brabus

My initial reaction to the idea of paying big salaries was “fuck no!” But I thought about it some more and it does make a lot of sense (especially considering nsplayr’s three criteria). But, I think if that was to be done, it absolutely would have to come with term limits. If no term limits, we wouldn’t see a change - just more people eyeing public office as a means to wealth and power. As a side desire, I’d also like to see a ban on individual stock investing during time of service. They can invest in standard index funds, IRAs, etc. That would go a long way towards minimizing insider trading that just about all of them do currently.

@Negatory I’m fairly positive Lawman is not trying to argue there’s tons of great billionaires on “his side” (whatever that means), and is simply highlighting the stupidity of this whole charade/medal, regardless of political affiliation (he just said Trump giving it to Elon would help cement the whole thing as a sham). Why is it you read something, engage turbo douche mode, and go on an unhinged rant that wildly misrepresents the person you’re replying to. For your own mental health, recommend some introspection and find a way to turn the blind, illogical, and generally unprovoked rage down a few notches. You’ll feel better and your communication skills probably would improve.

I guess the presidential MOF is now worth less than the bronze star every behind-the-fence shoe clerk CC/Chief gets down range. What a joke.

@ClearedHot I haven’t spent a lot of time watching cop interaction videos, but I believe you there’s a ton out there. I guess I’ve generally always had good, or at least neutral, interactions with LE, so that certainly has driven my viewpoint. I also can empathize a little bit with their experiences with everything’s on video and everyone's a Monday morning spear chucker…I’m sure many on here have had to deal with a shoe clerk lawyer questioning combat actions when they have never once had to make millisecond decisions under intense circumstances. Does your BIL think doing the training you mentioned will make an impactful difference?

Maybe reform is needed for cops, but reforming society is the only real fix. I don’t envy these guys’ operating environment one bit - between a rock and a hard place is a major understatement. That said, I know power tripping asshole cops are out there, who give little fucks about treating people like shit and misrepresent situations to justify their actions. I also don’t believe those guys are the majority.

And those guys were very close to a lot worse than Asiana.

I support some pressure, more than $0, but way less than the $Bs we’ve been slinging like candy on Halloween as of late. As you know, we can and should exert diplomatic and economic pressure to achieve the goals you’ve mentioned. Dumping billions at the rate we have been is not required at this point. In line with this, we need to reprioritize - not saying turn back totally on UKR/RUS, but we have other huge problems that could use the effort and money that is going to UKR in various forms, so scale back on Eastern Europe and refocus some (not all) of that energy and funds on other problems that should be a higher priority.

@ClearedHot Rog, I get it. I’m all about what has been done to RUS, but I’m also good with acknowledging we have indirectly achieved some great shit, the RUS horse has been beat to death x69, so let’s pivot to more important things. Of course we keep an eye on things and can pivot back if necessary, but I don’t think it’s likely that’d be necessary anytime soon. @Day Man Doesn’t take much effort to find this open source info, but here’s a few items for you. There’s plenty more; #1 is a broad overview while #2 and #3 are specific examples to make the point, which is $175B isn’t simply just war materiel support, and it’s incorrect to say no money has gone to UKR that could have been earmarked elsewhere. CFR (Sep 24): Good big pic overview USAID (Dec 24): $3.4B that “enables healthcare, education, first responders, and other vital services to reach the people of Ukraine.” CSIS (May 22): $16B for economic support

@Majestik Møøse Here’s a few financial points you’re either ignorant on or purposely misrepresenting: - Of the $175B “for” UKR, roughly $69B didn’t even go to them - Approx $70B of what they did receive is actual war materiel - Approx $40B of what they received has been spent on their economic recovery and humanitarian aid I am not saying all of that sum is a bad thing or foolishly spent, but there are lots of Billions that are not simply “sending our old stuff and making new stuff” as you threw out earlier. To be clear, your post about what the $175B has been spent on is incorrect. What you, and maybe CH, aren’t seeming to grasp on this specifically is two things can be true simultaneously: the money (and associated efforts) broadly discussed above achieved great national security objectives, and one would be very ignorant to argue otherwise. But, there is a point of diminishing returns and going too far at the expense of other things (such as addressing domestic issues, putting more towards addressing the PRC threat, etc.) Of course the defense industry and all their politician friends love this - they DGAF about our country, they care about money, and UKR is a cash cow for these blood suckers. Given the current state of affairs, arguing “quitting is cowardly and reprehensible” is retarded. Talk about myopic emotions.

You could safely fire 60% of the GS population at Eglin tomorrow, for example, and not only would a lot of money be saved, the productivity would skyrocket. You could fire about 90% of the GS on staff and things would be a 69 times better. There are good GS dudes out there, but they are the minority. I’d love to see a decimation of that workforce demographic - no offense to the good ones. They will easily stay in such a hypothetical because it’s extremely easy to know who is good, as they clearly stick out amongst all the turds.

I’ve always said the AF should take over AD beyond the smaller stuff meant for direct defense of ground maneuver elements. Never been impressed with the Patriot world.

Most of my interactions have gone something like: - chief walks into the room, has “the look” - Me: “oh hey chief, I’m running late for a sim brief, see ya later!” - Chief: “sounds good, I’ll tell them you were in the sim” There are good chiefs out there.

Heard she has a 6.7L diesel powered vibrator with nav wings engraved on it…will need nsplayr to confirm the color.

@Majestik Møøse Boomer pretty much nailed it. I’ll say this: it was a good strategic move for us to do what we did for a time, and we accomplished significant weakening of a major adversary via supporting another’s direct actions - that’s a win. But, at this point we have well passed the sensible ROI and are now playing bullshit games with taxpayer funded property. Its time to KIO.

I’ve flown Korean several times, it was great, though admittedly I don’t know what was going on up front. I don’t think I’d worry too much about them, but I sure as shit wouldn’t be getting on any local/regional/budget airlines in the Pacific.

So close to what it should be: 0 sec.

I didn’t say it was cash. Also I need to correct my earlier statement, it’s actually $6B we just tacked onto our UKR bill (now a total of ~$175B over the last three years). We’ve achieved a lot, time to stop and focus a lot more on all the massive problems at home.

@ClearedHot Please tell me that d-bag 1 star has his name spread everywhere and is blackballed at every airline and industry business.

“Sorry guys, we can’t afford more flying hours because we have to spend trillions on meaningless shit. Do more with less, aim high!” - Some asshat 4 star

Definitely, guys in my position are not advocating for “push it all to the sim” at the cost of air under ass. But we do need guys to get proper levels of training for the missionized stuff, and right now they are not getting that in live fly. Lots of local part task training flying can still happen in conjunction with what sims should be. The two do not have to be mutually exclusive. [quote]As an aside, I'll say it was shocking going through a 4th gen Guard B course (everyone with >1000 hours and an experienced IP) before doing a 5th gen active duty TX (half of the people TX->IPUG types with few hours in the jet). Night and day in terms of instructional quality. Even if the students were the same quality, the B course instruction would result in a different product.[/quote] Absolutely. Way too many inexperienced IPs in AETC on the 5G side at least, been gone from 4G too long to have any pulse on that.

Absolutely need more flying hours, as most of the young guy issues are lacking airmanship and decision making skills (specifically decision making while handling an aircraft in a real, dynamic environment…e.g. cannot be replicated in a sim). From a tactical proficiency perspective, we need sims to take a 6-9 year leap yesterday. 5G perspective: In a perfect world we’d train to missionized stuff primarily in the sim environment and do primarily part-task training in live fly. Bottom line: more flying needed, but also need meaningful sim training environments that are accessible daily at the wing level.

Another $2.5B to UKR…totally nothing that needs money here in the US, this makes complete sense.

@Clark Griswold Yes more flight time would help, but the major problem is cultural: lowering standards (both official and unofficial) to unacceptable levels in the name of meeting subjective goals on a spreadsheet (X amount of pilots, Y amount of insert-qual, etc.) Phase 1 fix is establish reasonable standards and hold everyone to them. If that means 80% of a UPT class washes out, then so be it. If that means 50% of the B course class washes out, so be it. If that means chuckle nuts just can’t seem to pass FLUG after 3 years in the CAF, then thanks for your service, good luck in your future, non-fighter flying endeavors. You’re on your second or third willfully unsafe flight incident (not mistake, but you meant to do it), then it’s not sit for a week or two punishment, it’s you’re done flying, enjoy the rest of your ADSC in the non-flying world. Phase 2 is based on the attrition seen after a year or two of phase 1 implementation, then determine what must change in training and CT requirements to reduce the attrition. That could be a lot of things, not just flying hours. Also I know I’m rapidly approaching old man yelling at cloud status. There are many phenomenal young dudes out there crushing it. But there are way more guys out there today (vs. yesterday) who should not be where they are due to relaxed standards and their IPs/leaders not having the fortitude and/or judgement to call a spade a spade.

Lack of quality training/holding students to a specified criteria, which sets them up for failure. I don’t think the younger generation is less capable to learn than previous ones or has a different mix of people on the spectrum of can’t fly worth shit to God’s gift to an aviation. The difference is the younger generations aren’t provided the learning/training experiences they need compared to previous generations, combined with not being held to standards. This enables them to go do things/gain quals that their older counterparts never would have been allowed to do/have at the same career point.