ram02

The bailout chute is going away with Block 40/45.

I thought I read somewhere about an officer being allowed to resign for the good of the service if they have a court martial pending.

Any graduate of Camp Happy-Fun-Times at Fairchild should recognize this tactic and counter appropriately.

Haha, I saw that, too. That's one for the TIB heritage room. Thank goodness they don't make us do a graduation parade these days; I'd hate to imagine what 500 disgruntled captains doing a pass in review would look like.

So if it's only for general officers, why's the CMSgtAF wearing one? God forbid we just conduct the ceremony in, you know, service dress.

Thread revival -- this is the closest one I could find that's applicable. Do any McChord folks or Seattle residents have recommendations on places to live in Seattle? I'll be heading up there shortly for a PCS, but I will be working at a GSU in Kent. I'm single so I was thinking about living downtown and making the commute, but I was wondering if there might be any other areas of the city also worth looking at.

The baseline document that ABMs use is AFTTP 3-1 Attachment 1. Even though it's UNCLAS, it's not openly available, so the first time you'll see it will probably be at Tyndall. Don't sweat it, though; honestly, if you don't have prior C2 experience, most of the concepts and terminology will require someone to explain it to you anyway, and there will be plenty of time to study it once you get to Tyndall. For now, probably the best things you can do are enjoy your time off, drink plenty of beer, travel wherever/whenever you want without having to fill out ridiculous forms and getting safety briefed to death, etc. Also, it never hurts to look on the internet and see what the housing situation is like down there. When I went though Tyndall, I lived in Mexico Beach, which is a small beach town to the east side of base. The rest of my classmates lived in Callaway or Panama City north of the base. There's also Panama City Beach which is a little farther, usually like a 45 min drive to work given the traffic and horrible stop light timing. If you really wanted to work on something, try improving your ability to listen to multiple conversations at the same time. Try visiting a site like LiveATC.net and listening to two streams at the same time; set one a little bit louder than the other and see how well you can keep track of what's happening on both frequencies. A typical AWACS ABM is expected to listen to 5 radios (4 working freqs plus guard) and 4 intercoms (3 internal nets plus a maintenance net) at the same time, so you can see how important this skill is to develop. Of course, not every radio will be active at the same time, and some are more important than others, so the technique most people use is to prioritize frequencies by volume. As for what ABMs do in theater, the very quick and simple answer is airspace deconfliction: making sure the various players get the airspace they need and they don't run into other airplanes, keep away from artillery fire, etc. Back stateside, the focus is more on the traditional air-to-air skillset of controlling fighters, providing a picture call, pointing out threats, and that sort of thing. As for ALO, I have not personally done an ALO tour so perhaps others can chime in, but the opportunities are definitely there; I believe there were something like 5 or 6 slots on the last ABM bill that Tinker had. Please feel free to send me a PM if you'd like more info and welcome to the career field!

Roadmap to Chief E-9: Left turn on Reflective Belt Lane, second right on Untucked PT Shirt Road, continue straight on to Queep Street.

For AF band members, their actual career field is being a musician, so they're doing what the AF hired them to do. TIB, on the other hand, takes people out of their career fields to be temporary musicians.

I'm sure the interest is purely academic. Lloydbraun and this LT are definitely not the same guy. Just a "dude in his class." (Hypothetically speaking, of course).

"If you think the bare minimum is enough, then ok. But some people chose to wear more and we encourage that, ok? You do want to express yourself, don't you?"

Ranks right up there with "wordsmithing."

Yep, also saw the e-mail at work today. Reminds me of our famous "Fort Collins brewery tour" lieutenant from a while ago.

Sure you can. The guidance for that is in chapter 8 which specifically outlines flight suit wear. As previously posted: The green fleece beanie is perfectly legal in your flight suit. I guess you could even technically wear a dark blue watch cap just to out-shoe the shoe.

Good riddance to those guys. Here, they only test like 12 people per session Monday through Thursday; no testing on Fridays (I wish I could have a 4-day work week ). So, they book up a month in advance, and when you have to reschedule because of high winds (in Oklahoma, go figure), then you have to wait another 4 weeks. I miss the days when you could just grab a PTL and say "meet me at the track tomorrow at 0700 and let's get this thing done." Fortunately, it seems like PTLs are making a comeback.

That's how you know SERE is an Air Force course: you had to do it both in-residence and correspondence.

"2." I had to do the whole memorization drill as a ROTC cadet: Code of Conduct, AF song (all 4 verses), leadership quotes, etc. That's all fine and to be expected for that phase of AF life. Now that I've been in a number of years, I have better things to commit to memory, all of which have to do with my job on an airplane. The Airman's Creed was invented after I stopped memorizing "Warrior Knowledge" out of a little book, so I view it as a waste of time to memorize it just so I can pop to attention in the DFAC and regurgitate it at whim for someone on "Warrior Knowledge Patrol," just like I was back at field training again.

Probably because the AFI was written by someone who's never worn a "morale shirt." Shoe 1: "Hey Bob, what do you call those colored t-shirts the flyers wear every Friday that we really want to outlaw because we're secretly jealous of them?" Shoe 2: "Well, I know they wear morale patches, so they must be called morale shirts." Shoe 1: "Sweet, I'm putting that in the AFI right now."

I never understood why this attitude was considered "cool." I understand it's not the biggest promotion in the world going from second lieutenant to first, but how hard is it to take just a little bit of interest in your own career and know your own date of rank? That way, you could drop the 50 cents at the BX a few days ahead of time, pick up some blue bars, and have them sewn on so you can show up wearing the right rank on the right day. Call me crazy, but that sounds like something an "officer" would do -- you know, having some SA and taking some personal responsibility for something related to their career. Edit: spelling

So, on the way home today, I saw an airman in the middle of the Atlanta airport in ABUs rocking the reflective belt. Clearly, this individual was not taking any chances and did not want to risk being struck by an errant golf cart. I wanted to say something, but it was one of those opposite-direction escalator encounters, so all I could do was mentally facepalm and chalk up reason #269 why the Air Force gets laughed at by other services.

I wonder if these guys would also end up doing some work with the ABM schoolhouse. Unless things have changed since I left, I know the first live aircraft students control is the mighty MU-2; perhaps the T-38s could be worked into the syllabus somewhere even though they don't have a radar.

I was there January-June of this year; aircrew were in the dorms, 2 or 3 to a room. They were standard dorm rooms: 2 bunk beds, 2 wall lockers, 2 night stands, and bathrooms down the hall. I didn't see any conex huts, unless you're referring to the double-stacks.

Well, there's always the boonie hat, but apparently that piece of headgear isn't "stract" enough if you're an O-5 or above.

Since the thread has already derailed, my grammar pet peeve is the unnecessary apostrophe. "All pilot's will..." "ABU's will be worn..."

Dude, I think you're reading too much into it. Yes, the textbook answer is to change into civilian clothes if you're doing extended shopping, but look at the situation as a whole. Was the Army guy using his uniform for personal gain? Was he bringing discredit upon the Armed Services while Christmas shopping? Did you see him ask for free stuff using his uniform as a prop? Maybe the wife just called and said the relatives are coming into town short notice and he has to pick up some gifts on the way home. Unless you saw him do something that would bring discredit upon the uniform (and to me, the act of shopping doesn't qualify), then give him the benefit of the doubt.