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I was once told the jet (a B-1) was "crew-ready" and when we went out to the jet, it was missing an engine! It was the same tail number they had on the schedule for us to fly. There was another time I was moving my ejection seat forward during the preflight and about half-way up, it started to shake and make grinding sounds. It hung up doing that for a second or two and then continued forward. I was told that was normal (which it's not). But then again, I was dumb enough to take it as it was... On the other hand, I've seen some dumb things operators do (or don't do) to MX. For example, I use to take the defensive systems and offensive systems maintainers into the sim so that they could see the equipment they worked on actually on and in use. Some of them had worked on the equipment for ten plus years and had never seen it work except in ground tests. That's unsat! I couldn't believe it never occured to any operators to get them into the sim for at least a little bit of a look at how the stuff looks and works in flight. I made a DVD of the radar screen during a low level and most of the radar MX troops had never seen it working like that and loved the DVD. PBAR ex-Bone WSO

We heard today that the AF is seriously considering moving 20 or so C-21s to Randolph to replace the T-43 for navigation training.

We've been hearing for a while that the MC-130H T2 community really wants to take all of their navs/EWOs from Pensacola. We've also been hearing that B-1 slots were gonna be cut back to plus the F-15E WSO community. We're also getting our first F-15E WSOs to come through EWO school in a year or so this summer. Apparently they are going to be taking them from guys with an ops tour under their belt already (i.e. no guys out straight out of P-cola). The F-15E WSOs in my squad say it's a good deal because it means back-to-back ops tours. PBAR EW School instructor

I feel sorry for his son, a LtCol intel type. Imagine try live down your dad's reputation. His son is the polar opposite of the father and is a great dude/officer. PBAR

We had some young WSOs put a BDU-33 25lb practice bomb in our squadron Weapons Officer's luggage while we were waiting for the charter bus to take us to the airport for a deployment to Nellis. He commented about how his bag felt heavier but boarded the bus anyways without checking. When he got to the check-in counter, he was told his bag was too heavy and so he opened it up and moved some of his stuff to another bag. He nor the airline rep noticed the bomb. It wasn't until he got to the VOQ at Nellis and started unpacking that he discovered it. This was before 9/11 of course... The TSA definately wouldn't be able to take a joke like that now. PBAR Bone WSO

We're hearing (right now anyways) that the schools will move in FY10.

Actually Gonads, the Strike Eagle community is supposed to send 8-10 F-15E WSOs through EWO school a year. However, since they are producing just enough to keep their FTU filled up, they haven't had any they could spare to send here for over a year. I talked to some F-15E instructors who were out from Pensacola last week and they said they are trying to plus up the F-15E slots so they can start sending guys here again. Also, the wait time for the Bone FTU has gotten really long and that would help that as well... Also, the MC-130H community is pushing to start taking their nav/EWOs from Pensacola as well but I'm not sure as to the status of that. PBAR