contraildash

I've been upgraded once, but I wasn't in the military at the time. FC is nice.... Going across the pond, Lufthansa coach is pretty legit. I can only imagine how much better BC or FC is. I have yet to travel in uniform though.

I've heard it before, but I have no idea if there is some reg/rule on this. The guy was doing everything but actually saying "give me an upgrade because I'm in the military".

I flew home recently for the weekend and there was a Army E-1 fresh out of boot on my flight, at the gate they called him to the counter and gave him a first class ticket. The look on this young kids face was priceless. He was caught way off guard, and didn't quite know what to do. I thought it was pretty cool of the airline folks to do that. Then on the first part of my return trip from my TDY I had an AF O-6 in ABUs trying to pull the upgrade thing both at the counter and then again at the gate. He was a space guy 'going back home' from ABQ - LAX. I just sat there in line a few people back and listening to this Col. schmooze some line on the airline folks about his service and how he's never been in first class. It just disgusted me. Flight was full, no first class open! lol

Saw that a few days after it happened, although not that particular video. There's a bunch of different angles on it, almost hit some folks in the field. Rough stuff. At first glance, its very reminiscent of the T-Bird at Mountain Home. Godspeed edit: taking out speculation

no, but can I have my lightning back? At least the search function nazis didn't get to you first!

See post #22 above.

I love these races, looking forward to my first one in person this year. Anyways, seen a few pylons clipped, canopies come undone, ect. But this guy takes first prize in the crash your plane into the water race. Lucky SOB! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaJEDl7HwII

I doubt this incident was even in the same ball park as this near miss.

(in total bad taste..but this guy lives)

I got to sit jump while he flew us back from one of his trips recently (not a bad deal for flying Generals). Really nice guy, good pilot too. After we landed he hung around and cracked a few jokes while his aide got the car.

Looked up my friend's Navy SQ on wiki, got a good laugh:

Air Refueling? That sounds novel. How about standing around in 'sideways rain' refueling? Or freezing my nuts off in Poland refueling? Then there's always smelly Arab guy spraying JetA all over you and the jet refueling...

hence:

BIRDS!!! (thought these were appropriate)

I just watched "Beer Wars" on Netflix. I really enjoyed it, highly recommend it to any and all beer lovers out there. The blind taste test was pretty funny, and very true. Sam from Dogfish Head brewery is a hell of a due (and brews some awesome beer). Long and short of it, I don't think I will ever drink something from one of the "big three" ever again...support your micro-brews!!!

Food for thought....what happens to all these dudes in a few years when there isn't a need for all those orbits anymore? It'll be interesting to see what happens to that community on a whole when things start to get slow. Just because they won't be needed in UAVs (RPAs...whatever the term is these days) doesn't mean there necessarily will be room for them in other airframes, after all things will be slowing down across the board at some point. It'll be very interesting to see how things play out over the next few years.....

...it's like seeing a space guy walking around ETAR in a bag, leather jacket, scarf, but alas no flying wings... like you said, you just know.... On subject, there was some growing pains with the Combat Action Medal when it first came out. My cousin is a Tech in EOD, multiple tours in OEF and OIF, been shot at - shot back, ect. However, the AF didn't want to retroactively award the combat service medal to him or other members of his unit. (although it's retroactive to Sept 11, 2001) I think it had something to do with their being attached to the Army at the time. In the end he got it, but it took the better part of a year. His biggest complaint was that his folks didn't get the medal, but were outside the wire fighting, yet folks inside the wire were getting the AFCAM because they manned a "fighting position" while getting mortared. In the end it was all a moot point. While he did end up getting his retroactive medal approved, he deployed yet again and got another AFCAM. Personally, you can bash your head against the wall all day thinking about this kinda stuff, but in the end it's not really worth it. Undeserving people will get things, while others who really do won't. Story of life.

There's a book out called "the majestic twelve" about a rag-tag bunch of marines, soldiers, and airmen that start their own convoy protection. The Marine who wrote the book is rather scathing when it comes to the subject of the "fobbits" putting in dec packages for sitting around in some building all day, and while at the same time going out of their way to make sure that the convoy guys (whom they didn't like) had medals degraded or even rejected. Interesting read.

Agreed on the vulgarity. Seems like a bad combination of raging bitch and whiny JOs. It doesn't excuse her actions though, and relieving her of command was a good choice. Having that atmosphere on a ship of any sorts doesn't lead to anything good. Putting senior cheifs in "time out"? What is this? Elementary school? I do, however, like and will use: "I can't express how mad you make me without getting violent."

For anyone that's seen the "epic beard man bus fight"... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67XOc_xIA4U

Lucky no one on the ground was injured! Based on some GoogleEarth skills, and looking at the news video, I came up with this: Disclaimer: bad math ahead To clear 60 power lines (if the news is correct) that are approximately 2400 ft from the runway, you'd need climb at about 155 ft/nm. For reference, I think that around 100 knots ground speed 155ft/nm equals about 240 ft/min. Of course I have no idea how fast they were going...or if my late night math skills are any good.

Nice use of the strike-through for comical effect.

60 Driver, thanks for setting the story straight! ...two points to the bear...

Story is that the guy left some fishing bait in the plane...and a bear 'found' it. Not only do I love the duct tape job, but he still had the presence in mind to write his N number with a pen...you know...for legal sh*t and all that.

It's interesting so far...