busdriver

Although this could be a boon for those small little private space flight companies out west.

Life is bullshit, get used to it. While being a pilot is fun, it's also a job meaning you'll have a boss who you won't always agree with. Most of us young guys bitch and we're all a bit cynical. Why? Because we care about the mission. No matter what you do with your life, you'll always have aspects that piss you off and they're probably things you have no control over. Best advice? Worry about shit you can control, the rest will take care of itself.

It was a joke chief, albeit a bad one. Realize that as close as 6 years ago helos had a very bad rap in pilot training. So much so that if you put them first, you might get an appointment with the flight commander to "discuss" your choice. Those of us that chose that route despite "career suicide" advice have a bit of warped sense of humor about it. Now imagine a student at ENJJPT requesting helos under those circumstances... That said, I don't think it's even an option to modern ENJJPT guys anyways, so whatever. EDIT: I stand corrected

Well I would say their problem has nothing to do with being a SNAP, instead they are an annoying pain in the ass. Maybe I just don't have the exposure to the types you're referring to, or maybe getting shot at and having near death experiences together tends to mellow both of our outlooks. In the end a bro is bro, whether he drinks or not has no bearing.

I had/have a Lumix P&S, takes very good pictures for the size too bad I lost the charger.

I forgot about BAH, my bad. Damn overseas assignment messed up my view.

How is a Major making over 110k a year? I just tried running the numbers and came up with around 90k (guy at the 12yr point) just like the airline numbers you quoted. Doesn't take anything away from your point however. My only question is will I try for a Guard/Reserve job once my commitment is up.

I think you'll find two types of people in life: the bitter contrarian who'd be unhappy no matter what he ended up flying and everyone else who thinks their airframe/community is the best thing since sliced bread. But to actually contribute, I'm of the latter persuasion.

I now have a disease! Bought a 10-22 wide angle lense.

Ok, first day of shooting actual aircraft today. Advantage of digital: I took 240 photos in just over an hour, that kind of pace would have cost me an arm and a leg back in my 35mm days. I ended up with a couple decent photos, even though the first half or so were just playing with camera functions. I tried getting the exposure long enough to blur the rotor into a "disc" but only succeeded in over exposing the crap out of the image, and the time was so long it would probably only work on a stationary "target."

Scooby, don't loose heart. There is a strong need in the support field for folks like yourself and Finance_Guy. When a support agency falls back on their regs, in full CYA mode at the expense of mission effectiveness, we need strong leadership who can step in and raise the BS flag. However I would caution you in fighting the "warrior BS" too hard. While a loggie calling himself a warrior is a bit retarded, the young enlisted guys probably don't have the broader perspective and need to feel that their efforts are both worthy and appreciated. Your challenge is to keep them properly focused and motivated. If it sounds like I'm talking down to you, I apologize, I don't' mean to, but I've seen some of our young PJs scoff at our maintainers embracing the rescue motto, but the fact is connecting their efforts to the end result builds morale. Just showing those guys some pictures after a mission and telling them our story makes a huge difference in their job satisfaction. Not the perfect analogy, but hopefully my point is coming across OK.

contrail, I like the perspective on that last photo. To add to my new toy: I'm now the proud owner of a 55-250mm telephoto lens to go with my new camera. Now I just need to actually get back to the flight line and put my new toys to use!

Yep, older and wiser now, I've stopped giving a crap.

Zombie thread alert! I just bought a new Canon DSLR (T1i), Steve mentioned using software to clean up the fotos in "post-production." My camera came with a little program that lets you change saturation/contrast, etc. What else would you guys recommend as a starting point. I haven't delved into SLRs since photography art classes in high school, and that was all wet B&W shot with an Olympus from the mid eighties.

While based on principle I'd rather have a pilot is charge of just about everything in the AF, I just don't see why an acquisitions type automatically falls into the fold of people who just don't get it. I don't know this lady from Eve, so I'm not gonna automatically paint her with the shoe clerk brush since she hasn't deployed. She may very well deserve it, but I just don't know, that's my only point.

I don't really see a problem with promoting an acquisitions expert to the head acquisitions position. If she had a history of fucking the ops side of things, sure bad news. On the other hand, what if you have an acquisitions type that has always been a champion of the ops world, wouldn't you want that person at the helm to ensure we get the shit we need? It really comes down to the individual, and in the case of AFMC I really don't see why a rated officer has to rule that particular roost, they just need to have the proper focus. I've never really thought of the engineering types as clerks, more like star trek geeks who make science fiction, science reality.

No we are not. Some of us have a very Army support-centric mission, Hercs being a great example. But the entire reason the AF is a separate service is due to Air Power pioneers that were 180* out from your statement. I think it was ClearedHot who made this analogy but there's a continuum, on one end you have Airpower turning an entire country into a glass parking lot, on the other you have the Army occupying a country with not one aircraft, to include their own. The reality is a mix, but the point is that we're an equal partner contributing to the mission. That said, Big Blue being so self serving and risk averse that it feels it's ok to not allow a C-130 to land in the dirt, knowing full well that only transfers that risk (with a multiplier) to convoy troops facing the IED threat is not only embarrassing, it's down right disgusting.

I know the RFF was for the south, just saying that's how the ball got rolling. The unit's down south don't answer to the Army anymore, but don't have to ask permission for most missions. IMHO the CAOC folks never liked the Army "owning" AF aircraft so dreamed up the new arrangement, CAOC get's us back, in exchange all deployed units become dual role. Whether there's some big blue politicking going on I don't know, could be. Casevac is certainly a mission that can be shown off publicly unlike some other missions. Picking up a trooper at a FOB beneath them? Maybe, or maybe they felt that taking an alert medical asset and using it to pick up a routine patient from a FOB is a waste (ie send a slick). Not saying I agree, we generally held off on all the Charlies until the end of the shift and made a round robin to go get em all. Suspect medicine? Maybe, but the guys with me down south were routinely complemented by the docs at Bastion. Kinda painting a broad brush when you're talking about your experience with roughly 10 paramedics. We're not allowed to run "chase" without CAOC approval, which I think has more to do with the perception that we're then acting as a "gunship" which we've gotten in a lot of trouble for in the past. Gates and CSAR, well the commonly held belief that he's got all AF helos on the chopping block is really only one of multiple directions that review could take.

Jesus, we've thread jacked this thing! Here I go. The original RFF was made by the Army in 2005, which got the Air Force started in Casevac as a primary tasked mission (we've been doing it as a sub-set mission since the 1960's, about half of the "saves" in Vietnam were Casevac). I deployed in 2006 were we had 3 birds Opcon and Tacon to the Army. My understanding is that the Army's dustoff guys needed relief to reset, and now so do we. That commitment never went away. What happened this past year was an increase in theater dustoff requirements due to secdef reducing the time requirement, which I know you are well aware of since it put us and you on a much shorter alert string. The AF's answer was to duel role all AF PR assets as PR/Casevac. As to why the AF would fight back on moving to a different FOB? Well, we still have our doctrinally dictated mission of PR for the Air Component commander. Organizational culture endures even with the coming and going of people. The unit that was at Bagram this past summer is new to the constant deployments that the rest of Rescue is used to. I've heard they did not have a good working relationship with the Army, which is kind of odd as the rest of us have had a rather long tradition of the opposite. In any event, from what I've been told, the unit currently at Bagram has improved that working relationship considerably. Obviously since the Army deploys for longer, your side got to see several different units from the AF, personalities change and you'll get a different opinion. Unfortunately for you guys, longer deployments aren't an option for AF rescue folks, we're close to the breaking point already. I have no idea about surgeons stating we're not capable of certain missions, since our medics (PJs) are considerably more capable than yours (not a jab, just reality) but altitude concerns, especially in RC-E are a legitimate hindrance to our very heavy version of a Hawk. As far as having way more capacity than needed, well I very much agree. Kandahar was much the same. Bastion quite the opposite, the ute rate on the aircraft there was retarded high. For what it's worth, I spent the month of August at Bastion. The concept we were batting around was to leave all that capacity at Kandahar, but use the RQS as a sort of Casevac QRF. We train to forward project as part of our PR mission, so we can pull up our root's pretty easily and move around the AOR as required. So the logistics hub would be Kandahar and Bagram, but we'd bounce around as required to stay near the fight.

dude, the simple answer is yes you should. If you have an interest (and it seems you do) to have a positive influence in the lives of young kids in our world you should absolutely engage.

If that email is real, that guy should have ZERO problem with his suggestion that the medics should ignore the shooter in favor of the victims.

I have a suspicion that alwyn is a typical "internet expert." If he has actual experience, I'll eat my humble pie. But this is not airliners.net, people on this board have no shit actual first hand experience. Arguments between people like brock (who I think is the same as bobbybrock on airwarriors) and myself are significantly different than the typical tripe you'll find on the internet. If alwyn is who I think he is, my best advice is to post less and read more.

Just stop.

You seem awful butt hurt about Rescue flying in support of Medevac, it was an Army RFF that got that whole thing started. As to Dustoff going and picking up aircrew, nothing in OEF is "CSAR" nada, zip, zilch. There is no FLOT to cross, no IADs to plan around, no CSARTF to build, etc. As for the Army going to pick up AF crew this past summer, guess what? Every one of us was glad that happened! Closest asset gets the job done. It's not about protecting my terf, it's about patient advocacy. Yes, we get guys straight out of the school house, they're called co-pilots.

Just because you can hide behind the internet and be insubordinate, doesn't mean you should. There's a fine line between "grumbling troops" and prejudicial to good order and discipline. Something that just popped into my head, not that I think this is what's going on but found it funny non-the less. Sgt Maj from Generation Kill: "Sir, if the morale is low, let me know and I'll stir em up real good with the grooming standards." (paraphrase)