tac airlifter

Thought this was a worthy addition to the thread. Issue Brief March 1, 2010 www.lexingtoninstitute.org SEARCH AND RESCUE: ANOTHER BLOW TO U.S. AIR POWER? Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D. The U.S. Air Force is at the lowest ebb in its 73-year history. Although its capabilities still far surpass those of other air services around the world, it is gradually using up the arsenal it acquired during the closing days of the Cold War. Over the last five years, the Air Force has seen its next-generation F-22 air superiority fighter terminated at less than half the required number, its next-generation bomber delayed by over a decade, and its plan to replace airborne surveillance planes canceled. Planners also want to end production of the service's admired C-17 cargo jet at a mere 222 planes, even though the oldest C-17s will soon reach the end of their design lives and there is no chance of building something else. You'd think at this point policymakers would be ready to train their sights on some other hapless victim of "rebalancing," but no such luck. Two articles in the defense trade press last week signaled that the next blow to U.S. air power will be aimed at the Air Force's search and rescue community, which for decades has led the joint force in retrieving downed pilots and other endangered personnel from harm's way. The need for agile rotorcraft and highly trained personnel who can survive in hostile airspace to save warfighters at risk used to be deemed so important that it was rated the Air Force's number-two modernization priority, second only to replacement of decrepit Eisenhower-era tankers. But apparently the rescue of lost soldiers and airmen doesn't command the constituency it once did, because both articles indicated service leaders are moving to embrace the least capable option. The first article, written by Stephen Trimble of Flight International, said "The Air Force has decided to buy 112 Sikorsky UH-60Ms to recapitalise its ageing combat search and rescue fleet, despite a standing requirement for a larger helicopter." Trimble attributed this information to the service's senior uniform acquisition executive, Lt. Gen. Mark Shackelford. A second article appearing two days later by Marcus Weisgerber of Inside the Air Force cited Shackelford as saying no final decisions had been made on what would replace existing HH-60G search and rescue helicopters, but "it could be new H-60s modified to be rescue helicopters." Weisgerber noted that the search and rescue fleet had dwindled to so few flyable helicopters that the service was already buying new H-60s in 2010 and requesting six more in 2011 as replacements, but he described that as a temporary solution. Weisgerber quoted Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz endorsing an "off-the-shelf" solution acquired in the smallest feasible quantity, "given our resource constraints." Clearly, Air Force plans are trending away from the more capable alternatives considered only a few years ago, when Boeing's HH-47 Chinook was selected in a three-way competition with the AgustaWestland EH-101 and Sikorsky H-92. That decision was later overturned because the Government Accountability Office questioned the way life-cycle costs had been calculated, but then defense secretary Robert Gates canceled the effort, putting the future of the whole mission area in doubt. What's so odd about this process is that an "analysis of alternatives" conducted by the Air Force in 2002 cast doubt on the suitability of the H-60 for the mission given crew workloads, lack of defensive features, and other deficiencies. More recently, the Joint Forces Command re-validated requirements for a new search and rescue airframe in higher numbers than the Air Force is now apparently planning. One thing is clear, though: the H-60s the service is contemplating buying are far inferior to HH-47, EH-101 and V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor alternatives that are readily available. So unless something changes, this looks like yet another mission area where the Air Force is losing altitude fast.

I enjoy listening, thanks for the responses here.

Slight thread drift-- I heard a rumor yesterday that there is a seperate pot of $9k, seperate from your TA, that can be used for a one time certification. I haven't yet had the chance to investigate for myself, but since I'm on here anyway thought I'd ask if anyone has seen this money used for an ATP or similar advanced flight certification? I should have free time next week and if an answer isn't posted I'll have one from my education office for everyone else.

Keep trying for a rated slot. The aero club at Eglin has twins and single engine. Mostly it's run by civilians. Your boss needs to sign a form allowing you to take a second job while on active duty. Not a huge deal, my neighbor is doing it and he's a major. That being said, I think whether your boss signs off depends on your job and how much time you have. I'm going to try working as a CFI or MEI at the aero club myself when I return from my next deployment; consequently I don't know yet how feasible it is. I'll keep you posted on my experience. Seems like a good way to fly a little on weekends when I can't fly at work; and since I'd fly 7 days a week if I were allowed, I'm interested. Edited to add: I had some experience with the old areo club at Quantico about 13 years ago, not sure if it still exists. My experience there was pretty negative, like you said, a lot of grumpy old guys who didn't want to let anyone else into their club. But I think that was the exception, not the rule. There was one in Hawaii when I lived there as well, but that was about 18 years ago so my knowledge is quite dated. My experiences there were great.

Dude, I'm kidding. I care about/earned 2 of my ribbons. The rest are useless.

Hiflyer, some questions on how you guys operated back then: Did you have daily sorties to known locations and fighters would rendezvous with you at predetermined times, or did you only launch for a TIC so you knew fast movers would be enroute? Were there several forward staging areas for FAC's so you'd be close to the action, or could you count on a lot of drone time to and from your destination? And if you can put up with all those questions, what kind of stations time did you have, or would you guys just go trolling for contact? I'm really curious about the tactical implementation of FAC's in the old days without all the whiz bang shit used currently. Thanks!

Sweet, can't wait to add the OND bling to my ribbon rack! My wife will be very impressed. Yes I am being sarcastic.

I just want to be part of airdropping gas. But yea, lot's of wordfucking going on there; who knows what really took place. They probably had a tertiary role and played it big on paper while hampering the dudes actually doing it.

Is there some kind of BX policy about gun sales? Mostly I've never seen guns or ammo in a BX, but I walked into Eglin a few months ago and it's like the friggen SHOT show in there. Great selection of handguns, shotguns and rifles, even high end AR's like LWRC. They sell the Sig 556 there and even had the new FN SCAR. But I haven't seen anything like that anywhere lese, including Hurlburt.

Who will you guys be training on the aircraft? Seems odd to give it to you guys unless a lot of others exist for you to upgrade people on. Or will yo be getting a new mission?

Be that as it may, the blog in question here had 19 year old SF girls on it. Not to be sexist or 'ageist' but I don't think their skills equate to the Tier 1 assets, no matter what schools they attend. But back on point, the Deid is gay. Wait, I guess in light of DADT dissolving I should instead say "the Deid is a bastion of homosexual liberation and frolicking!"

It may have happened to more than one crew. But yup, early 2006 that was me. The rest of the story was a backend full of rowdy PUC's and some shenanigans with the Army that almost became a major international incident while the O's watched helplessly from the field; but I'll refrain from details. Bottom line, the herc schoolhouse tells everyone to run into a field during an EGE because in the 80's some guy got hit by the fire truck responding to the incident (driving on the runway). I recommend staying on a paved surface when you're at an isolated shithole with the potential for mines; we were a solid crew but this is one of those things you just never think about.

I also agree with pretty much all your points except about Hassan himself. Especially the fact that Peters just smells like a passed over LtCol who is pissed at everything and looking for public revenge. But you are incorrect that this would be blown over if he had not been Muslim. If he had been a white supremacist this would be a major news story and would have led to all manner of additional CBT's. If this had been a homophobe angry at the imminent dismissal of DADT this would be headlines everywhere with long term repercussions in the military. The government treats crimes committed with an ideological bent as more dangerous than simply a dude whose wife dumped him and went nuts. The reason ideology is more dangerous is that it's contagious. And the military was wrong not to recognize this freak. This guy was a terrorist, the FBI has even said so now and they have access to the classified report. A terrorist attack doesn't have to be coordinated to be effective. Hassan was influenced by his religion to commit this act, shouted "allah akbar" while doing it and the federal authorities have concluded this was terrorism. Ralph's personality issues aside, why do you disagree with this labeled terrorism? Edited to add: didn't see your post below when I wrote mine, and you answered the question about why you don't see this as terrorism. I guess we'll just agree to disagree.

I've had my share of close calls, but getting scared while flying? Scared usually happens afterwards when I realize how close to disaster I came and how little my own skill had anything to do with averting it. That being said, I remember feeling genuine panic when I emergency ground egressed a smoking aircraft and ran my ass into an unmarked minefield. That sinking feeling that you've lost control of your own fate is definitely scary.

Exactly what in the article did you disagree with?

Obviously I read articles written by Ralph with a grain of salt, but I've got to agree on this one. With even POTUS now calling this a terrorist attack and not the work of a lone gunman I am suprised at how incomplete and empty this report is. Hood Massacre Report Gutless and Shameful By RALPH PETERS January 16, 2010 https://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/ hood_massacre_report_gutless_and_yaUphSPCoMs8ux4lQdtyGM There are two basic problems with the grotesque non-report on the Islamist- terror massacre at Fort Hood (released by the Defense Department yesterday): * It's not about what happened at Fort Hood. * It avoids entirely the issue of why it happened. Rarely in the course of human events has a report issued by any government agency been so cowardly and delusional. It's so inept, it doesn't even rise to cover-up level. "Protecting the Force: Lessons From Fort Hood" never mentions Islamist terror. Its 86 mind-numbing pages treat "the alleged perpetrator," Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, as just another workplace shooter (guess they're still looking for the pickup truck with the gun rack). The report is so politically correct that its authors don't even realize the extent of their political correctness -- they're body-and-soul creatures of the PC culture that murdered 12 soldiers and one Army civilian. Reading the report, you get the feeling that, jeepers, things actually went pretty darned well down at Fort Hood. Commanders, first responders and everybody but the latest "American Idol" contestants come in for high praise. The teensy bit of specific criticism is reserved for the "military medical officer supervisors" in Maj. Hasan's chain of command at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. As if the problem started and ended there. Unquestionably, the officers who let Hasan slide, despite his well-known wackiness and hatred of America, bear plenty of blame. But this disgraceful pretense of a report never asks why they didn't stop Hasan's career in its tracks. The answer is straightforward: Hasan's superiors feared -- correctly -- that any attempt to call attention to his radicalism or to prevent his promotion would backfire on them, destroying their careers, not his. Hasan was a protected-species minority. Under the PC tyranny of today's armed services, no non-minority officer was going to take him on. This is a military that imposes rules of engagement that protect our enemies and kill our own troops and that court-martials heroic SEALs to appease a terrorist. Ain't many colonels willing to hammer the Army's sole Palestinian-American psychiatrist. Of course, there's no mention of political correctness by the panel. Instead, the report settles for blinding flashes of the obvious, such as "We believe a gap exists in providing information to the right people." Gee, really? Well, that explains everything. Money well spent! Or "Department of Defense force protection policies are not optimized for countering internal threats." Of course not: You can't stop an internal threat you refuse to recognize. The panel's recommendations? Wow. "Develop a risk-assessment tool for commanders." Now that's going to stop Islamist terrorists in their tracks. The Fort Hood massacre didn't reflect an intelligence failure. The intelligence was there, in gigabytes. This was a leadership failure and an ethical failure, at every level. Nobody wanted to know what Hasan was up to. But you won't learn that from this play-pretend report. The sole interesting finding flashes by quickly: Behind some timid wording on pages 13 and 14, a daring soul managed to insert the observation that we aren't currently able to keep violence-oriented religious extremists from becoming chaplains. (Of course, they're probably referring to those darned Baptists . . .) To be fair, there's a separate, classified report on Maj. Hasan himself. But it's too sensitive for the American people to see. Does it even hint he was a self-appointed Islamist terrorist committing jihad? I'll bet it focuses on his "personal problems." In the end, the report contents itself with pretending that the accountability problem was isolated within the military medical community at Walter Reed. It wasn't, and it isn't. Murderous political correctness is pervasive in our military. The medical staff at Walter Reed is just where the results began to manifest themselves in Hasan's case. Once again, the higher-ups blame the worker bees who were victims of the policy the higher-ups inflicted on them. This report's spinelessness is itself an indictment of our military's failed moral and ethical leadership. We agonize over civilian casualties in a war zone but rush to whitewash the slaughter of our own troops on our own soil. Conduct unbecoming.

That was a pretty gay blog. I really don't think a hostage situation on a military base would be handled by SF. I know some more qualified people pretty close by.

I've never heard of students wearing the poopy suit, but I've never instructed at pilot training so I could be wrong. Only times I know guys wear them is single engine well beyond power off glide distance to land. Think single engine crossing the Atlantic. I can't imagine wearing one to cross a relativly small lake.

I flew 130's for almost 5 years and this was not my experience at all. Everyone always told me how flying was secondary, but from what I saw that was only true if you allowed it to be true. I choose everyday when I went to work to make being good at my flying job my number 1 priority, and I'd like to think I succeeded. Did I catch some flak from my CC sometimes for flying instead of doing Flt/CC stuff? Sure, sometimes, but I always managed to get my ground job done. My point: everyone will tell you how it is but ultimately you get to decide what kind of officer/pilot you're going to be. I decided to put flying first; I got lots of cool missions and I got the job I wanted next, so being a good pilot first worked out well for me. And as a Flt/CC, I always strated guys who put flying first, not the office trolls-- if we're going to turn this queep around that's how it starts.

Listing your fellow Air Force members names online so you can mock them is highly unprofessional and makes you look like an idiot.

I've heard that rumor about every humorous AF video I've ever seen, and it's probably true.

Sheep gives birth to lamb with human face. edit: link

Who came up with a NLT 8000' flight restriction for small arms, and what were they smoking? I've not seen anything that restrictive anywhere else in the world.

Why would anyone clutter their brain with this useless nonsense? I will never in my life care what an AFI says about my sock color or underwear; it won't change anything I do. When leaders make stupid rules they just water down the legitimacy of all rules. Case in point, 202v3 specifically states only AF issue sunglasses can be worn while flying, but that rule is broken by literally every person I've ever flown with. How about we all just worry about shit that matters and expend energy memorizing things that matter?