afnav

Wow. I've only seen him a couple of times with the clean-shaven look. Enter the Dragon and An Eye for an Eye come to mind...

Good idea with the praise in public, but don't go overboard. It could give your guy a target on his back for a little while by his peers. If you're honest and even-handed about it, it will do wonders for him. Treat the enlisted people you work with with respect and fairness, and you will be amazed at how they will go out of their way to take care of the mission.

Love the nav bashing...

My former boss said they load a ballast in the extra seat to make sure the sequence functions properly when they fly with less than four crewmembers. All my best for the families.

Anyone trotting around with a Bronze Star WITHOUT an AFCAM speaks volumes, at least if it's a recent recipient.

Only to be topped by a pilot refusing to write up a hard landing when they blow out a pair of tires.

The Air Farce invented the "one shit his pants, everyone wears diapers" mentality years ago. When I was at Tinker, every time we went on the road with a 24-person crew, everyone was treated like the lowest ranking person on the plane - usually a 2-striper. If another unit did something stupid, our leadership had to show they were 'doing something' and punished us as a collective. Granted, since 9/11, things have chilled a little. With the lack of flight hours for the rest of the year, I can see plenty of opportunities for 'leadership' to invent bullshit to keep everyone on their toes.

The article above this post was required reading in the US Army Red Team Course I just finished in January. There are people out there that are watching, it's just that they are filtered by the military bureaucracy before it gets up to leadership. Of course, leadership may just not care.

It's actually pretty easy when you're flying out of Howard during Carnival. My room was on the building side vs. the street side. They party until 0500 and then start back up again at 8. No one got any sleep for two weeks except on the plane. The co swore he had his eyes open under his sunglasses.

"Next Aaahman? Next Aaahman? Quote from Lackland, for those non-Es out there. Basic chow rocked... Well, they shut down the NAVCAD program while I was in the middle of it, so that made it easy. They said I could go SWO, and I told them to fuck off.

Cool. A DFC for a pilot that did what any decent nav could do in their sleep. I 'flew' an E-3 over the eastern Pacific for over three hours with an unconscious flight deck. Where's my DFC?

She didn't deserve the promotion because she took classified home and got caught. I don't care who she fucks, but dammit, don't leave work with 'work'.

Steve, I just saw the pre-release for your B-52 Owner's Manual book coming out in April, and signed up for one. Thanks for doing another book on the BUFF.

Chrome Dome might be too over the top for some people. Maybe some highly-publicized exercises flying Black Diamond-style missions over the UTTR.

My fed civ branch chief actually tried to talk me out of leaving my GS-nothing job to go to a contractor position that is immune to political whims and pays more than double my current salary. Too bad, dude. You'll have to come up with your 'bright ideas' on your own now. Fortunately, the active duty colonel was much more realistic. "Hey, sounds like a good deal to me!" I've bitten my tongue more times than I can count on the football dog pile on govt civilians. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I've decided to remove myself from the argument.

I guess it might be time to dust off some of the old Chrome Dome charts.

That's interesting, since I've heard remarkable things about 'liberated' Icelandic women.

I'm a big fan of C&R, which is one reason the gun hysteria isn't affecting me very much. One rifle I'm interested in right now is a Gewehr 1888. It fires an 8mm Mauser round, but does not use the more modern spitzer slug. I've looked everywhere online, but I can't find anyone making it. Does anyone know anything about it? If I can't find rounds for one, I'll probably just stick with my Gew98s. I went to Cabela's today, and they wanted $330 for a Turkish Mauser that looked like someone had used it as a wheel chock. I can remember when gun stores couldn't give them away for $50.

I was certainly not implying that they have been used (alone) against a front-line adversary. I was merely stating that they have served efficiently in direct combat. You are cherry-picking my comments. It took years before anyone in the DoD referred to the Taliban as a highly-trained adversary. Look it up. There are no major differences in the current modern battlefield. If you serve in convoy duty, which many women have, you are in front-line combat. Many more are receiving direct or indirect fire in their compounds. This is not WWI trench warfare, which will likely not be fought again until during the war following a major nuclear exchange.

Women have served in combat (yes, direct combat) for thousands of years. Women are dying in direct combat in Afghanistan right now. The few career fields that are being opened to women, aside from grunt infantry, have washout rates so high for males that very few women will even qualify to enter training unless the standards are changed. The standards are there to ensure success in completion of the course, so they are most likely logical to retain. Seeing this as a social experiment ignores the facts. With no further limitations, one can rightly say that it is an equal opportunity military. Those of us who have served have seen examples to dispute that assertion, but it's an imperfect system.

It's a radically different Big Blue from when I came in, but I can tell you what I did. I went to college for a year and ran out of money. My det was 75% prior enlisted, and suggested I enlist to get money to come back to school. I did, and it was the best decision I could have made. I went in as aircraft mnx, and learned the flying business from the enlisted side. Truth be told, B-52 gunner was #1 on my list, but that's life. I re-applied to AFROTC, and did my interview in my buck sgt blues. It worked. I paid my dues in missiles and then applied for flying training and was selected. It helped going through it as an older guy. My girlfriend was an SP when I was enlisted. Believe me, you do not want to be a cop unless you REALLY want to be a cop.

I appealed my primary board when my wonderful supervision sent in a PRF with misspelled words all over it. It had already been sent to AFPC by the time I saw it. It took AFPC two weeks to grant my request to go to a supplemental board. Unfortunately, your chances of making it on a sup board are astronomical. I think it was about a 2% select rate on mine.

This site has been wonderful since the first time I was told about it years ago. Sir, you created a great website. RIP.

When I was in AWACS, we just used the squadron bar...except on Fridays...

Proud to be part of the 31%. Phoebe Cates, I still love you...