MD

Another PFC Robert Garwood?

Like the AF though, a lot of FDs are cracking down on that also, as they seek to avoid harassment lawsuits.

Congress Saves the A-10 Warthog... for Now by Rich Smith The U.S. Air Force wants to kill the A-10 Thunderbolt II. But the Air Force's paymaster does not. And when all's said and done, that's what the debate over the fate of America's best tank-destroying warplane may come down to -- whether the folks who control the Air Force's purse strings want to keep the A-10 flying. A few weeks ago, we went over a few trial balloons that the Air Force has floated, in case Congress won't let it retire its fleet of 326 A-10 "Warthogs." To save the estimated $700 million a year it costs to keep the A-10s fueled, maintained, and flying, USAF has suggested it could retire its entire fleet of 66 B-1B long-range bombers instead -- or put about a third of its 1,018 F-16 fighter jets into mothballs. That makes sense because, as Georgia Senators Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson have pointed out, the A-10 is cheaper to fly, per flying hour, than either the F-16 or the B-1. This suggests that cutting the more expensive planes from the Air Force's arsenal, and sticking with the older -- but cheaper and more effective -- A-10 is the right move to make. And speaking of no brains -- Congress! Regardless, Congress is busily brainstorming other ways to save the A-10. Earlier this month, for example, legislators in the House Armed Services Committee, or HASC, passed an amendment, voting two to one to forbid the USAF from even thinking of retiring the plane unless it can assure legislators it has other ways of providing "adequate" close-air support to troops on the ground. This requirement edged out a separate proposal (which was rejected) that would have had the Air Force mothball its A-10s -- so that rather than being disassembled and sold for scrap, they'd be kept in stasis, shrink-wrapped in latex, and could be brought back from retirement if need be. (The main problem with that plan: "Spinning up" a latex wrapped A-10 can take as long as four months to accomplish. By that time, the war may already be lost). Meanwhile in the Senate, the HASC's doppelganger, the Senate Armed Services Committee, confirmed this week that it's working on a plan to shift funding from other programs to cover the cost of the A-10. (The catch here? Optimistic senators think they only need to cobble together $400 million to keep the A-10 flying for another year. That's barely half what USAF says it needs -- and less than half of what the Obama Administration says the A-10 will cost). What it means to investors It's that last point that may turn out to be of most importance to defense investors. The White House went on record this week saying it has "serious concerns" with Congressional efforts to keep the A-10 alive, and "objects," in particular to Congress's plan to shift funding from the Littoral Combat Program, among others, to fund programs such as the A-10. The Administration even went so far as to utter the "V" word -- threatening to veto the bill if its demands are not met. What might this mean for investors, in dollars and cents? Here's a quick rundown of the highlights. Northrop Grumman America hasn't built a brand-new A-10 Warthog in decades. But as the debate before Congress shows, it still spends hundreds of millions annually keeping the ones it's already built flying. Since 1987, Northrop Grumman has served as prime contractor for A-10 work. Its most important recent contract was awarded in 2010 -- a $486 million contract to equip U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft -- including A-10s -- with up to 99 LITENING targeting pods. Other tasks assigned to Northrop: $1.7 million to "sustain and modernize all A-10 weapon system configurations," and $11.3 million to perform "evaluations, analysis, repair designs, and/or testing" of A-10 structural integrity. Boeing Another contractor with arguably as big a stake in the A-10's survival as Northrop Grumman's, is Boeing. Last year, Boeing was the single biggest recipient of A-10-related funding, winning $218 million in maintenance contracts for the A-10, "the most of any defense prime," according to Bloomberg. These included $212 million awarded in just one single contract to deliver 56 replacement "thick-skinned" wings for the A-10. Going forward, and working from the estimated $4 million cost per wing, Boeing's contract to build as many as 242 replacement wings for the A-10, of which 173 have already been ordered, could yield as much as $276 million in additional revenue for Boeing in years to come -- and help to keep the A-10s flying well into the 2040s. (That is, if Congress can convince USAF to keep the plane flying, at all). Lockheed Martin Lockheed Martin, in contrast, has almost no ties to the A-10 program whatsoever. Yet, it's arguably the single company most interested in the aircraft's fate. A review of business segment data from S&P Capital IQ on the revenues of each of the major A-10 players reveals that, even the multi-hundred-million-dollar contracts that Boeing and Northrop have won for A-10 work amount to mere fractions of 1% of each company's annual revenue stream. In contrast, Lockheed Martin gets 20% of its revenues from production of its new F-35 Lightning II fighter jet -- the plane that the Obama administration and the U.S. Air Force agree can do an "adequate" job of replacing the A-10 on, for close-air-support missions. Over time, and based on the F-35's projected program cost, the F-35 could ultimately grow to constitute 50% of Lockheed's business, if the company is able to sell as many F-35s as originally expected. But here's the key: Every dollar diverted from F-35 production to fund the A-10 means fewer F-35s built today. And the fewer F-35s that get built, the slower Lockheed Martin is able to scale production of the F-35. Less economies of scale mean less efficiency of production for Lockheed, raising the cost of building F-35s, and making the plane less price-competitive with alternative fighter jets for sale on world markets. And this effect tends to snowball -- the more expensive the plane, the fewer the foreign buyers, and the fewer the foreign buyers, the less efficient the production -- raising the F-35's cost even further, and leading to even fewer buyers. In short, Lockheed Martin needs to scale production of the F-35 fast. But the more funds get diverted from F-35 production to save the A-10, the harder this job gets for Lockheed Martin. If you were wondering before why the F-35's backers in Congress hate the A-10 so much, well, now you know.

The Administration response https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/113/saphr4435r_20140519.pdf

Yeah, don't know where the Iran angle came from that article. But on Mexico. Where Mexico could give a rats ass about its northern border with the USA and even encourages illegals to cross; if you go look at their southern border with Guatamala, it could almost give the Korea DMZ a run for its money, figuratively speaking.

Now that we all appear to be on the same page regarding the quote taken from the article; the question now comes to the immigration process itself (also mentioned in that quote, but beyond the scope of the article). The process itself is broken when it can take upwards of 10 years to become a citizen. Too, there needs to be a better accountability process and a larger work visa process for those who desire to work and pay taxes here, but not necessarily reside here or become a citizen [such as migrant workers who come in to work, and return home either daily or after short-terms stays of a week or so]. There has to be an easier way to allow these people the ability to make for themselves, while contributing to this country. This and many other questions are the parts of the entire immigration system that has to be addressed. And it all starts with controlling the border, as mentioned in the quote from the article. Which we all appear to agree with.

Here is a key quote from your article you linked above, which is just what I've been saying. "Open immigration does not mean that anyone may enter the country at any location or in any manner he chooses; it is not unchecked or unmonitored immigration. Nor does it mean that anyone who immigrates to America should be eligible for U.S. citizenship—the proper requirements of which are a separate matter. Open immigration means that anyone is free to enter and reside in America—providing that he enters at a designated checkpoint and passes an objective screening process, the purpose of which is to keep out criminals, enemies of America, and people with certain kinds of contagious diseases."

A good addition is someone with no criminal background who is willing to work, contribute to society, pay their taxes, and reap the benefits that come with becoming a citizen; as well as the pathway that leads to that such as LPR (Legal Permanent Resident..otherwise known as a green card holder) and work visa holder. There's no question that the immigration system for citizenship, as it stands, is in good need of repair. It shouldn't have to take someone a decade, in some cases, to earn their citizenship here. That's where the immigration system portion needs to be revamped. By the same token, having a completely open border isn't the answer if only due to the known criminal element that will come in. People need to be screened and a process in place to determine when and how many people enter or leave the country. We obviously want those who will make the USA a better place for all, not a worse place if they are already criminals. Look at what happened with the Mariel boatlift in the late 1970s from Cuba: Castro emptied out his jails of actual criminals (not just political prisoners), and allowed them to come here as asylum seekers due to the USA's open-arms policy, which was gravely taken advantage of (and which we allowed to get taken advantage of). The answer to the illegal immigration problem isn't an easy one. This country was built on immigrants. Deporting everyone and anyone who is here illegally won't work. Allowing anyone and everyone who wants to come in unchecked won't work. The answer lies in the middle, and involves fixing the current outdated and broken immigration system and giving it a tune-up. First and foremost, the border itself needs to be controlled. Not shut down or closed, but just controlled to where we can know who is coming and who is going.

That's not what was said at all and you know it. But nice way to twist the argument into full retard mode. Control the borders and allow the nation to determine who it lets in and who it doesn't. Criminals who are ALREADY known criminals? No, we don't want them (well, YOU may and and I'll be happy to send them to YOUR house). Non-criminals who can be a help and good addition to the country? Allow work visas for them and make the pathway to legal citizenship easier than the muddled mess it currently is.

Better check yourself with throwing out the racist card. Not every illegal alien is someone just coming here looking for work. If you actually did the job of working down the border areas, you would know the numbers of hard-core felons that are caught coming across the border into the country. People with wants/warrants for rape, murder, sex crimes, child crimes, human and weapons smuggling, kidnapping; and the list goes on. Go to the ICE detention center in Florence, AZ and see who is being held there that were caught by BP. And that's only those who were caught. Who knows how many haven't been. That is the reason there isn't an open gate to the border nor should there be. While yes, the immigration system in this country does need some streamlining and updating, simply opening the border wholesale isn't the way to fix that problem. Holding those who hire and exploit the cheap labor illegals provide, preying on their fear of never going to the police to complain, is what needs to be done. Come down here and work the desert southwest sometime. It would blow your mind what kind of people are caught and what their backgrounds are......or even what they're currently caught in the act of doing. Until then, your exercise in pure academia is nothing more than that.

If you think that all that's going on down on the border states is "playing catch and release with Mexican immigrants", then you need to come down here actually see what's going on that isn't getting reported in your daily news. There are some persons and threats coming through that are caught, and many that aren't, that would make your head spin. There are situations, engagements, and other scenarios both with military and military-style forces, as well as cartels and other organized factions, where our outmanned and outgunned CBP can't (and in some cases, aren't allowed to) stop them. Come down and see sometime, it would open your eyes a bit. So yes, playing masters of the universe around the world with every problem and situation large and small, shouldn't cause there to be a complete ignoring of the realities of what it slipping through central America and across our own "secured" borders. Without going into SIPR, it's a heck of alot more than just a couple of Mexican immigrants looking for work, that you and many others are under the incorrect and assuming impression of. While I agree with you on not blurring the lines between military and law enforcement to the max extent possible, the military isn't being used for domestic law enforcement; and acting against or being used to counter external threats to this country, shouldn't blur those lines either. Take care of things overseas as-needed. Don't leave the gate to the yard open while doing it.

I'm very interested to know too. In reference to the description of containment as a tactic; when it comes to TTPs, the mission of CFR is fairly simple: utilize suppression assets to either 1. Provide for an egress path out of the aircraft for survivors, or 2. Provide a rescue path for FFs to go in and extract those who aren't able to perform item #1. To that regard, actually putting the whole fire out is secondary to rescue; a close second, mind you, but secondary. Of course, this does have to do with larger aircraft and a fire involvement to a degree where spending precious resources fighting the actual fire, will take away from the 2 items I mentioned above. CFR trucks pump at a rate where their onboard supply is depleted in about 1-2 minutes, depending on gallonage and flow rate, and it takes time for the nurse tenders to get setup to replenish the primary CFR vehicles. That's why you see the tactics exercised in the way they are where it appears that its "only" containment. That said, every CFR department trains in what tactics to use for different sized airframes, and every CFR department knows that flexibility is key (or should know). Every accident is responded to with haste consistent with safe arrival of the assets to the scene (more than one of these high-CG CFR trucks has suffered an accidental rollover during a hasty response to an aircraft emergency). BL is, a judgement call will always be made as to whether any post-crash fire can hit fast and put out with the supplies available prior to replenishment, or whether the above described tactics of supporting rescue first, and full suppression secondary, is more appropriate. At an airshow, you can have "backup" or secondary trucks at the station, where the crews are lounging or watching the show or whatnot. However, those would be the structural trucks/crews, as well as the crash trucks which are designated as second-due to a call. That's no issue, and no problem; no different than day to day ops. However, there must still be a first due, and in this case of non-standard flying operations and most especially an airshow, that first due.......at least a rescue truck, and one or two crash trucks........should be posted up somewhere near show center, close enough to have an immediate response, yet not so close as to impede views of the crowd (this is fairly easy to do). While those crews don't necessarily need to be in full ready gear in its entirety, they need to at least be partially bunkered out, to the point where they can easily complete it enroute to the scene and be able to deploy at the ready once handline or rescue operations begin, depending on which unit they're assigned to. The FAA standard (accepted standard) for CFR response on any airport where CFR is required (not required at all civil fields, only fields with scheduled or unscheduled air carrier service meeting certain pax numbers), is within 3 minutes, the first vehicle capable of fire suppression operations must be able to reach the midpoint of the furthest runway from the station. Hence why at larger airports, there are multiple stations. Within 4 minutes, supporting or second-due CFR vehicles are required to be arriving at the same point. Why the response took as long as it did at SUU, I don't have that information yet. In that regard, my concern with this one isn't the tactical planning or ops on scene, it's the strategic planning or apparent lack thereof.

I don't think anyone is saying that at all. What I read is that none of that force projection, $$$, deployments, defending other countries, meddling in X places overseas; makes less sense when we stupidly leave our own front door wide open to our country here. All because we don't have the political will to secure it, apart from the political lip service telling us it's "more secure than ever". This country does need a serious look at its domestic as well as foreign policies, and where to modify and shift some of the same.

Was a little longer than that. First RIV doesn't show for about another minute longer. Not good. Can't explain why there weren't posted vehicles, with the airshow ops going on.

Irony that the USAF ORM's the heck out of any flight that's taken, yet seems to have no problem having tour buses driving the roads city to city with fatigued as hell drivers, as if this is the 2003 run to Baghdad from Kuwait. Imagine the black eye the image-conscious AF would have if this information was coming out following a multi-vehicle highway accident where a family in a minivan was killed by an AF bus being driven by AF personnel ordered to disregard even the most basic of DOT commercial vehicle safety regulations relating to fatigue/driver duty hours.

Just park in whichever of those spots you feel like and is convenient.

If AAFES contracts to Burger King and NEX contracts to McDonalds; how come HMN and IKR have McDonalds on base? Haven't seen that on any other AFB I've been to.

Im at the static in front of CBP all day Saturday. The AF static, that is.

Be there. On display.

A whole 24 hour pass for him to attend his mothers funeral in Puerto Rico, with the travel involved and such? The Army couldn't grant anything more beyond that? Agree no excuses for what occurred; but when you peel back the onion in order to try and understand why a person may have been driven to do what they did and what led them there, things like this certainly don't help matters.

Former USN A-6 Intruder pilot, Rear Admiral, 8 year Vietnam POW to where he was able to morse-code the word Torture on camera while being filmed by the North Viets, and former US Senator from Alabama.

If I can't trust a guy to keep his hands out of his pockets, how can I trust the same guy to get bombs on target? Or turn the key in the silo when ordered? Or make a patty melt correctly at the chow hall? Or properly scan an ID at the gate? Or create a CBT correctly? Or install a flight control component correctly? Or monitor a satellite orbit? Or any other number of critical life or death functions worldwide that would be placed in immediate jeopardy and instant peril......all due to one singular guy on the other side of the planet in the middle of nowhere, who isn't able to keep his hands out of his pockets? Luckily, he was caught in time. And the aforementioned duties, as well as a host of others, were saved just in the nick of time; and can continue to operate at their robust pace. We can't afford to let ourselves get this close to the brink again. This is how wars start.

If some nebulous, non-specific comment on a message board (douchebag, etc) is something that someone reads and immediately takes personally and assumes it applies to them, then there is a better-than-fair chance that the comment was somehow spot-on, and they realized it. Otherwise, what normal sane person would immediately take something so personally? Unless they are just incredibly thin-skinned and anything/everything triggers some victim status in them. To me, his candyass "I'm going to expose who you are!" response proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that said LtCol is indeed a douchebag O-5 ADO. Just took something like this to expose him from the woodpile. Feel free to mass email whoever you like from your desk at whichever RS there at BAB.

Didn't anything change for the better for RLOs when aviation was created as a branch in the 80s and RLO aviators no longer belonged to some other combat arms branch that they had to "go back to"?

Yup. Same thing that used to happen in T-37s, where you'd have some UPT IPs as former helo guys. Don't know if that was an option with the old UPT-H guys though from the early '90s.