busdriver

stract, I don't know if you've heard something else, but Sikorsky advertises 22k for the Mike model. The 24k bird is the MH-60K

According to the news, they were shot after pointing an AK at the Captain. In other words, this wasn't an approved rescue attempt it was the on scene commander taking action to prevent the possible loss of life. No doubt the President approved the ROE they were operating under, but to claim the president OKed a rescue plan is false. Either way, good job by all to include POTUS.

The programs you mentioned were sole source awards and generally not nearly as expensive, hence less political. As to the "more joint" solution to the CSAR fleet, it could mean as Buddha pointed out that the 160th would take over the RV portion; but that would mean many more aircraft and crews, and they already have problems with getting as many crews as they want, so still not a cheap option. It could also mean that the AF would get a "joint" HH-XX (just buy the MH-47, an HH version of an MH-60M/S, etc.) this would be an approach similar to the JSF. Or I may be one of the last AF Helo pilots.

bunk22, Have any of the T-6 haters flown it? I ask since when I flew it (UPT only) it didn't seem overly complex or a hand full to fly.

I was told it is kind of throwing PCness back in the "man's" face, but way too many people take it waaaay too far. Especially when you say something intentionally double entendre as a joke and they toss that in. Kinda like not saying box or head, I get the history behind it, but do you have to use container in a written document?

That's exactly what I was looking for, thanks.

Yes, but where is that written?

Is the "commanders can always make it more restrictive" rule in writing somewhere?

I searched for an AFN thread, with no luck (God knows, the ridiculous adds deserve their own thread): Why in the holy hell is AFN still advertising the special operations gunner career on the MH-53, months after the airframe retired?

Why have dedicated CSAR forces: aside from the doctrine/dogma issue, if we ever end up in a conventional cross the fence to bomb the bad guys war, all other CSAR capable forces will be committed to doing their own jobs. That said, having CSAR forces sitting alert solely for recovering CFACC assets in an environment where Medevac forces are just as capable is stupid. CSAR forces should have a primary mission of CSAR, but have stated secondary missions that fall in line with the same skill sets. This isn't a new concept. MH-53s trained to a secondary mission of CSAR, I'd wager a guess that CV-22s do as well. While CONUS, CSAR units will assist the CG on as capable basis (ie no alert) if requested for through the RCC. Generally we only do civi SAR if the survivor(s) are far out to sea and getting there requires air refueling.

As an added benefit of the MI-17, our maintainers could just hit the faulty part with a hammer until it worked again.

Huey, the Chinook is the fastest helo in the US inventory. It will outrun everything, especially in Afghanistan.

Do you really think the stealth aspect is what is making the F-22 and JSF expensive? So you build a stealthy Eagle, how much will it cost to upgrade the avionics to JSF/Raptor standards? We'll just ignore the airframe age for the sake of this argument.

Chinook, S92, Blackhawk, H-71, it would be good for everything.

DigDug, great point about the boss feeling like he's losing control.

OK, my ignorance is about to show it's face... Why would we be worried about where the bombers were based when they still have ICBMs and ISSBNs? So they have bombers in Cuba, what about the nuke subs that can be off the coast of New York and we wouldn't know it.

For what it's worth, the Peterson gym is amazing. And you'll bank a lot of money on deployments, plenty to buy your wife plane tickets back home while you're gone.

Very interesting article in Newsweek by Fareed Zakaria: Article Basically he's saying we need to separate the fundamentalist Muslims from those actively seeking violence. Actually pretty sound advice from what little I understand of counter insurgency operations, ie. separate the fighters from their base.

Jollygreen and 60 make very good points, both of which I agree with.

Jacko is this is the article you were referring to? If so, Maj Patrick didn't fly it himself, he and his co-workers came up with some better questions to ask when evaluating a new helo.

stract, I didn't mean you. But that very same conversation was with another pilot in our unit. I don't know that it's even the least agile of the group. I haven't seen any EM diagrams for the Hook (doubt they exist) but I have talked to guys who've flown it and they didn't think it lacked agility. For-sure it's the heaviest of the group and will no doubt spend the most time on the approach. 40,000+ lbs is a lot of mass to bring to a halt. Krabs, the helo I would pick doesn't exist. I am partial to the X2 demonstrator, if Sikorsky could scale that bad boy up, I'd pick that. But that's WAY too much money for this competition. Of the three I think it's really between the 47 and the 101(71). I think the 92's spread between empty and max gross doesn't leave much room for the extra avionics/defensive systems/weapon systems/team/team gear(very heavy) without running into the same problem we have now, flying way to heavy, way to regularly and wearing out aircraft way too fast. To get around that problem Sikorsky has to do some major redesign to increase the max gross. For what it's worth, the 101(71) is going to require some redesign as well, as it was built to a different crash standard. (15g vertical vs 20) I think the 47 is getting grandfathered in since it's a legacy design, but I don't know for sure. I have to admit, when the 47 first got picked, I thought it was ridiculous, until I started to run some numbers and fill out a survey were we rank ordered what was important to us. (Basically a house of quality for you engineers) I finally came to my current opinion. I can't really decide between the 101(71) and 47 now without seeing the actual proposals. Basically most of our opinions are based on conjecture and gut feeling, with a little research. None of who will talk about it have seen the proposals, those that have can't.

Why do people continually claim the Chinook is the biggest turd in this competition? Some of these same people will in their next breath say that a new build MH-53 would be a good choice despite the fact that they are essentially the same size. I'm not saying it's perfect, none of the three choices are, but it's hardly a turd.

Gen Ryan (ret) doesn't agree with Mr Young: Ryan's reply to Young

My nerd meter just pegged. Very cool.

While strippers may be cool, it's def playing with fire given the bosses comments. Local band?