Majestik Møøse

How could you not? Investing 10% of that salary at 7% ROR yields $1m liquid in 23 years. Not even counting real estate appreciation, which is how most people get there. Inflation not accounted for. https://smartasset.com/investing/investment-calculator#OCfdEpDGFU

Yeah, blue collar workers - aka the world’s most common jobs - are even more brutal. A high school friend’s dad retired from the factory line after 40 years of literally the same job (wrapping a wire around a wire) and died of a heart attack 2 weeks later. An anecdote for sure, but...holy shit I’ve got a pretty good life. Will I die if we get into a no-shitter with China? Maybe, but everyone will be fucked in that case anyway.

I used to have a civilian job before I decided one day to apply for an OTS pilot slot. I don’t know your background, but to those here that have only known the Air Force as a job in their adult lives (or a kush airline pilot gig afterwards that was enabled by your AF job), I would caution that the civilian world isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. In fact, it can be unimaginable doldrums where entire years run together into the same memory, and then you die. Even a non-flying AF job has more excitement than 99% of the jobs out there. It’s like an Air Force staff job, except that the things you’re doing are not important whatsoever. Maybe at staff you’re just a cog in the military machine (“Why am I working on Afghanistan stuff, we shouldn’t even be there. Balancing this stupid $690m budget”) but as an average civilian you’re more like a cog on a worn out typewriter that has already been donated to Goodwill and no one’s told you. You’re certainly not doing stuff that kids would be interested in during career day. Plus the constant financial stress of things like a recession, COVID, and company underperformance that has nothing to do with you. Some kind of Neutron Jack comes in and deletes entire divisions overnight, college grads first. Civilian workers are cast offs and liabilities that take money directly from their bosses wallets. Your Air Force boss might be an asshole, but not like that. All I’m saying is the grass ain’t greener, and I wouldn’t stop any of my kids from joining the military. Well maybe except the Army.

People, tactics, equipment; in that order.

I used to be AMC, now I’m ACC. In AMC we had a complete bullshit “leave lottery” at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years where only 10% of every crew position could be deployed. Fuck those fucks and whoever came up with that. Now I’m ACC and I take leave whenever I want. Although I’m a U-2 guy so YMMV.

The internet is weird. And it’s only going to get weirder as we get older. Imagine responding directly to one of Robin Olds’ forum posts bitching about finance.

Cowardly

Never get advice from people who aren’t in the U-2 program about the U-2 program. Just call up and talk to the recruiting shop.

Guess which language the words Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Espionage come from?

It turns out that, due to the American court system, conspiracy theory propaganda has a limit. Newsmax and Fox News collapsed at the threat of a lawsuit and clarified that the voting machine conspiracy theories postulated on their programs have no basis in fact. Stop supporting those who would lie and mislead, regardless of political affiliation. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/20/business/media/smartmatic-lawsuit-fox-news-newsmax-oan.html

Extremely interesting reading. They’ve even got the B-17 -1 in there for reference. Damning testimony from the survivors, especially the one who happens to be an expert in 4-engine propeller TOLD and passenger handling with years of military leadership experience. Limited budgets don’t make for great training environments.

Possibly sort of. https://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=1294

So Hnida was the first and Power 5 is made up. The is the real convo

Don’t worry man, most of your party are still the Silent Majority. They voted for Trump, but they know he lost, and now are appalled watching the Alex Jones crowd act like total fools. It is disappointing to see Republican leadership sit idly by and not throw down on the embarrassing factions.

Here’s a group of bunch of Trump’s personality cult clowns that think the election was stolen. They hate the GOP now. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/protesters-chant-destroy-the-gop-at-pro-trump-rally-1102967/ Don’t be in this group.

And then everyone stood up and cheered

Oh, IDK, think back to a point in your own lives when someone who had no SA on your intent analyzed the hell out of a thing you did once. She doesn’t even have a trend line yet.

You guys are analyzing one GD kick. Maybe wait until she kicks a few more.

You know, you can still be a Trump supporter while also realizing he lost the election due to being very unpopular. But at some point, you’ll have to let it go. Trump himself will be working “the election was rigged” quibbles into every conversation he has for the rest of his life. Don’t lump yourself into that boat.

I’d say he was well on the side of leaning on luck vs engineering there. Considering he went through the Armco, he could’ve just as easily been pinned under it while on fire.

You guys realize that these are professional quibblers, right?

Going IMC in a glider with no ADI. I don’t understand how they’re not dead.

Just say what base you’re at.

BEs were always the best. Especially with a basic crew as God intended. No home station bullshit. No TACC bullshit. Just go somewhere and fly as required for a week. Fill the tanks every time, free gas for everyone.

A bit of a drift from the Shaw crash topic, but still relevant. My time at Travis thankfully ended 6 years ago, but I remember a lot of wasted effort primarily designed to lick Travis’s own balls. 4x KC-10s would launch in both the morning and evening, all flying 5 hour sorties and burning 100k lbs of gas to maintain C-17 and C-5 AR currency. Entire AR tracks would be consumed by non-current reservists bobbling around in pre-contact for an hour solely for the extremely unlikely chance that someone would ask a C-5 (or a non-airdrop C-17) to do AR operationally. At the same time, mission commanders at LFEs are struggling to figure out fallout plans in case 1 of the half-full -135s no-shows. God forbid if the only one left is drogue-only. The idea that half of D$N night or NH may have to RTB early for lack of available airborne fuel is downright shameful. And now, reading that West Coast fighter units and FTUs don’t have enough tanker availability to maintain basic fighter AR quals, it’s even more apparent that the priorities are out of whack. Maybe it’s all fixed now, it’s been a while.