busdriver

If I am constrained to the 9mm round, I would gladly take the G19 over the M9. If I am not constrained to the 9mm round, I'd go with a .45, Glock or H&K USP or possibly an XD.

I don't see it as a no disco belt=no food issue at all. I see it as a symptom of a cancer. The cancer is combat leadership not focused on combat operations. If there are so many people who have the time to enforce simple rules with wide sweeping draconian measures, maybe it's time to send people home and reduce the ops tempo. Maybe, just maybe if we did that, we'd be able to sustain the long term war effort we seem to be faced with. We're our own worst enemy.

No, unless you are SOF (and probably only tier 1) you cannot carry a G19 in combat. God knows, I wish I could. I hate the damn M9.

I've briefed this occasionally. The biggest reason I see is that when the weather is really close to the limit at night (helo guys are on NVGs, and we can cut the vis requirements in half) there is a really good possibility of re-entering IMC after calling "visual." If my co has remained on instruments the whole time, he will have a much less difficult time transitioning back to instrument flight. In other words, it's not the transition from instruments to visual that's the problem, it's the "oh shit" we're inadvertent IMC and have to transition from visual to instruments. If you look at accident trends, helos that go inadvertent IMC have a poor record. At least that's my thought process on the technique.

The problem as this Capt see's it is that MX effectiveness is driven by metrics that describe "health of the fleet." In other words how ready to go to war are we right now. That same metric describes rated effectiveness. The problem is those are competing interests, flyers need to fly as often as possible to be as ready as possible, which means we break aircraft, which means we need more maintainers for a reduced fleet. Personnel costs are what drove the recent "RIF," think that affected the MX force? Air-power is a force multiplier, but much like SOF it isn't cheap and there are no short cuts. Dear Boss......??

IF the 73rd ends up embracing all the missions that are thrown their way, I predict it will be a squadron that will forever chase currencies, believe it.

I don't take it as such, an outsider's question got a straight forward answer, thanks. This isn't the order I read for Harvest Hawk, which is why I went that direction. I assumed (we all know where that leads) the AF and MC would be playing nice given the similar intentions. This I fully understand given the limited role we play in ECAS and my more recent experience actually shooting.

Any argument that deals with Pred pilot morale or adds a non-combat mission to an undermanned and over tasked community will fall on deaf ears.

CH, while I tend to agree that they'll probably put a lot less emphasis on TF once they start shooting, do you see any difference between the type of shooting the Whiskey guys will be doing compared to what you do? If the Whiskey guys are gonna be outfitted anything like the Harvest Hawk program, don't you think there's a bit of a difference between dropping some PGMs based on coords provided by a JTAC or "area suppression" from a 30mm and actually shooting? From an outsider looking in, it just seems like the Whiskey isn't gonna be doing the same type of CAS as a Spooky/Spectre. I'm sure I'm missing something, but if you can teach a Tomcat driver to drop JDAMs, why can't you teach a TF 130 guy how to drop a similarly GPS guided munition?

If I lived in the states I'd go build a potato gun in your honor brother, catch you on the flip side.

Ref what OverTQ was talking about: Most of what he was talking about is probably limited to helo guys. Due to the design of the flight controls and seats, we (pilots) are forced into an non-ergonomic seating position. We're basically all hunched forward and leaning to the left. Add to that, the normal cruise attitude is 3-5 degrees nose low (speaking 60 specific now), so your center of gravity is even further past your butt. As a result the spine is not in it's normal curvature. As a result of that plus helo vibrations, one of two sets of nerves tends to get pinched and the nerve bundle "casing" gets inflamed. Either the nerves that leave your spine for your arms, or the bundles leaving for your legs. The resultant tingling/numbness in the arms or legs is basically the same thing as tennis elbow, some road bike riders also experience this in their arms. The problem is that long term irritation of that nerve "casing" can result in permanent damage. The backenders tend to have similar problems due to leaning out the window while kneeling in the back, same problem due to spine position. Adding weight to the head exacerbates the problem but isn't the root cause. I haven't had any problems, but I do know a guy that had to have help getting out of the cockpit after a long sortie since his legs were numb. Good flexibility and core muscle strength can help (those pesky little muscles that keep the spine in position) as can lumbar support seat pads, but I think some guys are just more prone to problems than others.

I'm 100% positive there is no such rule, but I have nothing to back that up. That said if you fly enough goggle hours, and are not in very good shape, you'll probably end up with some minor neck problems after a career. But the hours count to do that is much higher than 150.

I've always hated wearing glasses when flying. They always gave me hot spots. This past summer I basically had to start wearing something. The dust would make it nearly impossible to get my visors to lower after only 12 hours post cleaning, and not having eye protection when you're flying with no cockpit doors just isn't an option. Got issued a set of the new M-Frames, the temples are pretty low profile and were comfortable enough. I flew with a set of Wiley-X Airrage that I bought at the BX in the day, both worked well. I did have to be careful with the Wileys as they're polarized and it made it impossible to read the ARC-210's display.

Dude, I completely agree. I was just throwing it out there. I have a stag AR-15 that has a 1:9 barrel and haven't shot any "heavy" bullets through it. Partly because cheap ammo tends to be 55gn stuff and partly because I was under the impression that it was a lost cause. Given this new input, I am probably going to give it a try with my current set-up and heavier bullets just to see. Who knows?

While traditional logic will tell you a 1:9 twist won't allow you to shoot heavier bullets a recent magazine test of the Ruger SR-556 has its best accuracy with 77grn match ammo. That match ammo gave the tested Ruger rifle 1 MOA accuracy with 77 grn bullets.

More press about the CSAR guys in Helmand: Pedroes at Bastion

Your misconceptions are long but understandable: The 160th are not starting to arm their Blackhawks, they've been very well armed for a long time, just watch the damned movie to see some minigun action. The CV-22 is NOT a replacement for the MH-53. The mission of the MH-53 is now being handled by the MH-47, the Osprey's mission is different and emerging. SOCOM owns AFSOC and they want the CV-22. Will the Conventional Air Force be out of the tactical helo game is a big question that no one really knows the answer to at this stage as it's still on going. What you need to know as a young pup is that we are still very much in the fight, HH-60 guys are deploying their asses off performing CASEVAC and SOF support on a daily basis, and the H-1 guys are bearing the burden of helo FID. In short, if you end up helos, welcome to the war, I'll see you over there.

It's funny that the first I've seen of this has been been about the Vipers at Misawa. In the grand scheme of things, removing the Eagles from Okinawa has a much greater strategic impact.

over speced for the mission? Jesus! we're currently flying an aircraft that has NEVER met our need, we make due. Now if we can secure the funding, maybe we can reduce the weight of what we're currently flying, with no additional gain in capability, and build an aircraft that isn't very power/weight limited. The Pavehawk mod is basically 3000 pounds of weight that can currently be carried out by a laptop, I mean seriously our computer is a no shit 486. After spending however much money to SLEP what we've got now, we'll still be limited in internal space and range and ability to penetrate certain threats. Basically, what we have now can be fixed for the current fight, given enough money. BUT, for us to be REALLY be able to go into any area to get our downed airmen (our primary mission, yes it's kind of the same argument as the F-22) we need a lot more money. Picture this, you've got the LO guys penetrating a double digit IADS, and low and behold one of them has to bailout for whatever reason, how do you go and get them? Could we do it with what we have now? What would be required? The answers aren't for this forum, but the thought scares the shit out of me given what I'm flying now. I think I could do it circumstances permitting, but no small amount of luck would be involved. I just don't think we should be banking our guys' lives on luck.

uhhello, nothing too specific about the unit as I left there a year ago, but I know the squadron has a metric shit ton of experience on the senior enlisted side, both in CSAR and ex SOF guys from 53 land. If you're single, Valdosta gets old but if not, the cost of living is low and you can buy a great house for not much if you're a family guy. In any event, you'll be spending plenty of time overseas, see you there.

Pedros Pretty good article about the CASEVAC mission in Afghanistan

The 53K is a massive aircraft, much bigger than the Pavelow or the Chinook. Quite frankly, it's a huge dose of overkill for our mission. Basically, the Hawk is a bit too small in cabin size once you put in the aux fuel tanks, but just about right in cabin space without the tanks. The 47 is probably a bit too big all considered, the after action reports of Vietnam era claim the 53 was too big as well. What we really need is either the 92 or 101, depending on how much cabin you really think we need (it'll depend based on who you ask). The problem is both those aircraft are gonna require a lot of R&D to make them work, the 47 is ready to go right now, but with compromises. The other option is a Mike model hawk with a stretched cabin, but even that comes with trade offs. In the end, it's a matter of picking your poison. Any way it ends up though, we're gonna have to learn how to soldier on with what we have for the foreseeable future, and for what the current fight is, the present Hawk will work with a bit of money invested, it just means we're gonna have to learn to live with a pretty grueling ops tempo. For those thinking about helos as a career, get ready to be gone a lot, and don't expect a predictable deployment pattern, shit seems to change every couple months. Although, while ops tempo seems to be on the up swing, I think we're getting more and more into the fight in a more direct way.

Why do people insist on thinking the OA-X (whatever ends up getting the go ahead if ever) will be operating at low altitude?

While I think that's the direction that we need to go, I doubt it will happen unless someone outside the Air Force steps in to make it happen. I imagine nothing is remotely solid until OSD gets its joint rescue whatever study later this year.

The term Pave usually refers to the Pavelows, mainly by tradition more than anything. Most of us in Pavehawks refer to the birds as Hawks, or 60s.