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I know the AC-130 schoolhouse is at Hurbie. Not sure on answers to the rest...

the tenuous link is the callsign SANDY and what that entails. CSAR and SAR. I agree this is ridiculous.

aside, the Sandia National Labs cafeteria on base is awesome. Open to everyone (mil get a free drink with your meal). They also serve breakfast. I have a friend who works there who pointed me to it. Slightly more expensive than the Kirtland chow hall, with more and better food options, and no ridiculous requirement for Os to be on TDY orders to partake.

ABQ is great for outdoor things, heck, all of NM is great for this. Low cost of living compared to many other places. Skiing on Sandia Peak, better skiing 1.5-2 hrs away (Santa Fe/Taos/Angel Fire), lots and lots of cultural things to do/explore. There is an awesome network of paved bike trails throughout the city, and plenty of places for unpaved mountain biking in town and nearby. Food choices are great, there's a budding food truck scene, microbreweries on every corner. Minor League baseball team in town (Isotopes), UNM basketball. Wine festival in May, Balloon Fiesta in Oct, AMAZING wx (all 4 seasons). Drawbacks include crappy drivers (and some of them drunk), petty crime (more prevalent in certain areas), road system kinda sucks, can't get anywhere fast it seems. I echo was Brecky says regarding where to live...I live on the NW side, Paseo and Unser area (west mesa, near Double Eagle airport). I looked at a shit ton of houses in the NE Heights and they were either old and in desperate need of a remodel (which is not really my thing, but might be yours), or priced out of my range (for those that have already been remodeled). Definitely more bang for the buck on the west side. Nob Hill is also a pretty cool place, but that's $$$ and does put you closer to the less-than-desireable parts of town (so a garage would be a must in that area unless you like having your car broken into). General rule of thumb, the farther north of Central you get, the less crime there is. There is a new build just east of base called Volterra. To me, all the houses felt on top of each other, no views, and only one road in and out, which makes me think it's a giant traffic jam in the mornings trying to leave the hood to get to base. But if having a short commute is important to you, and you figure you'll only be there for 3 years, might be up your alley. Base housing is pretty nice, it's fairly new, but you won't get much of a back yard. If you live east of the pass (Edgewood, Moriarty, Cedar Crest, Tijeras, you will definitely get more bang for your buck, and nice big lots. Tradeoff is you've put yourself 30 min from base, 45 min from downtown, and when there is WX, it all dumps over there. Really just depends what your priorities are. BLAB: ABQ is awesome, you could do way worse than an assignment here...sorry I don't have any gouge on schools.

rarely have I met someone who hasn't puked in the back of the helo their first ride (count me in this category as well). Vibrations I guess...there was a flight doc at Moody who never lasted more than a .3 before he had to be unceremoniously kicked out at an LZ or on the range so we could finish our sortie, but I digress. I was flight lead for a 2-ship of 60s flying from DM out to BMGR for some .50 cal love (45 min flight for us one way), and both birds had 3 cadets each (ops AF). We made sure to brief them up and hand out puke bags before step...on the way home, after about 45 minutes of LZ work and 45 min of weapons employment, a cadet in chalk 2 gets sick, can't find issued puke bag, and proceeds to spew all over the cabin. We land back at DM and everyone unasses the birds and heads inside for debrief, with the expectation that the cadets would clean up their own puke. 1.5 hrs later, debrief is finishing up and the ODO knocks on the door; MX is calling asking who is going to come clean up the puke. Turns out the cadets split (and departed back to USAFA the next AM so we never saw them again). So we had to go back out there with the pressure washer, some bleach, and a shit ton of towels to clean that stuff up because we sure as hell weren't going to make our maintainers clean up cadet puke. I made sure to call the Group AOC at USAFA (who was a fellow 60 driver) to give him a head's up about his cadets...

so those who've had fees waived previously will start seeing them again?

he's a correct dork.

FEs aren't limited to helos, FYI. https://www.afforums.com/index.php?threads/flight-engineer-history.15324/

Instructing at PIT means the folks you are instructing already have wings, last I checked.

not STS. 304 RQS (Portland).

I remember seeing some email traffic in Jan regarding needing to fill out some paperwork to continue Roth TSP contributions. Did you do that? ETA: apparently you need to make sure your Roth TSP contributions are characterized by a percentage of pay vice an actual dollar amount. https://www.holloman.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123432619

there's also an issue (Guard, I think) of if the AGR doesn't own any like iron, then there can't be Guard pilots on that airframe. This is currently an issue at Kirtland (58 SOW), where there are no Guard or Reserve entities who own Hueys or CV-22s, so all the Guard Huey and CV-22 instructors at the 150th are fucked. And this is also fucking the AD instructors. It's a lose-lose, and not sure if anyone's figured out a workaround yet.

A toast...

you just don't know the right people.

I know the Hueys in AFGSC have been using iPads for a while now, maybe Breckey can chime in.

Heidelberg! Neuschwanstein! Drive some laps on the Nurburgring!

please dear god end this thread derailment!

apparently TIB is having trouble filling the ranks this year... https://www.facebook.com/jqpublic/posts/835193759885460:0

can't log in at DM.

timeline for adjudicated VA claim depends on which VA you've filed with. As an example, I have friends who have been waiting anywhere from one to several years. I, on the other hand, had a fully adjudicated claim in 8 weeks, because the Southern Arizona VA (aka Tucson) is awesome. Have you already filed your claim paperwork? My timeline: filed paperwork at the assistance office on base, 5 weeks later had appointment at the VA hospital for the exams, 3 weeks after that I got a letter in the mail detailing the results/decisions for my claimed service-connected medical issues, and a week after that I had my first check electronically deposited in my bank account for the back pay to my DOS.

I would say your chances are slim of getting to Wright-Pratt.

that's not a new link, it's the same link as posted above with more crap added to the end (my guess is you drilled down deeper in the site).

One of the other threads someone mentioned he was in TAP a week or two ago...