viper154

Might be the MASSIFs? Same company that makes the new awesome flight jackets. Not a ejection seat guy but we been buying them in my corner of the AF. They are about twice as much but they fit much better, don’t have random velcro everywhere, ass is much less likely to rip, and the pocket functionality is much better.

RPA is a great asset. Not to specifically answer your JTAC question, but to address why the light attack won’t be drone. Manning-the RPA enterprise can’t fill that bill. They are doing everything they can to improve manning in their current posturing. Cross training the entire U-28 community would tax the system to much. Long run, it could be be done, but it would take a large amount of assets. The 18x community is trying to become a pure 18x community with minimal 11s, so it would go against that long term plan. Hardware-satcom delay makes comms a ass pain, especially with troops on the ground. The KU delay also makes flying at low levels, as well as the “aggressive” maneuvering for gun/rockets pretty much impossible to do safely for both ground guys and the aircraft. Lastly is the requirement for austere ops. You need a ground team to land the 9 at the airfield/farp point, this takes significant time/security to set up. Also the several million dollar camera is on the front of the aircraft real close to the ground. It’s a recipe for disaster landing on anything not paved and maintained. There are some additional considerations but this is not the appropriate medium for that discussion. I’ve flown both manned and unmanned ISR aircraft, each are both great at what they do, and have made serious TTP improvements in the last decade. Both also have their respective weaknesses. Can a drone fill these low block CAS mission sets in the future? Probably, but those technology gains aren’t going to happen in the timeline laid out by SOCOM.

Wife and I have both vehicles, fairly new mid end cars fully ensured with Geico for $75 a month, clean records, good credit. We switched from USAA, they were charging $125 a month. Local company for home owners, live a mile from the coast, not in a flood zone, $1600 a year for - $270,000 home. USAA wanted $2800.

Current environment you aren’t going to palace chase until the last 6 or so months of your commitment. Who knows in 6-10 years from now. Family life is tough all around. Everyone deploys, goes TDY, etc. MAF seems to take the cake with being gone the most, including 130s. I’m a AFSOC guy, we are gone a decent amount as well. I’m not to knowledgeable on current fighter schedules but I’m going to assume they are also gone a bunch. If being at home is really that important FAIP is probably the best option. I would just put what mission set/air frame type appeals to you the most. The rest will all work out. Just because a community has a good or bad schedule now doesn’t mean that won’t change. Especially so with recent developments and geo political activities.

The fact they think a MQ-9 can loiter for 30+ hours shows they know absolutely nothing about what they are talking about. MQ-9 is great for ISR whack a mole in permissive environments, for a variety of reasons it is horrible for “armed overwatch” CAS, light attack or whatever buzzword label of the day is.

I think even if they do buy new hardware they are going to go with something along those lines. It’s a easier transition those crews than to find pointy nose types to put in cockpits and both light ISR fleets were intended to be “temporary”. They now have been around for some time and are getting up there in airframe hours. There is also a significant reduction in risk operating out of the small arm/manpad environment and using PGMs. It’s a trade off because you are loosing gun capes A light gunship could be a option but cost is going to be significantly higher per tail than getting AT-6/Super T or hanging some sensors and hellfire racks on a modified already in production civilian airframe.

I’m not in the know but I would guess the light fixed wing ISR fleet, King Air/PC-12s

Stop beating yourself up bruh/bra. As said above, your job is removing more bad guys from this earth than just about anyone else. The community is making leaps and bounds in TTPs/software/hardware. You can show up to ya ops unit and go through the motions or you can bust your ass and contribute to probably the most rapidly advancing community in military aviation. I get it, I did a tour in drones, only person that can change your mindset is you. if manned flying is your goal you can keep trying to apply to AD rated boards and/or continue to build your resume for guard units when your commitment is up. I can promise it’s going to be a lot easier to get hired with a great record/reputation. Civilian flying is always a option to. Oh, contract LR jobs are also paying upward of $2000 a day right now, so get that qual. Your family/friends can poke fun but you will being laughing straight to the bank on your yacht. Im not trying to be dick, but you need to do some soul searching and get some confidence. Spend time in the vault studying, upgrade ASAP, master your craft, set goals, be the hardest worker in the unit and never give up. You only live once, make it count.

Gate months can stop, I don’t remember if it’s 4 or 6 months from your last flight. Caveat is that if you are enrolled in a flying training course your gate months keep going even if you have more than 4/6 months. That happened to me cross flowing airframes, I was in academics for awhile because of a back log, talked to my SARM shop and they explained the above to me. If you are truly casual and not enrolled in a course you could loose months, or so the airman at the desk said. I don’t have pubs/references to back that up so take it for what it’s worth.

It does, but as mentioned above there are resources in place, and unless you are a threat to yourself/others or to messed up to fly they are good about providing assistance and keeping you flying. The few RPA units I were in during my time flying them were all extremely close. It certainly helped being able to punch the ICS button to your bro’s next door and chat/decompress/sport bitch while controlling a drone spinning endless circles. We always hung out as a shift on our off day’s, often it was standard drinking shenanigans but we did plenty of other non destructive things, I made some of the best friends I’ve ever had in the RPA world. Hardest part for most wasn’t the mission, it was usually pretty clear these guys we were going after were bad and a threat. It was more so the endless shift work. There was no end of deployment, go home, decompress, normal life. Most line guys had 3-4 years of mission work, 5-6 days a week with no real break until they got a front office job or farmed out of the squadron. There was talk when I went back manned a few years ago of getting a more “normal” type of “deployment cycle” going so people got some time off the line, but manning needed a major plus up first. Not sure how that is going. All that being said, his job stress certainly could have played a role in this unfortunate situation.

Damn auto correct

Ya they got it all wrong though, it wasn’t a F-16 that started WWII, the mother fucker was a drone.

I’m currently in a B course after a RPA tour, over the last 6-9 months I have met probably 6-9 other crossflows dudes, some from RPAs, couple mil to mils, couple dudes just wanted to do something different and asked, couple were voluntold. Not saying you can move from C-5s to F-22s (easily) but I would say there are more opportunities to move airframes than 6-9 years ago.

What DI said is correct. Your orders should have your family on them but only for the PCS to Fairchild. Unless you have a rather outstanding circumstance your family won’t be included in the TDY. However, you will still receive BAH for wherever you were living when you went TDY, so no, your lodging won’t increase but you can bank that BAH. So you will get one set of orders, with the TDY enroute box checked, and the family accompanied on TDY box blank. It should have a RNLTD on there, expect it to be a week or two after the course end date, and don’t sweat it if the course goes long, you just need to get a amendment to orders after.

2nd recommendation for the Trident crew, did a refinance a little over a year from my initial loan, rates were almost a percent lower, and it cost nothing out of pocket. Couldn’t have been easier either, couple emails and signed the paperwork and that was it. If you are in the market at least give these guys a call when shopping. Couldn’t be happier.

I’m curious if the Purple Hearts being awarded in TN is going to set a precedent. (As reported above, I’ve done no fact checking into that) Does it matter if a terrorists attacks you on US soil or overseas? I would say no. I know plenty of people who received much more for way less that what the Ensign and maybe others did.

I’m very interested to read the AARs when the investigation is over. Reports are the Ensign that lost his life jumped a desk and engaged the shooter, and later made his way outside to assist law enforcement with location/description of shooter. I’ve heard vague reports that others might have attempted to disrupt the shooter as well. A Navy contract officer was shot and two deputies. My thoughts after a few drinks on Friday, a week to reflect, and living just a few minutes away. This asshole went to inflict mass damage. He encountered resistance from some absolute heroes and perhaps a building that was locked down by the time he overcame that resistance that saved lives. The simple fact the asshole engaged a soft target, and 3 people lost, 8 wounded (3 being law enforcement) I would say the assholes objectives were thwarted. (I in no way am down playing those lost/injured, but whatever happened in that building saved lives). I really hope when everything is over everyone who deserves recognition gets it. Engaging a shooter unarmed and sacrificing your life to save others in my opinion deserves a highest honor. The police (both military and law enforcement) that responded did their job absolutely honorably, they went in to saves and accomplished that mission. I hope we learn some lessons and don’t let the lives lost be in vein and unrecognized cheers 🍺🍺 To Them. 🍺🍺

That statement tells me everything I need to know. What a piece of shit.

I watched them load up as I drove by the runway on my way to work. I was wondering why a few hours later a 130 was circling so low over the gulf. My buddy was in the air as the search started, the amount of help and support was pretty humbling, fighters, bombers, tankers from all over the south were overhead almost immediately (relatively speaking)

Our OCP MASSIF jackets came with the Velcro set up like the OCP tips except the rank Velcro was above the name tape like the old Velcro for the ABU fleeces. Somehow I got one with the flight suit name tag Velcro and being the jackets are $550 a pop I just rocked my flight suit name tag. I couple asshats made a comment about it and getting rank sewn on if I was to wear it like that. Eventually my SQ/CC said something to me, my reply was always the same. “Sewing on additional Velcro would ruin the fireproofing/shell of the jacket” No idea if that has any truth but that seems to keep people at bay, successful tactic for 4+ years now.

Sounds right, my bill for 2 lines of unlimited talk/text/data is right around $100 a month.

What’s the return on investment on a global empire though? Sure, we pay a fuck ton for our bases scattered all over the world but we should be getting a return on that investment with global security and leveraging our interest to our economic benefit. Ya OEF/OIF were debatable investments, I don’t really want to go down that rabbit hole. What’s the return on investment if granny lives to be 80 instead of 75? Or you get the sweet air cast and not the old school plaster one because that’s all you can afford. Paying for everyone’s healthcare is not a good investment, Europe is a great example of that. At the same time it’s not great to have a section of the population with massive medical debt, but I would debate that is a better option than investing trillions for “free” health care.

I read it as they had 0 hours at the time of the annual inspection in January.

Not sure, but about a year ago AFPC announced that any 11 that had been in RPAs longer than 5 years was being involuntary recat to 11U. Most those dudes planned on ridding it out to 20. Also, a lot of the initial 18X guys just came up on their commitment and most of those guys/gals were prior E or crossflow that we’re planning on staying to 20. I’m guessing this is affecting the percentages.

I flew for a deployed unit a few years back that used a excel workbook. Worked decently and color coded and all that fun stuff. I’m not smart enough to make one but that is a direction you could pursue. Big thing was that it was at a step desk computer. I know different communities handle the step desk differently, Ipad/file sharing between your crew might be a better route.