Mark1

Um, John Q. Public here. I love a flyby as much as the next guy, but sorry, I'm not paying taxes so that you can go out and have a unique joyride in the jet. I pay taxes to maintain a competent fighting force. Training (or recruitment objectives) damn well better factor into every flight you take. You want to go joyride? Buy your own $200M jet and offer services to the NFL on your own time. And yeah, a flyover might be light on legitimate training objectives, but if you can't learn something from one, you're doing it wrong. Based on some of the atrocious TOTs I've seen on TV over the last few years, most of the guys flying them need the training.

Let me get this straight. You're turned off by people lying to your face and simultaneously you're sure that your vote is going to a person who, if they played a character in a Hollywood movie meant to be a pathological liar, you'd complain that their rendition was too cartoonish and over-the-top? Welp, I guess you've got that all sewn up.

Had no idea that was a thing. Glad I missed out on it. I know that logic is forbidden when you're getting 'chiefed' (especially as a student), but did anybody ever try telling the aggressor that shoe polish is petroleum based? Coating yourself in a highly flammable substance kinda goes against the entire utilitarian purpose of a flight suit. At least it would make emergency ground egresses more entertaining for the tower/SOF.

The fuck? People shined their black boots?

It doesn't. I thought I was clear that it's not an all-encompassing metric. However, at the moment we're lofting 2 incompetant idiots that are also human cesspools to the top of the two-party system with nearly perfect accuracy. Wouldn't it be a good start if we just went with 2 incompetant idiots that were mildly respectable human beings instead? As a side note, you should substitute somebody else for Mother Theresa in future rhetorical questions. She left a lot to be desired when it comes to morality.

Jesus Christ, we're fucking doomed. We really do deserve 2 candidates of the caliber we have in front of us if this is the kind of logic that's being used by the average voter to decide where their vote should go. I mean, in any election this would be a absurd statement. It's plainly obvious why the incumbent would take a rosy view and the challenger a pessimistic one. But in this specific case, this logic deserves a facepalm of epic proportions. The current incumbent was a challenger 4 years ago and his god damned mantra was "Make America Great Again", implying that America was no longer great. Maybe the hat that he wore with the mantra emblazoned on it burned your retinas to the point where you couldn't see it? Every 4 years there's two more manufactured candidates just putting on a theater show during the campaign. The script is written by a team of sociologists and PR people and they all just hope that their horse can rattle of bullshit platitudes for the 9 month campaign without stepping on any run-ending landmines. Landmines in this case being a metaphor for making some social faux pas that has no bearing whatsoever on somebody's ability to run a country. And the worst part is that the voters know they're watching contrived theater, and yet, instead of demanding reality they just get wrapped up in the details of the storyline and cast votes as if the show they're watching was reality. Can we just start voting based on who seems more human before this country goes the way of Rome? I'd ask for decision making at a more sophisticated level than that, but...baby steps. And before anybody tries to decide who's more human between Trump and Biden, I'm talking about through the whole process. Neither of these idiots would have ever been on a primary stage if it required a Turing test to qualify.

No. You're talking about infection and death numbers. I'm talking about transmission rate. It's the only metric that matters because it's the only one that we can control. A small error in predicted transmission rate results in huge differences in infection/death numbers due to the logarithmic dynamics. The error in predicted transmission rate, yes in your state too, is relatively small. It's why you get the NIAID director saying we could see 200k dead and a week later the estimate is revised to 1/3rd of that. It's not because they're alarmist or NWO puppets trying to enslave you. It's because it's that sensitive. Knowing that, the takeaway should be how lucky we are that the transmission rate didn't turn out a few percent higher than predicted. It should be a realization of how close to disaster we came (not suggesting it's over), despite there being no tangible evidence to indicate it. Not that the governor is making haphazard decisions based on bogus data.

The data isn't off by a factor of two. In the only parameter that we can control, it's been off by roughly 5%. Pretty damn good when estimating how 325 million people and a novel virus are going to behave. Given the logarithmic dynamics, that manifests itself in large death deltas, but the meaningful parameter is actually quite accurate. A page back you've got a dude presenting numbers of other cause mortality to suggest that this thing hasn't been a big deal. Never mind that he's comparing annual flu deaths to 1 month worth of this. Yes at this instant, after the 'draconian' measures, after the economy was shut down, after the schools were closed, it's been manageable. Without those things the same models that have proven themselves to be accurate to within 5% of reality would predict that we'd be about 14 days away from a week in which 10% of the U.S. population would be infected. New infections, not total. 30 million infections over the course of a week at a time when the healthcare system would have already been crippled. You'd have people dying of appendicitis in the parking lots of hospitals. Do you think Lowe's garden center and your local Applebee's would be turning record profits in that environment? Or would they have voluntarily closed up shop given that half of their workforce was out sick and 0% of their customer base was willing to venture outside? If you could trust people to handle things intelligently on an individual basis then you wouldn't need to shut down toy stores or close off non-essential sections of essential businesses. But given that you get a reasonable portion of the population complaining to the people who saved their lives that they don't see people dying in the street an therefore it was never a big deal, it's hard to have faith that they'd handle it intelligently. As a result, you get the default position to just shut it down, because a large portion of the population can't operate on nuance.

Hence my statement that they would have to be restricted to the immediate training area. The mini-mart and exchange would be off limits. I went through field training at Lackland and the only contact I had with anyone outside the training staff, other trainees, or food service personnel, was while getting a haircut at the mini-mart. Yes, I'm aware that the two training programs are different, but with some small policy changes and accommodations moved to the dorm area to serve the trainees in garrison, it would be possible. I'm not advocating for it, but I also wouldn't consider an attempt to make it work a public health hazard. My guess is that it would prove infeasible as once infection occurred within the system training would likely have to stop. But very few of the 18yr old trainees would end up at Reid. They'd just transfer to a separate quarantine dorm for rest. I'm also not sure people have a grasp of how long this process is going to take if the efforts to slow it work. Forgoing a few BMT classes is one thing, but can the AF absorb missing 6-12 months (or more) of newly minted Airmen? They might have no choice but to try and make it work.

I don't disagree with the premise that it's not necessary, but I feel like a lot of people are not grasping the end game in all of this. The end game is herd immunity. The end game is 'everyone' (e.g. a large fraction) eventually becoming infected and developing immunity. We don't need to prevent every infection, just blunt the spread out over time. BMT and OTS are relatively closed systems. I'd expect that they would put in further restrictions to leaving base or even the immediate training area on base during all of this. If so, if there's transmission within the system and it's [mostly] contained, it doesn't really go against the goal. It would be no different than the cruise ship quarantines. If the aim was to stop every transmission they would have been quarantined in isolation rather than as a group. Yes, the training instructors that leave base at night could become vectors, but again, we're not trying to eliminate every vector. Just a large portion of them. The likelihood that they'd have to suspend training in he middle of the courses due to an outbreak is another story.

I assume it's a lost cause, but they don't really have to speculate on this. If they accept a spherical earth and can read a chart they can just look at the numbers from Australia. They're lagging behind the hotspots of the world so their magnitude is low at the moment and they aren't in the news, but the shape of their curve is unmitigated exponential growth just like everywhere else. 2-3 weeks will be enough to put this theory to bed. Granted there is actual scientific data to show that temperature does affect the virility of this thing in an absolute sense, but that doesn't mean it's enough of a factor to stop its spread and anybody suggesting otherwise definitively is an idiot. In other words, the country is in good hands.

Uh, not quite. The Sunni portion, maybe, but that's only 1/3rd of the population. You're seeing the vocal minority reaction, not a consensus. I'm surprised it hasn't already occurred and maybe time will temper emotions so that it doesn't, but I'd guess the most likely outcome is the Shiite dominated Iraqi parliament votes to expel us with prodding behind the scenes from the Iranians. At that point we have no legal justification to operate within their borders and the international community won't take kindly to [the inevitable] periodic violations of their territory for our military/intelligence operations. That's when the Iranians move in to fill the void (to a greater degree than they already have after being invited to assist in pushing ISIS back) and transform Iraq in to the same kind of proxy that they've established elsewhere in the region. The Sunnis will be backed into a corner, and insurgency will persist indefinitely along with the increased Iranian influence. This is all assuming that the Iranians play it cool and have more foresight than we seem to have. No guarantee of that. If they go for a spectacular response then this changes and maybe we just embroil ourselves in another 20 years of nation building in the region. But I'm sure our administration considered these possibilities when they chose to strike and has a solid plan to prevent them...I'm sure of it.

Yeah, I'm sure he's going to take a real hard line. Ya know, like he did with the Khashoggi thing.

I'm not excusing it, but you'd find JTR violations in the travel plans of every O-6+ if you gave them this much scrutiny. Some resulting from ignorance of the rules, and plenty due to intentional manipulation for personal gain/convenience. The point is that they never even get looked at if you're not a dick. You only get 150 pages documenting every trip to the bathroom you made over the course of a year after you've been identified as a problem. Her leadership got her fired. From a psychology standpoint it would be interesting to be the Senior Official Inquiries investigator. You're dealing with people who are used to having the world move on their whim. Nobody tells them no. What they say goes and nobody questions it (at least aloud). Then an investigation is opened and they're checking swipe card access logs to verify if it was possible that you bumped into a guy in the hallway of the Pentagon like you said you did. Must be humbling.

There's a little bit of discussion on it in this thread from back when the episode originally aired if you're interested: https://www.flyingsquadron.com/forums/topic/1825-b-1-bone-questions/?page=7 Would be a true statement, except that you can't conduct CAS from a box at Creech. At least not yet. That is assuming you mean high quality, effective, CAS.

What in the holy hell are you on about? I pity you. No reasonable person could read what I wrote and receive it as a politically motivated statement. The mentality you move through life with must be exhausting. I made a comment on the role of a special counsel (any special counsel in any case) and the fact that they don't determine guilt or innocence. That's not their role. And so it would be foolish to assume/claim that they had adjudicated a case as they do not have to power to do so. It was not a comment on Trump or his guilt/innocence. It was a comment on the judicial system, period. That's why Trump wasn't mentioned or hinted at in any way. I don't honestly care what Trump did or didn't do. I don't need legal proceedings against him to tell me he's an embarrassment to the nation and a self-centered, self-serving, pompous, incompetent fool who would break the law whenever and wherever it suits him for personal gain. Disclaimer for all you overzealous political watchdogs: the above statement is not an insinuation he collaborated with the Russians, it is merely a comment on his general character. Helpful? But I assume you'll take that to mean that I'm upset I was robbed of the opportunity to wear my matching pantsuit to Hillary's inauguration. For the record, I'm leaps and bounds further right on the political spectrum than you are, so save your catchy, passive-aggressive, pet nicknames for the real lefty and Dem enemies. I'd suggest you check out https://www.amazon.com/Them-Hate-Each-Other-Heal-ebook/dp/B079YL56S3 except I haven't read it and know nothing about it or its author other than the fact that the title is applicable for you. But it's probably just a pinko commie rag, am I right? BTW, you got ripped if you paid a nickel for that law degree. Maybe you should track down The Juice and see if he'd spare part of his $2M/yr pension to get you a real degree.

Wut? Mueller conducted an investigation and summarized his findings in a report, he didn't adjudicate the case. When a district attorney declines to bring murder charges against someone because they don't think they have evidence to meet burden of proof you thought that meant the state was declaring the individual innocent? You need to fire your criminal justice teacher. And for the record, if you go to trial and the verdict is "not guilty" that's not a declaration of innocence either.

Can anybody who's familiar with this guy tell me where he went to college (or PM me his FB page would work as well, I suppose)? I remember hearing the story back when it happened, but never connected with the name. Seeing it now, I think I may have known him back in college. The guy I'm thinking of had the same name and he tracked BUFFs, but we weren't friends so I lost track of him at that point. Fairly common name so I suppose it could be another person. Would just like to know out of morbid curiosity.

If you actually go back and read what I said, I wasn't referring to the crash location as unpopulated. In fact, you'll see I chose my words quite carefully, referring it it as "underpopulated". The "unpopulated" area being Olympic National Park, which he headed towards before being steered back by approach because they wanted him within radio range. Since you're intimately familiar with the area, tell me what the population density is on Sentinel Peak, and then let me know if it meets a reasonable definition of "unpopulated"...that's what I thought. Stop pretending that having missiles tipped with high explosives flying around a highly populated area riddled with child daycares, followed by an aircraft with jammed flight controls careening uncontrolled towards said daycare facilities doesn't also constitute a risk.

What more could he have done to demonstrate a threat? He could have started by plowing into downtown Seattle before any scramble even had time to reach the jets. Instead he headed towards an unpopulated area before (generally) complying with instructions to turn back towards Sea-Tac in order to stay within radio range of approach. Then he verbally expressed his desire not to hurt anyone and voluntarily posted up over the water for his aerobatics. Based on his behavior and flight track, this was not dumb luck. It was a conscious decision on his part to do what he was going to do in a "safe" location. I can imagine more threatening scenarios. FYI, he didn't crash into the water but given the underpopulated area he had chosen, nobody on the ground was affected.

I have no first hand experience flying with him, but Norty was one of the test pilots on the YMC-130 program. If I had to guess, given the high profile of the mission and my assumption that the mission pilots would be selected from the group of test pilots, he along with all the other guys on that test program were probably well respected and accomplished pilots in their respective communities. That's a lot of assumptions though.

Right on brother! Also, we should have airborne DCA up over every TFR in the country ready to blast NORDO Cessna 150s out of the sky the moment they cross the line. Actually on second thought, DCA with blanket clearance to Fox 3 based on predictive path of any aircraft that approach the restriction. I assume for consistency's sake when it comes to your risk aversion that you rate preflight walkaround as extreme risk on your ORM worksheet?

I'm going to assume that you're responding to the voice inside you're head because none of this is related in any way to anything I had to say. And yet, from a statistical perspective, they're still saving lives over traditional vehicles. So what's your point. That they can improve? Sure, great. Doesn't change the fact that they're objectively safer in their current state. If you'd like, for funsies, I can point you to a video of a man burning alive inside his gasoline powered car after a mild impact which he survived but which deformed the frame of the vehicle to the point that he couldn't exit the vehicle, and cracked the fuel tank. Or are we all tuckered out on anecdotal evidence and hypotheticals that do nothing to change the statistics? Statistics that don't require 20 million sales to be relevant. There are very well established methods for determining how much of a sample size is required for meaningful statistical conclusions. Those analyses are presented right alongside the results showing the disparity in safety record. Yes, and? You take issue with objective truths? Also, not sure how you interpreted my comments to be support for Musk in any way. I recall showing support for the science of probability and statistics, and then pointing out the inevitable failure of Tesla's business model. I don't recall raising Musk up to deity status. For your sake I hope Musk's next project is a charity focused on adult literacy programs.

Tesla doesn't sell self driving cars. Negligent drivers in Tesla vehicles did all those things. Also, do you have numbers on how many BMWs, Hondas, and Fords were involved in crashes involving parked vehicles and highway barriers over the same period of time...normalized by the relative number of cars of course? That would help make your point that Teslas are rolling death traps. Oh wait, the numbers show that Teslas are significantly safer than a traditional vehicle? And that's with contribution of any battery issues and scrap parts rolled in? Damn, so much for that. As a fun side project, you should look up cases of "spontaneous" combustion in traditional cars vs. Teslas...you might be surprised to find that the national news isn't being so genuine when they highlight every incident of a Tesla burning to the ground while neglecting the order of magnitude more traditional cars that do the same on a daily basis. Statistically, your life insurance company should gift you a Tesla with known battery and manufacturing defects. Having said that, I wouldn't go anywhere near Tesla stock. People seem to have this impression that Tesla is doing something that none of the other car manufacturers have the skills to do. That's not the case at all. Up until now Musk has been willing to operate at a loss in a long term effort to corner an emerging market, but it's foolish to think he can do so. The traditional auto manufacturers won't enter the autonomous EV market in earnest until it's favorable economically over internal combustion engine vehicles, which isn't yet the case. However, when they choose to shift their engineering and manufacturing efforts it will take no time for them to flood the market with comparable EVs with their logos on them, and the halo that Tesla has been operating under will disappear in short order. They'll probably be left as a legitimate, but very small player in the car business. Their stock reflects none of that reality.

Do what you can to get a true picture of what the MC-130 does if you're going vector hard towards it. In no way am I trying to steer you way from it, but my impression of what the MC-130H did when I was in your position was nothing but terrain following low level, threat penetration, high speed airdrop of clandestine forces, and that seemed pretty cool to me. Turns out, although those may be capabilities, they're rarely exercised and 95% of the time the MCs aren't doing anything a slick -130 doesn't do (excluding HAR/TAR as my impression is the crews don't consider it especially enjoyable). There's nothing wrong with "slick missions", but it may not be what you expect from the MCs. I had a strong desire to end up in MCs initially, but by dumb luck ended up elsewhere in AFSOC and wouldn't have taken an offer to cross-train into MCs after I had seen their reality from up close. Again, not to discourage you. If that's what you want, go for it. Just do what you can to be sure you understand what you're working towards.