busdriver

Wait, ISR is more than Pred porn?

Shot at and missed a predator, impressive.

Story has the ring of truth, regardless though it made me smile.

Risk Rescorla was an absolute badass, but also a true leader. A man that put his people before himself until the end, so that others may live. A rescue professional if there ever was....

No sarcasm from me, I was serious. You're right, F-15C strafe and targeting pods are two separate topics.

To the point, thanks for the re-direct

Does anyone really think that light grey guys would be present and so under employed they'd be able to enter a stack? If they're there, it's for a reason and strafe is a contingency. NOT saying they shouldn't train to it at least a little and have a passing familiarity but primary attack players isn't even remotely on the list of reasons they should practice strafe.

Kinda like I figured, violent agreement.

I was working with my boss at OSK when I was at Kadena to push strafe packaged with limited initial on-scene commander training. The Eagle push was to make the gun actually work to force maintenance to make it work, my push was to introduce the fighter guys to CSAR.

Just bring back Eagle Eye

I know, I was trying to get everyone on the same page.

I was obviously not clear, a defined threat level (low, medium, high) has a lot of assumptions built in that do not directly correlate to a threat hierarchy to specific aircraft that would in turn lead to a risk level. Obviously, ground troops in close proximity to an objective might drive a high risk to helos but a low threat environment if all they have is AK-47s. A highly integrated ADS might drive an overall high threat level, but if the objective is completely terrain masked from any possible threat, well that might be only medium or low risk for the helos but high risk for supporting fighters. If there are Flankers out and about, what do I need to make sure they're more concerned with keeping themselves alive and not looking for low slow targets?

Meant more as a joke brother.

Long range VID? Ain't no way in hell the B-word is making its way to the Eagle community....

Seems like we're mixing up risk, threat level and threat to specific aircraft.

I blew over that intentionally, maybe at the detriment of my point. In recent history the helos have been cleared to execute while the escort fighters have been told to stand down. I'm not sure of the timeline, but it was around the same time that you lead the effort to pickup the F-14 crew in OIF.

History says you are wrong. But it's all a moot point, an HV-22 is completely beyond the budget for CRH.

The part about this that kills me is that sweet I'm SOF seems to think it's bad form to ask advice from the old guys. Surely their experience means nothing, and I should only look to the guys that made rank. Fuck the mission, successful promotion is all that matters.

You already said it, a relatively uncontested LZ and the farther away the more it favors the V-22. Keep in mind PR is not just CSAR. I'm not saying a V-22 is an appropriate replacement for the 60, but it fits very well into the Air Force's core function of PR it just happens to be in AFSOC which means it's masters consider it a SOF asset, not a PR asset. But had nothing to do with why the GAO upheld the protest, the AF fucked up their accounting based on what they said in the RFP. The UH-60 is a medium lift aircraft, the combat ready HH-60G really isn't.

The V-22 is a great choice for PR for some situations, and a terrible choice for PR in others. The bottom line is that we need to have a capability to ensure that any pink body that is at risk has a chance of getting home if shit goes pear shaped. PR is a core function, if shit goes bad are you prepared to step up and make sure that you've done everything possible to make sure your bro gets home? If your answer is those Sandy/Jolly/Other Rescue guys will take care of it, well your shit is probably in the street.

Simply put: you can read anyone's medal description from the last ten years and change out the names, and it'll read exactly the same. Sometimes you're in the right place at the the right time to get some of the glory light, but in the end it doesn't really matter. The only thing that matters is if you can stand tall in front of your bros at the bar and tell your story to include all the warts (you know you fucked things up) and say you did the best you could, and drink to those that didn't make it.

In contrast, the New Zealand Army adopts the local aboriginal heritage and isn't hammered for it.

80's Datsun? More like trading in a Ferrari for a rock crawling Jeep. Horses for courses my friend.

Guard/Reserve are the only examples I know of. 60 Driver is a former A-10 guy now Pavehawk guy up in Alaska.

I would want to lead it.