brabus

The DOD is WELL ahead of you on that one. Guys, remember, stealth is the flashy word that gets thrown around in the news, facebook 5th gen bashing, etc. People much smarter than you and I have thought about and developed solutions regarding problem sets like this before you even realized the F-35 was a thing. It's not all about stealth, and dudes on the internet are not the first ones to think of that mind blowing idea.

DOD: "Stitch, can we pay you $6.9 billion dollars to be the middle man who brokers this deal? Also, it's cool if post-contract signing you fuck us over and require millions more to fix a contract breach you're 100% responsible for. Also, have you by chance seen the S&M Man, we're kind of into that sort of thing."

Won't happen.

Anyone who believes our cheap blues represent "heritage and tradition" to an extent we warrant forced wear haven't been outside their cubicle at shoe palace, ever (said cubicle is shipped to the Deid for them to get "their combat time.") How do "combat utility" uniforms not significantly outweigh blues when it comes to accomplishments throughout history and spawning of tradition? I think we should all have to paint our faces black during black history month, you know, to really help our heritage sink in. Dammit, I just gave some E-9 a great idea and EPR bullet.

I'm guessing it was the same 22 yr old we had. I was impressed with her instructional ability, and not bad on the eyes as well.

Manchester.

Same for me - I'm guessing they'd tell someone directly if off chance they were going to fly the Comanche. They're a great operation, so I highly doubt they would leave anyone hanging on something like that.

Why is that - just trying to prop up long term safety from BRAC? I ask because, while it makes sense to do something like this to help the overall RPA problem, I'm surprised a squadron would actively seek RPAs when it already has a mission/aircraft.

Well there you have it. Did they give you a cranium's up you'd be flying the Comanche? Reason I ask is we were never told either way and naturally assumed it was the Duchess since all of the gouge from multiple sources (including Downtown) was Duchess only. Would have sucked to show up Day 1 and find out we'd studied the wrong stuff for 6-9 hrs. Mostly curious for future dudes - should they be prepared for either due to a scenario of one breaking the day prior to showing up and the other being spared in for their ATP.

Just finished at Memphis - great place, highly recommend it. We flew the Duchess - my impression was that's the only plane they do ATP in; never heard anything about flying a Comanche. Overall the gouge is pretty good and the 2ish hours of academics we got the first morning was sufficient to clean up anything that was missing or unclear in the gouge. If anyone wants further info or the gouge, let me know.

I only use the internal storage on the mac mini, so I don't have any experience with external storage transfer speeds. You guys store a lot of movies! That said, Mac's thunderbolt connection is 10 gbs - I cannot imagine that kind of speed prevents me from watching movies off an external hard drive without degradation/waiting.

Another option that I use: Buy a mac mini for 500 bucks and hook it straight to your TV/sound system; my TV is my monitor. After years of doing a lot of different avenues, I've found this way to be the easiest, least problems, and I find myself using this setup as my normal "go to" computer in the house anyways. The laptop exists almost exclusively for when I'm on the road. It makes for a very easy setup to watch anything in HD you want all via internet...haven't paid a dollar to a cable or satellite company in over 5 years.

Know a couple dudes who punched to reserves at 17-18 years; the alternative was a year at bumfuckistan for a "great command opportunity" - they don't have regrets. The 20 year retirement isn't everything.

Good chance you're right, but doesn't mean we should bet the farm on it and get caught with our pants down. Those who totally subscribe to the idea that we'll only do low intensity fights and will never need technology such as the F-35 have woefully low to zero SA on even current threats, let alone threats in the next 5-20 years. A great example is right now - will force on force conflict start with Russia over a "mistake" in Syria, probably not. But, sure wouldn't want to be completely unprepared for such a thing if it was to happen. Not being prepared for a max amount of possibilities/contingencies is foolish. And on top of all this, it's not like the F-35 is a "break in case of emergency" platform, it will fight these same fights, but with the benefit of not being fucked if "the hammer" drops tomorrow.

She has to be your legal dependent to get an ID card, legally reside at your on-base house, shop at the commissary, etc. So unless you have legitimate reason for her to be your dependent, then no, this will not work in a legal sense. That said, you can get here base passes for X days (not sure what the max is at Vance) and she can obviously come stay with you often, but I wouldn't count on her being there for 100% of UPT. I'll also add I cannot imagine having your in law live with you is a good idea during UPT, regardless of baby. It'll be a stressful year and you don't need mom in-law making it more stressful - she will, no matter how good of a relationship you have.

Don't lie, but don't embellish. When asked have you smoked pot, the answer is "yes." When asked how often, the answer is "one time only." Those are true answers, and will display to the questioner your drug use was not habitual, but a one-time "recreational use" mistake. I wouldn't pile on a bunch of extra info (i.e. the whole anxiety thing) unless they specifically ask you about that stuff. Don't offer up additional info until it's directly asked for. After that, all you can do is hope for the best. If you lie, they will find out and you will almost certainly lose any chance you did have at flying jets.

This question will not be answered on the internets.

I know it has happened (ex: B-1 dude to UPT instructor, then went to a Viper guard unit), but at the current state I expect it'd be a very difficult sell for a fighter unit to higher a heavy guy. There are a lot of very qualified fighter pilots getting out of AD and going ANG/AFRES, and probably will be for the foreseeable future - why would a fighter unit, in general, higher a non-fighter guy over the aforementioned? That all said, anything is possible. Why not start looking around at fighter units to potentially get hired by prior to UPT (i.e. they send you to UPT)? If that's what you want, go for it; I imagine your chances of getting into a fighter going that route are higher than staying the heavy path and trying to swap once you're a C-X pilot. You have a good perspective and in the end, do not pass up a good opportunity to be a mil pilot - at some point if the fighter route hasn't happened, but you have a job offer for a heavy unit, you have to think very hard about passing on that opportunity.

Doesn't sound crazy at all - he probably flew F-4s, F-15s, etc. mostly beforehand through the 80s/early 90s, did a TX to the Viper for a bit and left AD. Comes back as a GS to fly the F-4 drones for X years, and then did a SOC at Luke as the 82nd transitions to purely F-16 drones.

Auto-delete rules - the one good thing about Outlook.

I'l be the witch here - while Champ, myself and everyone else have solid reasons for being disgruntled with AD and many dudes jump off the burning ship for those solid reasons, I would still absolutely recommend to you (or any young dude wanting to fly in the military) to go for it. What you see in those threads referenced above is a lot of bitching (many valid) and negative outlooks derived from years of this lifestyle and dealing with the bullshit. Do not read those threads and change your mind or lower your desire to serve and fly in the AF. You may very well be "us" at 8+ years into your AD time, but despite all the assholes and bullshit you'll run across, you'll still do awesome things, go awesome places and have a job that is untouched by 99% of the world. Yes, some people get hosed more than others, but there is risk in all walks of life - you could not do the AF and risk wanting to suck start a shotgun every day you drive in an hour of traffic to get to your shitty cubicle job you thought for sure would be a great career after finishing college. So, don't get discouraged by anything you read here, continue to work your ass off (as you clearly have been) and get a pilot slot. It will be awesome and you'll never regret the decision - even if you say "fuck this place!" and leave at 10 years.

So you think the guy who is the mission commander for a 100 aircraft, led the planning and/or the actual mission execution isn't utilizing multiple types of leadership skills? This is MDS agnostic, but being a mission commander (100 was a large example, but the point still stands for the guy running 20-30 assets) in training and combat is a huge leadership role and by far shadows a lot of other "leadership" roles out there. Budha made great points above.

I get the gist of your point, but disagree flying doesn't at minimum enhance and grow one's leadership capability. There's a lot of leadership skills required in aviation - maybe some communities/areas more than others, but overall there is leadership required and increasing ability to lead is generally required as one's experience and position in their community increases.

Shockingly there are several positive ideas in there - what are the chances of those being implemented as intended; probably low given the the abysmal performance track record of A3 and friends. Hope I'm proven wrong; the AF and its people could benefit a lot from this.