brabus

Taurus, I realize everyone's situation is different and I'm glad yours worked for you guys. However, I'll point out myself and many dudes I know kept a schedule like that during the week, are still flying what we really wanted and are still happily married. I hate to say it, but "he could have...." is a weak excuse and I don't want any new people coming on here and getting the false idea that you can either stay married or work hard and get what you really want. You CAN have both, and if your wife will only settle for the first way, then you married the wrong chick. This lifestyle does put added stress on wives, but they need to be understanding of the fact they chose to marry a guy who does not work a standard 9-5. They knew it going in (or at least should have had some clue). Saying it's either a happy marriage/reduced performance or a crappy marriage/best performance is a bunch of bull.

I think you guys are caring way too much about this. Who gives a shit..."noted" and press on is the answer. I'm not saying be disrespectful, but in reality, it's just some shoe who has no bearing on your career and is just being a douche. "Salute smartly" and don't give a further thought to what Maj Assclown said.

Not a new concept...

I bought a 2001 330ci back in 2003. It was a great looking and performing car. I had it up until 4 months ago when I sold it so I could afford to do some work on my 71 vette. If it wasn't for my vette obsession, I'd still have the car. BMWs are very easy to work on (minus large American hands/arms fitting into German engines). If you are even basically mechanically inclined, you can do a lot of the MX yourself. You can also repair a lot of things yourself. People talk about how expensive BMWs are to maintain, blah blah...yeah, it's because a camshaft position sensor goes out and they don't question the dealership when they get charged $500 to fix it. Yeah that one took me $50 and 30 min. E46fanatics.com is a good site, but I also used bimmerfest.com a ton. It's like the baseops of the BMW world. You can find DIY instructions on just about anything and there's some very knowledgeable people over there. My BMW also got 35 MPG on the highway...not many cars can get that good of gas mileage but have awesome performance. In the end, do what makes you happy, but will still keep you within budget. Secondly, I WILL have another BMW again someday...that's how much I liked that car.

Obviously common sense doesn't lend itself to Missile folks.

It's stuff like that I'm referring to. Realistically the "craziest" IAP I'll do is a TACAN pen with an arc...holy crap, watch out. NDB what? Teardrop...how bout vectors buddy? And as far as climb stuff...exactly, we either can make it or we can't (eject). There isn't any figuring into single engine only and all that. I know it's a thin line and I don't want to come off as sounding like instruments stuff isn't important b/c it is, there's just a lot of stuff that doesn't really apply much, if at all, to us. I can completely see all this stuff applying to flying a C-130 into multiple austere fields around the world. Regardless, I'll continue to hate the IRC, but admittedly I will gain at least some little amount of knowledge every year that I forgot from the previous test. It's not all bad, just 95% bad!

Yeah I guess you're right, but it's still a pain. Although I'm sure you probably use this stuff a lot more than I do. I just feel like a lot of the IRC goes so deep into the weeds that part of me does think "well I guess it's good I did this b/c I totally forgot that", but the other part of me realizes I never have applied said subject, rule, etc. while flying and just based on the mission probably never will. There's a ton of little rules out there that really in the big scheme don't make much of a difference...but, I do realize some of the annoying stuff you just have to know and deal with.

Not having e-pubs sucks, but you can always do the "you have 1-10, you have 11-20...." That'll cut your time by a lot. IRC sucks...not that you didn't already know that.

I don't remember if they gave us thermals, but I just wore my Under Armour Cold Gear thermals. I've had those things for years and they are the best. You can pick them up at any sporting goods store. I would still try to pick up a pair of the gortex pants, but they MUST be the no shit BDU/ABU pants. A buddy of mine bought some gortex pants at Sportsman's Warehouse and figured it wouldn't be a big deal since they were an olive color...they made him take them off, so he was left with just his flightsuit, in 6 ft of snow. You'll spend a lot of time hiking through shitloads of snow, laying in snow, etc. It would suck to not have the gortex not so much for warmth, but for the waterproof property.

I went in the winter and they were so nice to have. I don't know about summer, but my guess is you'll have a good chance of getting rained on, in which case I think the pants would be worth it. They just go right over your flightsuit, so they're not a hindrance at all. High quality socks are a must for a good outdoor experience, SERE or otherwise. Get Smartwool...they may be $15-20/pair, but they are well worth the money. I've had several pairs of different types for years and they've been awesome through every backpacking, hunting, snowboarding, etc. trip I've used them on. They search all of your shit on morning one. If you get caught, they take away your MRE. You DON'T want that. Suck it up like most people do. You'll be hungry, but you'll survive. Also, most people do sneak food into the RT portion, but they pretty much expect that and ask you to declare it. Sounds like generally they'll let you keep 1/2 or something like that if you fess up. The douche next to me didn't fess up, the guy found it, so as punishment he took all his food and took the beef jerkey he let me keep when I declared it. That fucker costs me 3 beef jerkey sticks! Have fun. I actually had a great time in the field, but I am an outdoors oriented guy. RT blows, no getting around it. Go downtown every night you're not in the field or at RT...Spokane has decent bars and restaurants. I was ready to get home by the end, but overall I actually had a pretty good time, despite RT and some long boring days of academics.

Unfortunately if people don't pull their nuggets out of their asses and realize the importance of this, our boys on the ground may some time in the future have to re-learn what it's like to get shot at by the enemy from the air. When was the last time an enemy dropped on our guys...the 50s? Yeah, good idea, let's just take air superiority for granted...that'll work out for us.

There's several scenarios that could lead to a bad situation for us. Are they going to happen tomorrow? No. Could they happen in a year, 2 yrs, 3 yrs? You bet. Hell, even something going down (sts) 5 yrs from now would still be a bad situation for us if we don't have the F-35s/F-22s that we need by then. None of us can predict what the world situation will be in 3-5 yrs. Can we afford to not be prepared simply b/c we're too stubborn to look further than 6 months into the future and just assume these scenarios won't happen? Preparation starts now, not the first time we get a face full of Flanker.

Why sorry?

Clearly you do not if you're so confident in our ability to maintain air superiority with our current fighters. People seem to think just b/c we're the US we have the greatest shit and we'll rock the shit out of any country that opposes us. That's a dangerous viewpoint to have, especially when knowing what is out there.

We're the best military in the world, but there's a reason we need F-22s and F-35s besides just the age of our current fighters. Skill matters, but there's more to the equation. And that "more" should make you very much want the aforementioned aircraft.

He sure is...well, then those two guys must have been on some other type of program b/c they definitely did ROTC "as normal" with the rest of us and commissioned with us. However, neither went to rated fields, so don't know if that had anything to do with it (they didn't want to fly anyways). Honestly I'd probably just do 2 yrs of ROTC direct to a commission/pilot slot, even if it meant separating from AD and getting a scholarship/working through college like most dudes out of high school do. I don't know about any "go to OTS after college" program, but that just sounds like it'd be less of a pilot slot "guarantee" than ROTC would. Remember your goal is to become an officer and fly...what are you willing to do to achieve those goals?

Are you sure about AECP? I know both guys at my school received SSGT pay (no BAH, etc...just base pay) and they both commissioned with the rest of us. They did the exact program we did, nothing more, nothing less. Also, I would still consider those scholarship programs that you separate with. Yes you're not receiving pay, but you are getting most of your college paid for. These days if you can get your education paid for, do not pass up that opportunity. Even if you had to get a part time job to help pay for rent or whatever, it's still far worth it (and that's something thousands of college students have to do).

Probably not. Plus, would you really want to try and use PFPS on an Iphone? That would suck balls.

Ben, I'd personally recommend ROTC if you're thinking about doing a "normal" 4-yr college career at a university. I knew several prior enlisted guys who had some sort of scholarship from the AF for ROTC that was only available to enlisted (something like SSGT pay while attending college...why wouldn't you go for that!). ROTC will give you a much better chance at a pilot slot than OTS. Also, your major matters ZERO in ROTC when it comes to commissioning or get a pilot slot. Do something you like and DO NOT be another guy who thinks engineering gives you a better chance and end up hating life, failing school, etc. when you could have just done Business or whatever and gotten a pilot slot. Maybe speedy is correct regarding OTS, but that's certainly not the way ROTC is. Food for thought.

We got out of Verizon when we moved to Enid. We had to show a copy of my orders. We also got out of T-Mobile while at Vance based on me saying I got zero signal at work, and I wasn't going to pay for a service I could only use 1/2 of the day. The latter took more bitching and resolve, but I did it. The key is to never give up and being a pain in their ass. I always recommend starting off with the nice route and explaining the situation (moving, won't have signal, need it b/c I'm pregnant and have to be able to call my husband, etc., etc.). Hopefully you get a nice person who understands and does what you want. If not, hang up, try another person. If that person is unhelpful, bring out the "bitch mode" and don't stop until you've talked to supervisors et al...they have to let you out b/c of a mil move, they just may fight you some and tell you they can't. Don't believe them or let them convince you otherwise.

"Rampant Speculation" - Sleep walking + seizure probably means you're screwed. I think you would stand little to no chance of getting a security clearance, plus this is something more than "just a minor condition." Again, speculation, but that's what I'm thinking. Try to talk to a recruiter about it and see if they have any info on what is/is not waiverable.

When will the AF finally get it...the club sucks ass b/c they made it suck ass. Start allowing people to get hammered without fear of repercussion, strippers and porn in the bar, cigars inside allowed, etc. What's so fucking hard to understand. There's a reason we only hang out at our own bars. I'd be all about the club if it was like all the stories I've heard from the pre-90s. If it goes back to that, then the AF might actually get people to go to the club.

BFM is a fluid environment. All it takes is a "small" change in some aspect of the fight to cause one jet to do something which either hurts or helps the other jet's "cause." No fight will ever be the same. I think the problem is you're thinking far too much in a vacuum with constant variables. BFM can be described by two words much of the time: it depends.

That's what I did, except our leader dude didn't give a shit if we had the water bag full if we were filling a camelbak in it's place. Then again, one morning it backfired on me when I pulled on my line to get more "reach" and pulled it right out of the camelbak. Leading to me being drenched down the backside in 20 deg weather with it snowing. Not cool!

Haha, nice.