SuperWSO

This isn't a book, but it is very interesting reading. It is a personal account of a B-17 crew member who flew from Sep 1943 to Feb 1944. I've read numerous other books, but it never ceases to amaze me what these guys endured, and kept hacking the mission day after day... without the aid of reflective belts or PT gear. B17log.pdf

Just a bomber guys opinion, but I believe that there are Pave Hawk MH-60s still flying and the MH-53 Pave Low helicopters were recently retired. Either way, I would expect that there are a great many guys still flying that had experience in either platform who could be considered "Pave" guys. Just my 2 cents.

According to BUFF guys I know, the wings on the BUFF move almost 18 feet vertically from full droop to the opposite extreme. I'm not an Aero engineer, but that much flexing in a metal structure over the course of sixty years just can't be good. One day, the wing tips are going to meet in the middle and the AF will have to start revising their long term plans. To quote the Commander in Chief "It just isn't sustainable."

In a high speed ejection, the seat goes up the rails, separates from the aircraft and then a drogue chute pops out to slow you down. At that point, the occupant of the seat is moving forward boots and butt first. In a two piece flight suit, the top half would more than likely become a second drag chute wrapped around your head. With all the straps and connections to the seat, the top would probably get ripped off of your body. I have talked to a number of guys who lost their helmet even with the chin strap and O2 mask secured. That is why pointy nosed aviators would not be fans of the two piece option. In addition, it shouldn't be mission impossible to figure out how to take a dump without hitting a flight suit. I've worn one in the desert while working with the Army, and I will agree it is a pain when rocking a gun belt, but it is a small price to pay to look that cool. (reference I'm Hot Cause I'm Deployed)

Between this dude and the F-15E Lt Col, I don't think that everyone has focused on the positive aspects of the story. Sure you can get wrapped around the axle supporting or opposing DADT, or molesting subordinates regardless of their sex. I think we have missed the good news side of the story; more vacancies = more promotions on the next Lt Col board.

After thinking about this some more, I realized one difference between the services. Since I joined the AF, every squadron I have been assigned to (outside of the current space command gig) has maintained a bar within the squadron. This was where parties were held, Friday roll call, and any other excuse to get together with the bro's and drink a couple beers. The squadron police their own and make sure nobody gets in trouble.

I just got this via e-mail, and although the author is writing about the Marine Corps, everything he says applies to Big Blue as well. The best line has to be, "The Pensacola Aviation Museum Cubi-Point Café (replica of the Cubi Point, Philippines O’Club, with actual plaques relocated from there) is a fine example of how our clubs’ “focus of effort” should look, rather than like Applebees or Golden Corral." to LC Butler.

DAMMIT MAN, talk to your safety shop! Can you imagine the number of people getting rear ended at the gate if guards looked like this. (I don't think STS is appropriate here, it could happen both ways.) You would have to add an extra 15 minutes to your commute to deal with the permanent 4 car pileup at the gate. The only ones who would make it to work on time would be the Eagle drivers.

Nope, I'm not familiar with the B-1J, but I will let you know if I hear anything. :-)

There is better. For local flavor, try out Joe Allen's, Harolds, Betty Rose's, Squares or Harlows. Everyone has their personal favorite - they all tasted pretty good to me. Famous Daves was just being built as I was PCSing, but I'm pretty sure they are a franchise you can find most places. There are a bunch of steak places, but check out Lyttle Land and Cattle Co, or Perini Ranch south of town. That goes for all the out and back guys from Del Rio and Sheppard too.

You will hear the two responses you mentioned quite frequently. I am one of the people who actually liked Abilene. Overall, the town is relatively small (approx 100k people) but it has a decent amount of restaurants, shopping, and things to do. There are three colleges in town (all Christian schools) and the people are hands down the friendliest I have ever met. If you can't find what you need, Dallas/Ft. Worth is about 2-3 hrs east on I-20 1. When house shopping, most folks look on the south end of town. Check out a map. The railroad tracks run east west through town and divide north first street and south first street. 99% of the town north of 1st street isn't worth looking at. The base was tearing down and rebuilding base housing while I was there, but this is one area where it is worth buying. Housing prices are some of the lowest in the country - I bought a house for less than $200k in Abilene that is roughly equivalent to a $330k house in Colorado Springs. The housing bubble never really arrived in Abilene, so prices never went up and should not drop. 2. Drive south past the mall down Buffalo Gap road. There are several housing areas down there worth looking for. Turn left off of Buffalo gap at Wagon Wheel and you will go through a neighborhood with nice houses starting around 80K and getting progressively larger the further back you go. Some of the houses in the back of the neighborhood have to be pushing $1M. The neighborhood is probably about 40% military so there aren't any problems with the neighbors. A little further down Buffalo Gap road to the South are a couple new developments with bigger houses in the $300k range. My only concern here would be finding someone to sell to in 3-4 years. If you get a house on South Buffalo Gap, you can get to work in about 20 minutes by taking Farm Road 707 (2 lane road, 70 mph legal limit) to the back gate. There is only one stop light.) If you get a place closer to the mall, (Corner of Winters Freeway aka Hwy 83 and Buffalo Gap Rd) you will want to take Rebecca Ln to the front gate. Back north on Buffalo Gap, go east on Antilley (Locals pronounce it Ant-ly) road there are some nice neighborhoods around a golf course (Fairway Oaks). I knew several guys who lived there and took advantage of the extras that the country club had to offer. The area south of Antilley is also in the Wiley School District. The Abilene School district is pretty good, but Wiley is widely considered to be better, so that equates to better chance of selling your house. I hope that is a good start. The housing office sent us a big welcome packet full of maps and local info when I moved there back in 2002. See if you can get them to hook you up before you arrive the first time. If any of this was helpful and you have any questions, PM me and I can provide my home or work email address.

Its never too late for an ass whoopin'. Personally, I think we're going to continue to send sternly worded telegrams to them until Israel does whatever they think is necessary to survive. That will probably force the issue.

I honestly can't comment on the career progression or joys of flight on either platform. I will say that I have been to Robbins, and I am currently living in Colorado Springs. When I got my assignment here, there were about 10 guys who would have killed me and showed up for work in my bag to get a job ANYWHERE in Colorado Springs. Robbins... well, I spent a week there one weekend. Get input from those who know about each platform, but if it was me, I would tell my wife she can grow to love Colorado and plane tickets for the inlaws are cheap.

I know the Democrats have tried to tell people they don't want to ban guns. I guess they've found another way around. This time it isn't the dreaded "Cop Killer" bullets. Its lead poisoning. I guess we have to stop telling people to bite the bullet. https://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/03/04...lets/index.html

You guys shouldn't scoff at this. She said it didn't used to happen twenty years ago. I did a little research, and I haven't found a single picture of rainbows before the invention of color film. I think Kodak may be responsible for rainbow pollution.

I transitioned from Guard to active duty back in 2002 when the B-1s were taken out of the Guard. In that timeframe, you might have been able to meet your requirements. This is just my opinion, but I don't think you're going to be very happy if you try to come in with that list of requirements. The C-130 guys I know at Dyess were doing 1:1 deployment vs time at home. As for staff jobs, I appear to be in the last group that got out to the staff. We got a brief from AFPC recently that said they are going to fill 3% (no shit, 3%) of the rated staff assignment billets this year. That will probably be all school grads or permanent DNIFs. For those in a staff slot, I was told we would go on the VML (option to move) after 2 years, and definitely get pulled back at the 3 year point. As for not deploying, the only way to not deploy while wearing a flight suit is to wear Spwings. My current staff job used to send 1 or 2 guys each rotation. This time we are sending 5 guys (not all rated) and have reclamad (sp?) at least two more. Again, this is my personal opinion, but if you aren't looking to fill a UAV, a 365 to somewhere in CENTCOM or an MC-12, they will probably tell you thanks but no thanks. I can't say what the outlook is for guys at NAS Pensacola, but I have heard of dudes getting pulled from there to fill deployed taskers. I've also heard that "new guys" are extra vulnerable because you aren't trained up yet. I'll defer to anyone on the board with current Pensacola experience.

Somebody needs to review golf etiquette with the pilot. He didn't rake out the footprints in the bunker. Poor form - or would that be considered hiding evidence from the accident board?

OK, I considered starting a new thread, but I just couldn't stand the heat. This thread seemed like the best current catagory for this news story... "69th Bomb Squadron?: The new B-52 unit that the Air Force intends to establish at Minot AFB, N.D., will apparently be called the 69th Bomb Squadron. So reported the Minot Daily News Jan. 10, citing a senior Air Force civil engineer who briefed members of the Minot area chamber of commerce on the previous day on the service's basing plans. That's the first time we've seen the unit designation mentioned publicly; our efforts to confirm the designation yesterday did not bear fruit. But this we know for sure: The Air Force divulged last April its plans to create a fourth operational B-52H squadron so that it would have enough combat-ready B-52s to support combatant commanders around the world with conventional capability and still have enough assets so that individual units could be fenced off for year-long stints to concentrate solely on training for the nuclear mission." I think this merits a WTF? It even sounds like a story that 2Lt Beavis and 2Lt Butthead would try to start. "Heh, heh, is this the Daily News? Heh heh, we have some info on the new squadron." I finally figured out the reason I'm pissed is that somebody got there first. I was in a Det that became a squadron, and we joked about this. Nobody thought you could get away with being the 69th. My hat is off to the drunken party that resulted in the 69th BS. I can't wait to see the patch. (STS)

My dad had USAA his entire career and loved them. I was covered by USAA auto insurance starting when I turned 16. This year I finally cut all connections to the company due to shitty service and lousy rates. Here are the details. 1. In 2000, while PCSing from Pensacola to Abilene, my moving truck rolled over on the interstate and smashed a bunch of our furniture. We called the company and were told that our situation would not be covered because it wasn't a military move. It was - set up through TMO. The fact that I had to explain this to them and fight them on it pissed me off (my wife hated them after this point.) 2. in 2004, we bought a rental home that was 1 year old for around $90k. We tried to insure it through USAA. They refused to insure it for less than $120k and said we could not rebuild for less than that. At the time, new houses were going up for about $90k across the street. At that point, we changed our home insurance and our rental insurance to Armed Forces insurance. 3. in 2008 we moved to Colorado Springs. We asked USAA again about home insurance. Once again, they would not insure our home for less than $40k above the appraised value of the home. Bottom line is they don't want my business. We also dropped our car insurance with them when we found that Allstate would charge several HUNDRED dollars less for my three vehicles. My dad dropped USAA for home insurance several years ago because of their requirement for additional riders for gun ownership. Their standard homeowner policy only covered about $1000 in firearms. It isn't to hard to hit that limit these days. USAA used to be a awesome company built on a reputation for customer service and excellent prices. Their customer service, in my experience has been very poor, and they no longer offer a good value compared to other companies. I've heard many old timers say that it was because they let enlisted personnel or family join, but I don't think that is the root of the problem. They just became a big company that lost sight of the fact that they were taking care of people who were taking care of the country. Currently, the company is only interested in taking care of the bottom line. Thats my 2 cents.

I was in the Guard there when the B-1s were still at McConnell. You can't go wrong if you get a car and drive up Rock road to the North. (the east gate drops you off on Rock). There are a ton of restaraunts once you get north of Kellogg and the mall. Old town has (or used to have) a bunch of good bars. If you want to help girls pay their way through school, go to Jesabells or Michelles Beach club. Jesabells is out the west gate and south past the Boeing factory. Michelles Beach club is in Derby, south of the base.

I was always told the two biggest lies in the Air Force occur when the inspection team show up and says "We're here to help you" and the Wing Commander responds with "We're glad to have you" How about AFPC - "Take this assignment, and we will give you a great follow-on."

OUTSTANDING!! I've heard a cassette copy of this from my dad, and "What the Captain means..." has always been a line in frequent use. I'm glad to see a little heritage pop up. This should be a module in SOS/ACSC.

The Saudis have the money, but have you ever seen a Saudi do anything? They just might send a bunch of TCNs to kick some pirate ass, but there must be an easier way. Maybe the Saudi's can pay the Indian Navy to sink a few more pirates. Put out a bounty on pirate ships.

My favorite jacked up story happened to a buddy of mine who worked down the hall at the weapons school. Dyess was going through a period of increased emphasis on line badge use. They had jacked up several crews in a fairly short period. The prize winner was when a crew of 3 came back to the building after a flight. We asked where the other WSO was and they said he was hauled off by the cops. The best part - it was POST FLIGHT and they had just shut down and were loading their stuff on the crew bus. I can see the need to verify that people walking out to an airplane have a need to be there, but I have a hard time building a scenario in which the people climbing out of the plane following a sortie pose a threat. If they were going to steal the airplane, they probably wouldn't come back for the debrief. On the lighter side, I told the instructor in question that he appeared to have found an innovative way to get out of the usual Weapons School debrief. (usually 1.5x sortie duration)

Looking at the picture attached to the article, the "Battle" Airman is wearing an ACU helmet, armor, pads and all pouches. The only ABU stuff he has on is the shirt and pants. Calling this an "ensemble" is stretching things a bit. The Army was issuing Nomex ACUs to everyone in theater. This brings up the question once again - why not wear what the Army is wearing in combat so as to not look different? ACUs are available in nomex and all the associated gear is available in the same pattern.