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Well I suppose the U-2 is ok, as long as it is "allowed" to transit through it. Still don't understand why the military has to beg for waivers from the FAA nerdery.

Why are we worrying about ADS-B out on mil jets? Why do we spend one cent on NextGen/GATM/CNS-ATM/1801/EABOD compliance versus spending miney on mission equipment? Because we will "not be legal" in whatever host nation were pandering to?

Attention any lurking senior leaders: get your shit together, go to congress, and stand on their desks until they give you $600m annually for aircrew bonuses. That's $100k more for 6k dudes. All of the harebrained ideas above will cost you way more than that; $600m is only enough to get 600 unqualified wingmen/copilots vs getting thousands of experienced guys to stay. Dont make this hard.

How do you keep it charged? Power from the jet?

What's the worst they could do? Fire you and make you work at FedEx? Seriously, use solid judgement to choose the easiest solution to meet mission needs and tell the haters to fuck off.

We must keep the -217! Otherwise, what will AFFSA do? Other than provide "PhD-level" AIS grads. They no-shit said that. For a fucking 2-week course. https://www.tinker.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/388296/affsa-new-command-at-tinker-new-commander/

Preferred COA: use bro-level individually issued iPads and leave all the min-req'd paper in the jets. Make students/Lts update paper.

Are you suggesting that one of the Air Force's measures of effectiveness should be its ability to successfully retire the U-2?

Amazing. Even in a room by myself, the feeling of embarrassment induced by that song was so strong that I couldn't physically listen farther than "ABU top." Of all the crazy shit I watch on the Internet, this is the one I can't make it through.

To the world's best squadron. Tied only with the other U-2 locations. Ask some of your KC-10 bros if they'd ever go back.

I'm disappointed that his bio has more than 2 references to being a pilot.

So there's got to be a better way to sell this bonus pay problem. Let's go with nice round numbers: to pay an extra $100k/year to 6900 pilots would cost a cool $690M. That's kind of a lot of money, but it's only about 0.69% of the Air Force's annual budget. Literally a drop in the bucket. Imperceptible. Budget dust. BUT! The non-flying officers and Chiefs would have a shit fit at the pay inequality ("No Comm No Bomb!", etc), and while they should be told, "When it costs $69M to produce a competent Finance Officer, I'll pay you more also," that doesn't work in the real world for troop morale. Those guys would be even more depressed and hate us even more. This has to be approached as a financial benefit. I paid extra to outfit my house with LED bulbs (experienced pilots) because in the long run I save money on the time and effort spent on buying way more incandescents (new pilots) and - most significantly - save a shit-ton of money on electricity (upgrade training). Pay $100k extra to keep your experienced pilots and save $Millions per pilot on backfill training for his/her replacement. For very simple math that only takes into account the cost of replacing your experienced guy with a new SNAP fresh from UPT, that 8 years worth of $100k bonus money would only pay for 69% of a new UPT grad. Add in the immeasurable costs of continuous upgrade training for that new guy, and the benefit is astronomical. Next consider the time lost by the experienced instructors to train new guys that could be used to refine TTPs - you get the picture. This shit is easy, but I feel like there's a glass ceiling WRT mil pay. Congress - and our own mil leaders - just can't stomach the idea of having rich military guys. I think it's a jealousy thing rather than a level-headed financial one.

I don't have a plane, but an unusually large number of other U-2 guys do. Everyone is dual qual'd in the T-38 and, even though there are lots of out and backs, cross countries, formation, and low levels, dudes still want to fly on the weekends. It's primarily because of Beale's location in the middle of the West Coast. Turns a 3.5hr drive to Monterrey into a <1hr flight, and the fun factor is way better. Professional pilots don't fly because it's better than their day job, they fly because driving sucks.

"In June 2014, Airbus tested a quarter-scale demonstrator off the coast of Singapore. The demonstrator flew to 3 km and was piloted from a barge." Holy smokes! 3 kilometers up! Call the Smithsonian. "The vehicle currently in development at Airbus will carry four passengers as high as 100 kilometers, and be able to take off and land at a conventional airport. According to Airbus, the vehicle will operate in between the standard airplane and satellite altitudes, and open up a whole new market segment. The spaceplane could be used as a transfer service or for experiments and work in a part of space not occupied by many other vehicles." It'll be used for pay-for-trophy "space" tourism, and you can bet every flight will be "Certified to have crossed the 100km Kármán Line" no matter how far up it goes.

Meanwhile all the Army helicopter dudes up there are flying around making CTAF calls. The MAF is too smart for its own good. I still say a VFR departure is "legal" and satisfies the "necessary for msn accomplishment" requirement. Was everyone able to reach shelter in time?

Dude, what? No.

Why didn't you all just depart VFR? Surely we're not planning on filing flight plans during nuclear war or a contested airdrop.

NK has 25m people. China has 1389m people. They may care based on principle (One Child and all that), but they'd hardly notice.

...ok, so you know what I'm talking about then. Why bother with filling out a 175 or 1801 just so an airman can enter it? Why not skip the 175 and enter it yourself? Or just file with Foreflight or DUATS? I am a fan of using Baseops to file stereo routes though. Which I think is something that the MAF will never figure out.

So tell me exactly how you file a local or non-IFM flight plan? You write it down on a piece of paper - precisely according to GP with nary a letter out of place - and hand it to an airman who translates it into the FAA system. Usually with a few questions. Why the middle man?

Better question: why do we employ people to input a piece of paper into a "system" rather than just doing it ourselves?

Tell us what you'd have done differently. Start with the brief.

Are you saying that someone asked you to do this? The way most Air Force guys are dual-qualified (B-2, F-22, U-2 and TPS guys flying T-38s) isn't for everyone. It takes solid leadership to stiff arm the queep so guys are current enough in both jets to be safe. I just don't think that's realistic in a lot of wings, even with something safer than a T-38.

Good luck using the Intelink search function. Completely useless, unless you're looking for an unrelated 2009 PowerPoint file that requires registration to view.

Last Navy kill was in 1991.