LJ Driver

Ahhhhhh, and so is 10,000 feet. Just ask a gunship driver... Just kidding Ch, I love you guys!!

I recently got an email from AFPC asking if I wanted to volunteer to teach pilots at Kirkuk and another place in Iraq. I think they have some robot that scours the database and sends volunteer requests to qualified people.

Disagree. The very fact that these cats would likely be hand-picked from the ACC community tell me right away that they wouldn't be doing much else. It would be too specialized a unit to do it another way.

Of course the AF wouldn't retrain dudes to fly the A-10 when I'm pretty sure there are a plethora of ACC A-10 pilots that would be chomping at the bit to get into that unit if it was created. Especially considering that they probably wouldn't be doing one tour and then moving on to a UAV!

Location wise, either one is awesome. Ramstein has MANY more Americans then Stuttgart, so if your family or you wants more of the American feel and influence that's your place. You could go there and very easily not speak one word of German if you chose not to. Stuttgart is much more German, pretty much Bavarian actually and has an incredibly rich history. Great city center and lots of things to do. Munich is very close and the Porche factory is right near the city. My recommendation is to live off base and immerse yourself in the culture, but if your family doesn't want that then on base may be a better choice. Overall, I think you will be very happy at either place!

To be honest, I can't say I know much about fighter dudes' deployments. My understanding is that they have a pretty predictable deployment schedule, but you'll have to ask them. Slick guys deploy A LOT. Significantly more than AFSOC at the moment. That could change overnight. A lot of what we do is not sustainment, so there are few places that we have a long-term mission currently.

As far as the ongoing commitments, as with everything, the answer is "it depends". Right now I am home much more than my AMC counterparts. But, there are times when my entire squadron is deployed for long periods. The leaving in the middle of the night thing is pretty much BS. The not talking about what you do or where you go is real.

So if I just sent in my letter will they just send me a check for finance charges paid over the 6%?

Wikapedia states that there will be a service at USAFA on 30 June. Anyone know details? I am in ABQ now and wouldn't mind driving up to the Springs for it.

Nicely done. Even has a T2 pushing flares!

That's funny. The 319th kids really think they will be a squadron of 20+ airplanes and not be sent to Clovis. Trust me, AT LEAST half of that squadron is going to Cannon. Honestly when you think about, they are the ones that make the most sense to send anyway. Small footprint, little infrastructure requirement, still building the squadron. A perfect choice!

Dude, are you kidding? Flying anything as a pilot is 10 times better then being a passenger in any capacity. A so-called type A personality would know that.

I am actually curious how fighter squadrons do this. We have pmcr also in AFSOC. I think (hope) everyone might, it's just called different things (pmcr, local leave, office leave, family time-off...whatever)

About 4 years ago at Ramstein I was in the O club eating lunch. The waiter asked me and my bud if we wanted a beer. Naturally I said I wanted one but since it was the middle of the duty day and I was in a public-ish restaurant, I'd pass. As only a dedicated German would, he actually tracked down some reg that stated I was allowed to consume 2-8 ounce beers per day during duty hours. I was obviously very pleased and shocked, and then enjoyed a couple of Bitburgers. The best part was when a penis major rolled up on us and asked if we thought it was profesional to be drinking during the work day. We asked the waiter to cite the reg, which he happily did, and the major stormed away. Fast-forward 4 years to 2007. I have asked around to lots of different people in services and other places and no one can point to where it is written that we are "allowed" 2-8 ounce beers. Anyone know where this can be found? In the squadron it doesn't matter, but when everyone goes to lunch and some jackass tries to call me out I would love to be able to tell him to fvck off AND explain why...

I heard that unless you are 50+% disabled then the disability you receive is deducted from your retirement pay. Is that true? It makes no sense. Anyone?

WTF? YTD? As in 2007? Your fund has increased 4% in 13 days. So in other words if your fund performance stayed consistent (which it won't) it would increase 112% for the year...

If you haven't sold your place, you haven't made anything. The value of my house has gone up $60,000 in the last year, but I haven't made a penny on it. Nothing is worth anything until you actually sell it. That said, real estate is almost always a solid investment if you hold it for a while.

a bum.

Wow, those are some sweet assless chaps.

Regardless of whether this dude is a tool or not, he is going to pull mad amounts of poon for this. And stop ripping on NH, I'm from there and I love it. Just because most people think it's a city near Boston doesn't mean anything...

I was at Talladega on Sunday, and the F-15's were quite off time. It looked good when they flew by though... The anthem was not sung by anyone (just instrumental), which I thought was odd, and I could tell there was little in terms of a timeline that the MC was sticking to.

That's awesome. I was in St Mere Eglise for the 60th anniversary jump of the 82nd AD (my brother was one of the jumpers) and it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. The people there literally think of themselves as Americans and actually fly American flags above French ones. Pretty amazing stuff. And the non-military re-enactors took that job very seriously. At first I kind of laughed it off, then I realised that they were teaching history to all the spectators there, many of them French kids. Really cool to watch and be part of.

You are of course speaking of the "combat" UAV unit in Vegas? Roger that.

Held plenty of times for real overseas. Not so much here in the CONUS. It's kind of odd now that I think about it. In Europe they have departure slot times for traffic control into certain airports, yet I have still had to hold for traffic many times there. Here in the USA, there are few rules about takeoff times, but I seldom need to hold. Strange.

Did one of you guys seriously put the CV-22 as #1 on your t-odp?