tac airlifter

Taking away his retirement pay is extreme, But I think people want some consistancy in how the AF handles DUIs. When good guys can have everything taken away but a general gets to retire at general pay it seems unfair. Maybe if there were some standardization in how these are punished we wouldn't see an outcry like this claiming for his balls in a shoebox.

If you love beautiful scenery, beautiful weather, delicious wine and strong crosswinds, Lajes is the place for you.

We'll agree to disagree here. With better technology you don't need 10 years of experience to interpolate the image, you just look at it. This is like people saying the J or -17 needs an FE. Technology compensates for that crew position and in the case of an MX-15 or 20, the image speaks for itself and you don't need an "expert" to determine what it is.

Indonesian cops don't want you if you've got an unnaturally large dong. Personally, I wouldn't put leaves from something called the "itchy tree" anywhere on me, much less that.

MX-20D with ELAP. Wow. Too heavy for me but I'm very impressed.

Why shouldn't ADDS be approved? 202v3 says aircrew "should" use the OWS (not shall). That said, I'm not an expert since my MAJCOM supp says: 2.3.1.2. (AFSOC) When local military weather services are unavailable, crew may contact their home station or use any FAA approved weather system or service IAW with 2.3.1.2.5. (Added) So anything the FAA says is ok, is ok. Have you looked at your MAJCOM supp?

Thanks for the answer. I figured you guys (civ airliner) would have to report an RA, we just have a different mind set about it. VMC if I see the traffic, I'm not necessarily following the RA; IMC is a different situation, obviously. But what makes you think these guys would be squawking 1200 at FL 290? I thought everyone in class A was IFR.

Exactly, and that's the standard VFR departure.

Why is this even news? I get a TA on almost every flight. Even an RA isn't worth reporting. Do airliners have to report this stuff?

Surefire C3 Centurion. It's the brightest light for its size (6 inches) I ever seen.

What is that coming out of the -16? I'm ignorant of AR.

Welcome to the forum, and nice pictures; however, you didn't get "shwacked" and this isn't someone’s pet issue. You failed to read the giant thread title that says "READ THIS FIRST." No big deal and I think you'll appreciate how they compile and organize threads here in a year or so when you are searching for a specific picture; you won't have to sift through pages of irrelevant data. Again, welcome to the forum.

Zing! Well played.

True but many of those run concurrent with your UPT ADSC; which I know you know. Just pointing out to the guy who asked the question that you aren't adding aditional time to the 10 years by doing PME, IP school or your masters or whatever, provided the ADSC's incurred by those items expire prior to the expiration of the 10 year ADSC.

Exactly. I still can't believe I get paid to fly cool missions and I don't have any civilian friends who enjoy their job this much (including pilots). Yes there is queep and a masters and PME, etc. But really the only reason I bitch about that stuff is because it takes away from time I could be flying. I fucking love this. That F-bomb is just for you Kuma.

Wow, well played!

Who gives a fuck about pilot training ranking? Sometimes it's indicative of further performance, often not. Yea I know some exceptions too, but the fact is most dudes near the top of UPT want -38's. The mistake is in thinking that because you're near the top of a UPT class there is any correlation to being the best operational pilot. UPT judges how fast you learn a concept, not how well you internalize the concept. At the end of UPT, even the top guy starts over as the worst pilot at his Ops squadron. At that point, I know a larger amount of tier 1 UPT performers who burned out and settled in as another mediocre pilot than guys who went on to prove they really were awesome pilots. Only two of the best pilots at any of the operational squadrons I've been in were UPT superstars. And what does any of this have to do with the tanker vs. fighter bitch fest I was enjoying?

What you practice in exercises and what you actually deploy to do are not necessarily the same. Do you know anyone in your community currently doing CAS operationally? Anyone that's done it in the last 5 years? I'm not being a smart ass, but none of the IP's flying -52's that I know are doing any of this anymore much to their disappointment; they just do show of force stuff. Glad you are at least practicing taking 9-lines, you guys did great work in early OEF.

By skill set I mean being tasked to do the same mission now. My understanding is that -52's are no longer qualified to drop ordnance via the 9-line for CAS due to a renewed focus on the nuclear mission. Consequently, if 9-11 were to happen again tomorrow and the nation needed to support ground teams to a geographically isolated location with assets that can hold for long durations... could we do it? I know there are assets I haven't worked with but I also know the -52's DID do this mission when called upon, did it well enough to earn kudos from the teams, but are currently not doing it with no plans to practice in the future. If I'm wrong and CAS support is a skill that -52 crews maintain, then this discussion is moot and I'll stand corrected. Sure, everyone should always be prepared to put as much into the fight as possible. That is the point of the thread-- should aircraft not packing heat start doing so? I don't know what is best, I just think we're at a point where in the mind of the AF adding one capability takes away from another. Add CAS to -52's take away nuke readiness (big blue's opinion, not mine), add CAS to the W (DS) take away LL AD, etc. So I'm curious with your experience, do you think more assets that could be CAS players (not dedicated experts like you guys, just able to employ iron) would help or get in the way? I'm sure there would be examples of both, but on the whole, do you think we need more guys able to orbit and drop?

That's an interesting insight, and it is sad to see lessons learned and forgotten time and again. I realize what they (B-52's) did was not equivalent to a dynamic type 2 or 3 CAS with TIC, but from the ground perspective all the dudes I know were very glad to have the overhead despite the limitations. That being said, do you think the -52's should have kept that skill set or do you think that was just extraordinary measures for extraordinary circumstances?

Didn't -52 dudes bring a lot to the CAS fight during the opening days of OEF? I know some ground guys who wish the -52 still did CAS.

Was he fabulous at Karaoke?

I'm not asking to be dickish, so don't take it that way. In my job we also support customers and although standardized procedures exist, different users have different preferences. I always flex to the user regardless of what the reg says; in fact our "flex to your demands" approach has made us very popular and useful. So with my experience, I'm curious why you'd tell the customers how it's going to be instead of the other way around? I know there are times when you have to tell the user "no" for whatever good reason, but if they want something and your only reason not to acquiesce is because you are using a standard flow and you don't want to modify.... bro, that seems like exerting aurthority solely to exert authority and not helpful to the dudes in the fight.

Standing by for: "If they had an FE they'd never go NORDO!"