busdriver

If you managed this and graduated, please tell me your secret. That said, I don't think we're too far off in opinion, just delivery. There aren't enough Sandy1 qualed guys in the CAF, that's a fact and there is only so much training available to make more, we have to figure out when a no shit Sandy1 is required and when that duty can be handled by the alternate and contingency plans. Once that's figured out we can decide how to train folks for the less optimal setup. This is isn't about re-inventing the wheel, it's about making sure everyone is trained to still make the mission happen when the traditional wheel isn't an option.

Yes, but I agree IP is a bad term to use on the fight freq and I've always used other terms.

I think the point missed is that if people want to be fucked up, fine so long as you don't fuck with me and mine. Once that happens, kid gloves are off. If they back down after we give em a black eye, they can go back to their sheep fucking ways for all I care as long as they leave me the fuck alone. I'm sick of trying to help people when they don't seem to want the help, they need to want it or no amount of help will amount to anything. Yes, CT operations will require dudes on the ground but we don't need to get endlessly embroiled with local politics. Kill the assholes who need killing and move on. Government rules with the consent of the governed, either explicit or tacit.

High flight time on airframes is hardly limited to one or two MDS. They have all gotten the shit beat out of them the past 10 years.

I see where you're coming from JCS, but I don't think us being RMC as a go to plan is really very good. A lot of issues have to be mitigated primarily comm and we all know how awesome comm always is, yes it can be done but it probably won't be pretty. The unfortunate thing is that given ops tempo and training lines available, none of the other fighters have the capability to pick up a full up Sandy1 program. "Making it happen with available assets" as Rainman put it is more what I'm talking about. Basically we've got a full up Sandy1-4 as primary plan, Sandy1-2 with someone else to escort as alternate plan, and if Sandy's drop out altogether, spread out those duties amongst other players and train for the contingency plan. Jolly as "RMC" is really that contingency plan, I think we should train guys to that level and I know full well it'll be ugly but we have to have a capability to get guys home no matter what and ultimately it'll make us better at our primary role as RV. I'm sure Rainman can tell you the difference between having an RV that needs to be led around by the dick versus one that knows how to help the RMC/ has high SA and knows when it's appropriate to take tac lead and when he needs to STFU and let Sandy1 think. The other piece is the opposed CSAR line he keeps throwing out, there is no way in hell I want to be RMC if I'm no kidding penetrating an IADS MEZ at 50' the whole way or have an extensive conventional ground threat. Afghanistan is a different animal, but I'd still prefer to have some trained to be OSC overhead start working the objective before I get there.

I can't speak to academics, I wasn't there. The only fast movers we flew with were the Mudhens, they acted as OSC while we got ourselves to the IP then took over. What it taught me was that yes I could be the RMC in certain situations that were higher threat than Afghanistan, but I needed the OSC to have an idea of what he was doing(we spent a lot of time in planning talking about things, and they ended up locating the survivor within 200ft without ever getting eyes on, using a mix of CSAR and CAS techniques), and I would make the final call of whether to execute or not. In the end, it won't be pretty, but it can work. As you said, it depends. Incidentally, it also taught me a lot out about how to teach CSAR to non Sandy guys. What I found was that anyone who's ass was on the line took CSAR seriously. It wasn't a matter of not caring, more a matter of not knowing. In the future I'd like to see a lot more involvement from the Raptor guys in learning OSC, not sure how reasonable that really is but my gut tells me they have the ability to hang out in the threat even after Winchester let's put them to good use.

How you define this one word is what drives the issue. Low/Medium/High threat? The primary plan should always be Sandy1 is RMC. But once again, there's all those other taskings: no shit at WEPTAC had Dog tell me that in a scenario we were talking about they'd have 6 Sandy's on alert just for CSAR. 20 minutes later the CFACC tells us, nope the Hogs are doing something else. If that's the reality, every fighter pilot needs to be at least somewhat capable of acting as OSC, more than just whipping out that I-OSC checklist you may have looked at once during ME when a CSAR guy handed it out at mass brief.

What is an RMC? What is an OSC? I can't do both from the get go, an A-10 can. But if I've got a competent Mudhen crew acting as OSC, I can act as RMC under certain circumstances. That said, if we can't delineate when a no shit Sandy 1-4 package is required versus a non-traditional CSARTF how can we stand in front of the CFACC and say "boss, you're tasking the Hogs with too much, we will no longer have the ability to bring our folks home." If there is a Sandy1 Hog available, we'd be stupid to task RMC to anyone else. But we won't always have a Sandy1 Hog available. We need to be able to bring our folks home in all scenarios, which means we need to spread out the training burden to pick up the slack when the Hogs get tasked with other shit.

RMC, Rescue mission commander= The Man, responsible for making the pickup happen and all the things that make that possible MCO, Major Combat Operations= The balloon went up, big war time (ie not Afghanistan) RV, Recovery Vehicle= The dude who will actually make the pickup AMC, Airborne Mission Coordinator= The shit filter, the dude responsible to the RMC as an extension of the CAOC/JPRC, who gives the RMC the reach back info he needs to make the mission happen without overloading him with useless info or nagging him with stupid requests. A good AMC is a huge SA builder, a bad one is a black-hole.

The HC's primary role in an MCO is giving gas to the RV. That said, there is a lot of growth in responsibility coming with respect to C2. I would personally like to see the Kings become the experts at the AMC role. After they get that down, there's a push from HC leadership (even currently) to push towards RMC and an offensive weapons capability. All that said, money's tight and they got slaughtered in the VSP/RIF a couple years ago. So most of the current IPs didn't grow up with senior captain patches running around. So in some sense they're starting from a clean slate, both the good and bad that go with that. If you went that route, you could be in a position to provide an outside the box voice and make an impact, but that's really up to you.

I know, but getting both sides of that fence to really comprehend what is required of the other side is sometimes difficult. Basically the T-Zo gap is fucking bullshit, either you're a team or you're not.

The problem is the non IC dudes didn't really understand what the IC dudes went through and vice versa. I was cut from an IC program while I was a frosh, so I got to see a bit of both sides. I also remember one of the most physically demanding PT sessions I experienced as a freshman was led by our IC football players. Our uppers basically told the footballers that they were just leading PT, go. The end result was an incredible appreciation for the amount of dedication the IC guys have for being the best. Counter to that most of the IC guys got to see the difference in their peers performance when you have positive motivation (the footballers were extremely motivational despite demanding a grueling standard of performance) versus negative. In the end, I never really experienced the so called T-Zo gap my freshman year. We were all banded together to "stick it to the man" one team, one fight. Fuck them, we're going to ALL make it through and there's nothing THEY can do about it because collectively, we're better than them.

Doesn't the NGA already mail a DVD with all the FLIP on soft copy along with the Pubs themselves? It'd be a pretty easy change to just stop mailing the paper pubs and send a couple DVDs to use on a stand alone computer that you'd use to update the iPads. As far as the green photo gel to make em NVG usable: using the black/white conversion setting along with the filter made it tolerable as long as you didn't look directly at the screen, but a no-shit NVIS filter is the way to go in my opinion if you're doing anything tactical. Bonus: modern NVIS filters don't totally dork up the screen colors, just tint them slightly and there's thin stick on film available nowadays.

It ain't one, it's most rescue guys. The default in rescue is "yes I can."

Well gunners are border line retarded, so they actually add to the overall cost to the Air Force as I have to buy a second marker set of crayons to brief to them. So I'd say that FEs are more valuable but less costly, average value is incalculable. I mean how do you put a value indicator on a guy who will happily charge into a hot HLZ with you, who's only thinking about how many Hadjis he's going to get to kill?

It depends, are we talking about flight engineers or gunners?

No it wouldn't. Passing min standards does not equal excelling or showing anything approaching leadership. If they meet the min, fine but that doesn't mean they get to brag about what they've done without someone calling them on their shit. If multiple A-10 patches have said she wasn't all that impressive I'm inclined to believe them. FWIW I'm not saying she needs to be a bad ass pilot to be a good representative, it's the fact that she's trying to link the two herself and she apparently lacked the former.

Dude, most of the CAF gets what Space provides. So much so that there are briefings given about what would happen if all our space assets went away and it isn't pretty. I think you're letting your chip get the better of you, I will happily mock a space dork about being a dork but I know what he actually provides and I am grateful for his efforts. More on line with this thread, you guys need to be allowed to develop your own culture that rewards excellence. The WIC model is a damn good one, but you guys need to make it fit your world. Only you guys can really figure out how to make it work but I don't think wearing flight suits will really help.

The issue is that she's using her experience as an A-10 pilot as a qualifying mark for her to be a congressional leader. Except there is little evidence that she showed any leadership while she was flying the A-10. Hence my question about Sandy 1 qual. If she was merely saying "I served as an Air Force officer" that would be one thing, but she's claiming combat leadership based on her time in the Hog that isn't warranted, further to that she also can't claim SME experience that a Sandy1 qual would indicate. To sum it up: she's saying "I was a fighter pilot!" And my response is why should I care?

Was she a Sandy 1?

I couldn't listen through all of that interview. The amount of self aggrandizing mewling was amazing. For the younins out there, I don't care if you're a female or whatever, if you excel at your job you have my backing.if you suck expect a lot of shit, that's all there is to it, be good.

Check right 30 degrees to avoid the mountain. You mean the mountain at 1 o'clock? ...........

Erie he looks like John Brown, cheers to Capt Crawford and RIP John....

ACC sup to 202v3

I'm curious why such a strong response? It seems like a reasonable idea for the more permissible environments, so obviously you know something I don't. Educate a rotor-head?