there was no need to schedule early and to just call a few days before we wanted our stuff. That was a couple weeks ago, and now they say that since there are so many people PCSing they can't do it for two weeks. The DFAS website states that it is waiverable to 60 days total, but I talked to finance and while they said that they will absolutely do eveything they can to get it approved (I actually believe them), it is a SAF waiver requirement and they have their doubts. Has anyone been in a similar situation?

Again, how did you do this without a radar, and what is your definition of TF? I've asked this quite a few times now, and you still have not answered the question. Regardless of what CH states, I maintain you need a radar to do it as defined by its generally accepted means. Not sure who you're referring to as an old head wannabe, but it sure as hell isn't me. I do feel comfortable knowing that I have a solid understanding of what TF is however and how to employ it. Frankly I couldn't care less what an FE in 1980 logged. That is an absurd argument and makes zero sense. 30 years ago when someone asked what your airplane was capable of doing, did you say "well our FE logs this thing we do as TF, so I guess we can TF..." I hope not.

Right. That's still not TF, but just so we are 100% clear, you are stating that gunships at some point in their past flew contour, "terrain following" profiles, below MSA, without visual cues (ie at night with no illum, or in IMC, or both), with only DTED/TERPROM data? Sorry, I just don't buy it. Even current DTED data does not allow this yet, and past data from the timeframe that 'dhtut' is referring (early 1980's) absolutely does not support this, not to mention that even a basic EGPWS system relies on precise GPS information that was not available until the 1990's. Call it semantics if you want, but defining TF as everyone else on the entire planet does, gunships do not and did not fly TF.

Rojo, I'm sure if someone told you that their plane did airdrops and max efforts you would be ok with that? What if they said, "well, we dump fuel and compute our TOLD to land and takeoff on the available runway, so yeah we do the same thing you do." TF is a very specific mission set that is executed by few weapons systems. If you want to call clearing terrain visually and "following" it in the vertical with your "M1 eyeball", great. We all do TF now I guess.

Terrain Following by its commonly accepted definition is low level by electronic means. IE, can you employ your "terrain following" technique in IMC or 0% illumination? If the answer is no, you're not doing TF. If the answer is yes, you're using some electronic means to prevent your airplane from hitting a mountain. Unless I am very behind in the latest wizardry (I'm not), then that electronic means is a radar that gives you a pitch-bar/cue to fly the ADI from, and thus keep you clear of terrain.

Right. As requested, please explain how you fly TF without a radar. Still waiting. If that's the case, let's reduce the weight of the T1's and T2's and get rid of our fugly, drag-inducing nose, radar, mission computers, etc... Further, I suppose that is good news for the Shadows, slicks, C-17s, C-5s, -8s, PC-12s, etc! Hey fellas, you can do TF now!! Woohoo! Hey, me too! For my aircraft, which was actually designed to TF, the guidance simply states that an operational TF system is required. This includes a radar, among other things...

Speaking of DITY, where the F are the tables? The Navy site doesn't work anymore, is there another way to estimate reimbursement? I have searched the JFTR to no avail, and the SDDC site is literally useless as far as I can tell.

Umm, yes I do think you need a radar, a TF radar no less... Maybe not in the near future, at least not like the current system. But please explain how you do TF without one. Visually? That's called vis LL. On NVGs? That's called NVG LL. "Threat pen" at what altitude? I'm not sure what GSOLL means.

Umm, I don't know, when did the gunships stop flying LL? You realize of course that I wrote something that you then completely validated, then attempted to undermine what I wrote by questioning how long I've been in the T2.

Sounds a little rough. We have monthly squadron fill in the blank tests (from MQF). <85% is failing, which then requires member to lookup EVERY question in MQF, then take retest. Scoring <85% again buys you a Q-3 Form 8 and downgrade from the CC.

No. They didn't. I can say with certainty that they absolutely did not do TF, and with 99% certainty that they didn't do threat pen. 500-1000' NVG contour, maybe.

I don't know how big the SOPGM is and don't know how many the new gunpig will be able to carry. But when you consider that the new platform will have a 30mm cannon + ammo and nothing else other than sensors/comm and a few people, I can imagine that there can be quite a few hundred rounds of this new weapon loaded. Current gunpigs are crowded with guns, ammo, sensors, and people. With modern technology there is no reason why personnel on board can be drastically reduced. More room for rounds of whatever you want. We've all (ok maybe not all) seen kill-tv. When it takes 20 rounds of 105 to whack a dude that is running around in a circle I want to pull my hair out. I think one SOPGM could solve that problem rather effectively.

Who gives two shits about which wife knows more about which plane? Are you a better person/wife/woman/cook/maid/American because you know that the F-15 has more than one model? The only reason my wife can tell the difference between an XC-130X and an MC-130H is because the Talon II has an absurd looking nose and is horendously fugly. Other than that, she couldn't tell you what a B-52 looks like compared to an F-16. Who cares? She's still cool, smart, hot, etc. Seriously, are you having a pussy measuring contest because you think you know 2% about the Air Force?

No F-ing shit: Editor's Note - This is really just an April Fool's Day joke. Everything in this story is fictional, including seeking the advice of the Navy. Have a great day.

Agreed, but the MC-130W doesn't do "night low level terrain following threat penetration airdrop" either.

Don't know if you are being sarcastic or not but unless I am missing something he is absolutely not named for the show. He's been in the reserves for 22 years, makes him likely 40. No dice, Jack.

Wow, interesting discussion about gripes between tanker/receiver. On a more serious and less thread-war centric note, a question for the tanker guys: What are your druthers with -130 receivers? Specifics would be great, no need to be polite (I know you already knew this). Anything that we can do better, minus more thrust or afterburner/JATO? Anything you don't understand about why we do/ask for what we do/ask for? We almost never debrief with tankers usually because we're never in the same place and there are other things to cover but I'd like to know what you guys think and would like from us.

I assume you mean AC-130U's? I'm not a gunpig guy but I know the schoolhouse is 100% at Hurlburt with a few tdy's off station to learn more about the mission etc. Not sure about the length. If you are coming from C-5's you'll likely need a C-130E qual from Little Rock first, about 3-4 months worth at the most since you'll only do Phase I, no LL/AD/Form.

This is a narrow-minded and ignorant point of view. Do you really think that the sister services are the jack of all trades and master of none? That is absurd. How can you think that the Navy is not the master of the sea and the Army not the king of land warfare? Their aviation units do provide some non-tactical strike capability (particularly Navy), but the service as a whole is built around sea and land warfare, as it should be. If anything, the Air Force is the one who is trying to be the jack of all trades and turning into the master of few. Air, space, cyberspace, ISR, etc etc etc. We are doing things and taking on missions that have little or nothing to do with being an AIR Force, and that is taking away serious manpower and resources from our core.