MD

Yeah, I know...I didn't want to derail too much either. I see what you're saying now, and I agree that sucks for the airman patrolman. Again, you were one of the good people that tried, but weren't allowed to succeed due to factors above you. You're effectively put in the same boat your subordinates are, and that sucks. I know, I'm old school. Still think of it as LE/Security. I still go to the CBPO too.

[minor thread creep] IMHO, it's absolute BS that the AF doesn't allow it's LE-section guys to make decisions on their own. To me, and as a cop myself, that methodology reduces the credibility of AF cops, not to mention any sort of development of an officer's (LE officer, not commissioned officer) personal initiative. The fact too that the cops eat their own certainly doesn't help to instill any sort of comraderie, and neither does the "us vs them" attitude rather than the "service" attitude I see many AF cops having towards the base populace. And it's not right or wrong, it's wrong period. The fact that SPs know this is how it is (the infamous "its always been that way"), and do nothing to change or work around it shows how inbred this way of thinking is. I see the same thing with some local PDs...can't/won't make a decision on scene and must call the Sgt on duty to get direction on some of the simplest things; whereas our county deputies and state troopers are nearly fully autonomous. Its too bad the AF doesn't want to develop its own cops in this way for when they're performing common patrol/traffic duties; and hence cops will still always be looked at as guys who went to basic open-general, or otherwise failed out of their previous tech school. And they'll continue to do retarded things like make a traffic stop for a 33 in a 30 zone, or a supposed incomplete stop at a stop sign. Not the individual cop's fault per se (failure of their training and supervision), but the failure of SF LE-side to change their negative image as a whole. Back to your regularly scheduled programming....... [/minor thread creep]

Yes, there used to be six total crewmembers before enlisted gunners were removed. Reference post #20 by b52gator on page 1 of the thread that describes this in detail.

IIRC, the last BUFF that went down for a mechanical (or combo mech/crew error) was the G-model that was RTB to Diego during Desert Storm in '91.

141s?

Anyone hear Rep Sheila Jackson Lee's comments about the Mars lander project? She posed a question on when the Mars Lander would take pictures of the American flag planted on the planet by Neil Armstrong. Unbelievable.

ATC...at least local controllers (tower)..at most AFBs, the experience level is quite low. There are many 3 levels, and then 7 and 9 levels. The 5 level ranks are thin. As with pilots, etc, many ATC folks leave to either the FAA or private ATC companies, or to other GS ATC jobs. GS civilians now 100% man all ATC/AFMC, etc bases, and even ACC bases have a good mix of civilian and military controllers. Same reasons for getting out...pay/deployment rate, etc. So there's always a ton of training going on. Where else are they going to get it if its not OJT? That's just the way it is sometimes. ATC seems to get blamed alot for many pattern-related incidents. The midair at Pope in '94 comes to mind. Even though ATC got smacked pretty good for that one (whcih I thought was kind of BS...contributing factor at best), and with the visual pickup problems of seeing a woodland camo C-130 against a woodland background, the F-16 in the SFO still had the responsibility of clearing its flightpath in VMC. ATC can only do so much, the personal and legal responsibility for flying the plane still rests with us.

Bow-chicka-bow-wow?

This whole thread...the portion quoted above as well as the whole 3 pages of crap here....reminds me of the case in the mid-1990s of Capt Ryan Berry, anyone remember him? He was the missileer who didn't want to pull alerts with a female crewmember in the missle silo, claiming he couldn't be in any sort of "intimate setting" with a female....religious accomodation and all. Google the name for more info, I'm sure its out there....... That case was pretty pathetic too. Can't function coed, don't join the military. There are a TON of accomodations I'd love to have in a perfect world.....no work on any weekends, only fly with person A or B or C etc, get fed with a silver spoon for my meals at the chow hall, etc. But the military is far from any perfect world...thats just the way it is. If you can roll with it, fine; if not, then don't join. To me, it's the same as muslims (or any religion, but they've been the ones with the controversy lately) who want to wear certain headdress with their uniform. The uniform is the uniform, period. Its worn standardized....ie, all the same for everybody regardless. When we start making special accomodations for one or a few, then we're opening a Pandora's box that is a dangerous one to open. You join the military having been made aware of standarization; if you can meet that, cool. If not, don't join. Plain and simple. IMHO, the military isn't the place for overt religious expression, that's for one's personal time.

You can talk via the aircraft, or from the Ground Control Station, if local. In special use airspace, doesn't really matter. Outside that, we're always IFR, or can have a chase plane fly form with us. Though I regularly get told to maintain VFR by ATC........ You can fly patterns or straight in, you have a map tracker display showing your aircrafts position over the ground to use as reference for pattern stuff, as well as your onboard sensor.

Essentially correct. Everyone comes from some other airframe, and IIRC still belongs to that airframe manager at AFPC. Finish the 117 and go where you'd normally go.....ALFA, school, back to your old airframe, it depends. The Instructors....flying instructors/IPs....where they go depends on what they can still do....young or old rank-wise. The FTU unit closed a good while before the ops units did and according to the article has reopened again with F-22s as an ops unit itself.

Yeah, check it out next time you go into an NAS/MCAS...usually near midfield, you'll see a crash truck parked under a canopy with some of the crew asleep and others reading/sunbathing, etc. As part of the duties for the day, trucks and crews rotate every so many hours. Only a few AFBs still have hot spot....Tucson ANGB in AZ comes to mind as one. Of course, any fighter base performing hot-pit refueling will have a truck standing by the pits when these ops are going on. Of course, there are positives and negatives to hotspot duty. The bad is that aircraft on takeoff or landing could crash into you. The good is that you're right there, in fact there have been a number of incidents where the crash crew at the hotspot have witnessed an accident in the making or just happening, and are able to be on scene almost as the wreckage is coming to a halt.

Thanks for posting that Berg! That's cool to know. I'd missed that thread for some reason.

Didn't know that. Id heard a few would arrive soon but didn't know they were there yet. I was trying to mean full-force...or at least a squadron. I remembered back when, the talk was of a "seamless transition" from the 117 to the 22....lol. Now, of course, there's going to be some lag time in between. Til then, HO is effectively a German AFB. :) That's why they were fighting to keep some of the 38s around IIRC.

Generally speaking, no. At Holloman, the majority of the people were either too old rank-wise for the F-22 (field graders from the F-111/F-4 that had "nowhere else to go"....just like the Richard Gere line in Officer and a Gentleman) or weren't from the right airframe (many A-10 guys, also a couple B-1 and a U-2 guy) to qualify for the F-22 selection. One guy in my former squadron there got selected to go to the F-22 and he was from an F-16 background. We also had a ton of light-grey Eagle guys there, but it was apparent that many of them were sent there after being persona-non-grata in their former airframe...... Box, On the UAV note, why are Nellis guys being sent TDY to Guard units while our guys are being sent downrange? Got a crew from the 15th at my unit that have been here for a while.........weird.....

Correct on the HO jets...though guys there are trying to hold on to some to fly since the 117s are gone and the first 22 isn't there for a while. How that'll play out is anyone's guess. If they stay, and once the 22s arrive, I don't think they'll be there long there after. As I'm sure you know, the HT jets are with the test group there serving a completely different function from the HO jets and the wing. To me, the bigger question is where the A-model 38 repair/rebuild facility that the HO/HT/BB/WM jets went to is going to go.....if it goes anyplace.

As that was my old gig, and still part time, I'll toss in 2 cents. The standard is to be able to get from the crash station to the furthest runway in 3 mins, which is why some airfields have multiple stations on the field apart from the main one. The AF no longer performs "hot spot" duty as a standard (a few bases do)....that is where you have a truck posted up "on deck" near the runway during flight ops; the USN/USMC still does regularly; so it's going to take them a reasonable time get the call, gear up, and roll out of the station (unless of course they already had guys watching the takeoff out of interest, etc.). If the crash crew sees the crew bailout, and they're reasonably certain that that's everybody, then the first arriving trucks will head to the victims first.....the burning wreckage is now simply burning junk. Had this been a, for example, C-141 or KC-10/135, they'd be all over the main wreckage foaming an escape path for any surviving crew/pax.

Don't know specifically if Marines were getting them, I just remember a good number being purchased for the USN aviators, who seemed to have a little less stringent rules on what they could carry.

Glock 19s were used by a number of USN aircrew during Desert Storm, IIRC. Don't care for the M9, hell I still have one of my qual cards from the S&W 15 .38. My current issue service weapon as an LEO is the H&K P2000, an overall OK weapon, though why my agency didn't just buy the USP is something I wonder.

That narrows it down to two (the 3rd one was a light grey background). Dark hair or dirty blonde?

Didn't we already do that with the F/A-22? Waiting on the Airbus...

She probably flies the backcourse PAR well.........

Same with the Diego B-1, alot more to the picture than simply forgetting the gear.

all of that....and then rolled backwards off of the taxiway. Still there IIRC.

The 305th found that out the hard way in Hells Canyon, AZ in '94........