JeepGuyC17

Given the hard-on for safety that people seem to have around there, I bet if you got a few guys together and said you tripped on them and skinned your knee they'd be gone the next morning

Stupid question, but when and why did "UAV" become "UAS"?

If you get it shipped to South Carolina I think they have a maximum sales tax of $300 on a new car, not a bad deal.

The goretex was awesome to have, especially in the winter months and during evasion days when you'll be lying in the snow for extended periods of time. The headlamp was also extremely useful, I would recommend one with an LED lamp, and a few sets of lithium batteries- they last longer and will stand up to the cold MUCH better than alkaline batteries. Some guys out there with incandescent lamps and alkaline batteries had their lamps die before the end of the first night.

Every time I've flown in the combat zone we've been on the Air Tasking Order. Does that satisfy the criteria of being assigned to the airspace?

Amen, Stossel. Your moustache is wise indeed.

I didn't pay any federal income tax last year. I got six months of tax free, and got the rest back because that put my taxable income below the minimum where I would owe taxes. This year's shaping up to be a similar situation.

Interesting. I wonder how long before Michael Bay buys the movie rights...

Yeah, the issue holster is garbage, and invariably points the barrel of the weapon at either your arm pit or the other pilot's head. If you ever stop in Incirlik, I got one at Pop's leather for about $40. It's got the horizontal style holster (I don't like the vertical ones like they sell for $90 at Ali Al Salem) and two magazine pouches. Way more comfortable. https://popsleather.com/prod_v2.php3?prod=238 edit: link added

Ha ha, the Magic Jack works better if "Midnight Hot" is on.

It would be totally ironic if 40 years from now the BUFF ended up being the last of the manned cockpits for those who want to kill the enemy and break their stuff.

When I tried it at Manas last year on the free WiFi it didn't work because most VOIP web sites were blocked by the filter, and since the skype web site was blocked I was unable to connect to the service. It did work at the coffee shop internet that you had to pay for though. Related to the .mil computer thing, When I was deployed I bought a thumb drive that had Skype installed on it that you could supposedly plug in and run from the thumb drive without installing it on the computer, but before I could try it out on a gov computer the whole thumb drive ban happened. Too bad, that would have been cool.

Yeah, AT&T will try to rape you on a tethering plan but a lot of phones out there have apps to hack the phone into letting you do it with a basic data plan.

I just got a windows mobile smartphone because I wanted a phone with Wifi to use for Skype and what not. I like it so far, but it seems like the WiFi connection speed is really slow when compared to my laptop, even when they are connected to the same network. Skype will work fine on my laptop, but be choppy on the smartphone. Anyone else experience this or know why the phone's wifi would be slower? I thought it might be because of my phone's processor speed, but it is a newer model (Samsung Epix) and is supposed to have a relatively fast processor.

2?

And then he growled "Get off my plane!"

I just grabbed mine off the rack. $175 including the liner/extra pockets etc. Nicer leather than the issue jackets too. They sell the same jacket on their web site for close to $400

You can get them at Manas, at least until they kick us out.

You can try to find loop holes in the law that allow you to do certain things, but it will not always be possible. Bottom line, there WILL be times when you will need to do something forbidden when there are no exceptions allowing it. You have to ask yourself, if you were in this situation, would you refuse to do whatever it was? If so, then the military is definitely not for you. As others have stated, you can try to plan for how to face these issues, but in many cases things that may seem reasonable to you now will not be possible. Things like the security camera thing or the unplugged laptop. For example, if you become an intel officer, you will work in a secure, locked room (possibly with only yourself and a female). Since it is a classified environment, there are no cameras allowed, and you cannot use your own laptop because you will need to access secret information on a government computer. So you see, it is not just the flying world where you could run into problems. If you are asked to do something incompatible with your beliefs and there is a loophole or exception that allows it, great. You can do your job and reconcile it with your faith. But if there is not an exception that allows whatever it is, you WILL still have to do it. That's just the honest truth. If you can make peace with the fact that there will be times when you will have to make exceptions to your lifestyle knowing that you tried your best, then you can probably make it work. If being forced to operate electronics on certain days, be alone with females, eat non-kosher food etc is going to eat you up inside, then you should pursue a different profession.

There were even a couple guys there with me that wore the gas mask inserts with the rubber strap. Looked goofy as hell, but it gets the job done, and those things are pretty much impervious to getting bent/sat on/falling off your head etc

I was thinking more along the lines of one of those '80s cartoons/action figure advertisements like M.A.S.K.

The difference is that our airmen are a uniformed military force of lawful combatants, and not some dude in civies who throws acid on some little girl's face, takes a few pot shots at an American patrol and then goes and hides in a mosque.

"I have people skills! I'm good at dealing with people!" Agreed on the whole backside approach thing, even without the flight director/autopilot, precision approaches in the C-17 are easy as hell to fly. Once you set your pitch, the only adjustments you need to make are your wind corrected heading, and your power for the glidepath. The position of the flight path vector relative to the -3 degree pitch line will tell you in real time whether you'll trend above or below glidepath, and the airspeed takes care of itself if you have the pitch hold set correctly. Then just push the power in at 50 feet and touchdown. I love this jet. (For those not in the know, the "flight path vector" is a little pipper on the HUD that shows where the aircraft is going. For example, to fly straight and level, you line the flight path vector up with the horizon line)

I'm waiting for Blues Monday to be implemented at the Deid. Stranger/gayer things have happened.

They can give me all the shit they want, at least until the little light next to the toilet turns red and I can't flush it anymore