tac airlifter

I'm not an army guy, but I have these talks with our partners on exercises and deployments and they echo the same thing: institutionalized Peter principal on a mass scale. Just finished "bleeding talent" by Tim Kane, focuses on the army but it can all be said of the AF as well. And although I don't think it will change, there's always value in an eloquently stated truth.

Radio, why did you assume our comments were specific to CAS events? If you think an airstrike is "non text book" when it happens outside of CAS then there are text books you haven't read. Your notion that you surely would have heard of these things with FEBs and court martials and school house lessons is patently ridiculous. Bottom line, RPAs are a great tool for some missions & their capabilities will and are slowly improving. But they won't be taking over every job for manned aircraft anytime soon because they aren't reliable enough; anyone pushing contrariwise has no real world experience.

Sounds like there's a lot you haven't heard about.

Good discussion so far! I prefer these threads than BODN politics nonsense, so thanks for the thoughtful reply. No, I'm no longer an airlift guy, that was a previous life. I've been a manned tactical ISR guy the past 5 years, so I'm pretty qualified to say no, "any ISR mission currently undertaken by a manned platform" will be soon accomplished by RPAs is false. We are an order of magnitude in technological development away from that. I appreciate RPAs, so don't take this as a dick measuring thing; but they are not even close to performing at a level required to take away manned ISR. We can agree to disagree here, because the examples I'd cite to prove my point aren't for a public forum. Moving on..... "once safety is assured" may be a long damn time. And whats the difference between a single pilot monitoring the computer and a single pilot? To keep a pilot there doesn't prove your point at all. I see no advantage to RPA passenger planes. right, they are. So, one might even say 'major things will have to change before the technology is ready for prime time." I always hear R&D guys talk about what is imminently about to happen, because they deal in a world of capability. In ops, we realize a technical theoretical potential isn't a true capability until you have proven it & can reliably replicate it. These 'evolutions in capability' that you gloss over are major issues that have resulted in mission fail on numerous occasions. Technical issues, but also user issues like the ability to keep crosshairs on target. copy, so how's that RQ-4 working out compared to the U2 lately? Again, a plane that doesn't exist and another one that sucks as examples really proves my point (namely, that this isn't ready to take over manned aircraft) instead of yours. current developments aren't operational capabilities. I never said RPAs were shitty planes and not worth our effort, quite the opposite. But you're right that I'm right... This has a long ways to go before its ready for prime time. Your assertion that NAS approval is the only thing preventing this technology from spreading like herpes to every corner of the world is false. The technological problems, the cost versus benefit, etc are preventing this from exploding. they already have clearance to fly in mixed airspace deployed, and yet your assertions aren't even on the AO way ahead slides, so agree to disagree. Again, this is a good discussion so please don't think I'm being an asshole; I prefer discussions and wouldn't waste my time with an argument here. But frankly I disagree with your POV. There are numerous other issues I haven't touched on holding RPAs back, like the massive footprint and personnel requirement to support a single orbit. T overall I think there is a bright future for this relevant and important technology, I just don't think it's so bright that it will plume out the pilot career.

Name me a single mission that will go to RPA's once civilian airspace is approved. Loiter time and high definition sensors are the two great advantages to RPAs. Disadvantages are numerous but include terrible radios, difficulty conducting debriefs, lack of anti-icing capability, permissive environment only operations, etc. Often times they work great for single specific missions, but often times they also shoot without clearance through the middle of an air stack while failing to place their crosshairs on the correct target. I am absolutely not knocking the crews, they are doing the best they can with the tools they are provided. However, I did not fully appreciate what a nightmare the RPA enterprise was until I went to Clovis and worked closely with the squadrons and saw their physical workstation. Major things will have to change before that technology is ready for primetime.

Will be more than 15 by the time all is said & done; it may actually affect the new SQs ability to be operational on time.

Exactly how I feel about you pretending to be a pilot.

Pallets of street justice & kinetics you can't talk about? You must have done the super spec ops C17 fighter pilot upgrade, sorry for questioning you Dr. Badass.

Tankers actually support objectives being actioned regularly, airlift/AD rarely plays a direct support role in fighting (at least how you guys do it). Both are important, but it's folly to assume you're always more relevant. Thats true for all of us. OP, hope you get something that makes you happy.

Hoptimum by Sierra Nevada. A 10.4% IPA, definitely my new favorite of their offerings.

Did you read your own link?

Yes, in this case some dudes snuck onto the runway at an austere location and placed an IED. Lucky it didn't kill everyone on board. There's a lot of crazy shit that has gone down in the past 10 years of war, you might not have heard every story.

Also BIP'd the -130 that crashed outside ORBI. And I've seen several random helo's BIP'd. Cheaper, easier, faster.

I'm glad to hear this attitude from so many safety officers. One of my greatest frustrations flying in the Air Force has been the secrecy surrounding safety investigation results.I have never once walked into my safety office, shut the door and successfully been allowed to access and read a safety report. I find it incredibly frustrating that I have easier access to top-secret information than the results of a safety investigation. Mostly the issue is manning, as our safety offices rarely have anybody qualified; this means we are dependent on Wing safety representatives who are not forthcoming or accountable to SQs.

meaning what?

Agreed, location = QOL for my family when I'm deployed; a happy family is the only way I can sustain the 1000+ days deployed I've already accumulated. And a shitty assignment location is the most likely thing to make me punch, despite how much I enjoy the fight. Keeping CVS open and a sole location for numerous AFSOC platforms is a national scandal with a direct negative impact on our ability to prosecute the mission by driving away talent.

Nope.

Better than most of the reviews I found online; well done & thanks for the write up!

https://www.courthousenews.com/2013/07/03/59061.htm More abuse of power. M2, I know you like to assume the best about police but this kind of shit happens way to often man.

Yup. Who knows what really happened? I've seen enough now that my knee jerk reaction is no longer to trust the first version of events I hear given by the party most interested in self preservation.

Just saw an email today for the buy; I think it will be popular and at those prices I might be getting 3! Well done.

IIRC we also had a 99 year lease at balad which didn't end favorably. But maybe my memory is going out from breathing the burn pits; it certainly can't be the bourbon.

Thank you for that story!

I think that was exactly the point Huggy was making; which was mocked but never addressed. So without emotion, can someone tell me what exactly the limits are WRT marriage? It seems we all agree dead people are out. What about 4 brothers, all consenting adults?

People....