xcraftllc

Edited: PM sent

Congratulations and I hope this message isn't too late, I've been pretty busy lately. I'm not sure what the record keeping process is for ADSOs but I know that if you're active duty, your branch manager (usually a CW4 or 5 if you're aviation) has access to that information with regards to schools, time in service, and duty assignments. Not sure if it's the same for the reserves. You will also need to check with your education center if you've been using TA. Hope that helps!

Indeed, I wonder why ATC didn't suggest it. I read through the script again and it looks like the controller should have advised a northern heading with a climb in order to get both vertical and lateral separation. The controller said to turn left heading 180 immediately, and the Viper began a turn to the south but that only seems to have put it right in front of the Cessna, whereas a right turn to 360 would have put it further away. One could say that when ATC told the viper that the traffic was passing below at 1400 feet, the viper should have climbed immediately since it was only at 1500 feet, but the collision occurred 2 seconds later so who knows, might have been too late. Either way the altitude readings were off, maybe a fault on the Cessna's mode C or an altimeter setting issue. Frankly, the vector to the south with no altitude increase is very strange. I guess maybe if the viper banked 90 degrees and did a 9g turn to 180 it would have avoided the Cessna, but a northern turn with a climb would have made a lot more sense, especially since the Cessna's track was 110 (slightly south). Edit: To clarify what I meant about the 9g turn, ATC said turn 180, and the viper made a total of 45* of heading change (from a 260 to a 215) over the course of 18 seconds, which is just 3 seconds slower than a standard rate turn of 3* per second (probably 3 seconds of looking for the Cessna) which is normal for instrument flight. 18 seconds might seem like forever for a 9g capable aircraft to turn just 45 degrees, but he was flying instruments and being vectored by ATC, not performing an airshow.

Deaddebate will probably see this soon but just to be sure, send him a PM. He's the expert on this stuff. Stay persistent with the contacting issues but be careful not to piss anyone off. No one in the military will argue that paperwork sitting stale on someone's desk isn't an issue,it screws people over all the time. 28 is older but you still have enough time to work this issue.

One of the biggest things that can be gained from the very informed discussion in this thread is; even those who can lend some perspective and experience on how this can still work out totally think the idea is bad, that's when you know this needs to not happen. Especially considering that this is just a temporary patch and not an actual solution.

It's not I was saying it's always a good idea to be up with flight following, although not technically illegal not to be. Also from further looking into the actual report, it appears that ATC might have more or less vectored the F-16 into the area in the first place. Still too early to tell.

Basically your questions and points are exactly why this whole idea is terrible. It is indeed a waste of money, and there really is no way to do it right. Frankly the brass just isn't thinking or listening and/or has some other political reasons for this. Some RPA operators may be qualified as pilots but operating an RPA is not piloting, especially considering the kind of flying RPAs do. Like FUEL was saying, it really makes a difference what kind of flying you're doing. Us "manned" aircraft guys (including FAIPs) still have to routinely train in all kinds of piloting that drones just don't do. Not only is it a waste to take people out of their trained pilot status and put them into generously and politicaly titled Remotely "Piloted" Aircraft positions, its just a bad idea in general, functionally speaking. If the AF was serious about getting these guys back into manned positions, they'd give them regular proficiency in manned aircraft, and although that would be expensive, there would still be a return on investment when they went back to a manned position because of their proficiency levels. Still this would be very expensive and it would certainly be better to have Drone-specific guys from the ground up who just stay in the career. Similarly with the whole TAMI 21 thing; (if I'm not mistaken), the AF didn't even provide a single T-38 for those guys to maintain basic skills. Imagine trying to zoom through federal airspace in a single seat fighter after years of automated orbits around a tent if Afghanistan. Drones need to be a separate track, that's it.

True man that's why I said "what appears to be" (or I guess I could have said "what would seem to me to be"). I mean for all we know he was diagnosing an issue with a system on the jet. I personally don't have any experience flying around in anything going faster than about 160 knots as of yet, I guess I'll be able to relate when I get to T-38s.

I'm glad we live in an age where we can be informed of these incidents almost immediately online. Looks like another example of a lot of things going wrong at the same time, although it's still to early to be sure about anything. No flight following of even a flight plan for the Cessna, and what appears to be a delayed compliance with ATC for the military pilot, combined with a 100 foot error in radar altitude. It will be interesting to see what the final report says. Just another example of the seriousness of the business and how small the sky really is.

Oh hell yeah man, hence the "the Army doesn't get much right about aviation" part. All that you mentioned and the whole ARI program moving Apaches out of the Guard and into Active Duty has been a total disaster. No branch (or organization of any kind really) is immune to politics or things that brief well and look good on paper. I'm just glad I've learned a lot and managed to dodge the bullets. I don't mean to sound ungrateful when I bitch about all this stuff, I really have do a good life in the military and love what I do, but some of this stuff is unnerving.

I was just saying if there were any that weren't.

I hate to see stuff like this, it's not just failure of leadership but failure to be descent human beings with sound morals. It's not a service-before-self issue and I hate hearing that rhetoric. This topic came up in the Track Selects and Assignment Nights thread, this is what I had to say about it: "It's pretty unnerving reading this thread. I'm very relieved that I went guard when I made the switch to the AF. Army flight school was stressful, and I managed to come out on top and get what I want, but at least I didn't have to worry about stuff like this! The Army doesn't do very many things right with regards to aviation, but one of the things it nailed is the way it handles its UAS (RPA) program. The program always was, is, and always will be completely separate from regular flight school, and the operators are enlisted. That's not to say they let any old joe fly a Grey Eagle, they have high standards for applicants (they are also always under the supervision of a "Mission Commander" type officer). Here's the reality: For an enlisted guy, flying a drone is cool, something to be proud of. If they get to do it, they feel accomplished and will likely continue to serve. No one goes to the Academy or puts all their life's time, money, and energy into getting into flight school to go RPA. This is a life commitment, we grew up our whole lives dreaming about flying and working hard to earn a career in the field. Say what you will about "patriotic duty" this, or "just happy to serve your country's needs" that; it's not ok to take someone who devoted their life to being able to fly, send them to flight school, and then pull the carpet out from underneath them and give them RPAs, even if it's only a temporary assignment. WRT guard/reserve help; I agree with making the guard/reserve units that are already flying drones more active in order to fill gaps but converting guard/reserve fighter units would eliminate the only place in the AF that high-time guys are willing to keep flying after their initial commitment is over, and the AF is already horribly short in that area. We're basically a Total Force now and one of the only ways that the AF has been able to stop some of its best pilots from leaving is by letting them palace chase to guard units. The guard is more active than ever, and the AF cannot meet its mission requirements without the help. As far as to how even just temporary assignments affect retention, someone did an interesting survey on the subject. Note the timing; about two years prior to the huge 11F shortage and bonus offerings: "

The Apache is probably the next closest thing to an aircraft that allows the pilot to "see through the floor", and the main advantage is navigating at night. As you could imagine, it's extremely frustrating to have the mission be effected by the moon position, and there is very little ambient lighting in combat so you can't really navigate and avoid mountains that well with NVGs unless the moon is out. Spec Ops and Medevac aircraft are equipped with FLIR systems to help mitigate this since they really can't depend on the illumination to do their work, but the Apache is the only one with a dedicated head-tracking system. This is a crude mechanical design that doesn't have the spherical coverage with integrated cameras like the F-35, but it's still an awesome tool. The guy in the video was just saying that it isn't practical for targeting or for simple convenience in the daytime. The feature may be a bit oversold by Lockheed but I'd imagine it's still totally useful. With that said, is it just me or does that guy not care too much about his career in the AF? I mean, good on him for being frank because we all really do deserve the down-and-dirty on the situation, but geez man, I wouldn't want to bring that unwanted attention to me if I was working on (or in a position to benefit from) the F-35 program.

I don't know what the hell's going on here but I want one. I'm gonna put a helicopter and a dune buggy in it and everything. EDIT: I forgot: Jet Skis

Worked last time. Hell, we gotta get our Titanium from somewhere anyway.

My unit supports one but it's supposed to be going away this year. I don't know much about it other than it's used for counter-drug.

Good stuff man, I bet that's a relief! I'd like to know the same thing. I just got hired and am about to go to TFOT but it's never too early to start, especially if all I can manage is one class at a time online, sounds like you might have been doing the same. Last I heard through the grape vine is that it's an absolute requirement for O-6 and highly desired for O-5, but I'm not sure if that's a guard/reserve requirement too. This article hits up on it a bit: https://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/benefits/education/2014/11/07/new-education-rules-for-air-force-officers-begin-dec-1/18637489/ I'd imagine with how hard it is to get promoted in the guard/reserve, it would be worth-while to get it done before the O-5 board, and would probably also help a lot when trying to make Major. I'll have to ask about it when I'm at the next drill.

And yet we continue to throw away god knows how much money at programs that are ridiculously impractical, unnecessary, or outright dangerous. A few things that come to mind from my days in the Army are; the entire Universal Camoflage Pattern program (more commonly known as simply "ACU Pattern"), the two-piece flight suit, and these little wonders, (to be fair though, most of the problem is congress and their lobbyist buddies): https://rt.com/usa/157244-flying-army-truck-viral/ https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/army-futuristic-hover-bike-technology/story?id=32009095 https://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/12/18/congress-again-buys-abrams-tanks-the-army-doesnt-want.html

B-1 too for that matter. Kinda ended up in the same boat but at least it was actually intended to be a bomber.

Here just use my profile pic ;)

One of the Fighter Sweep guys put his 2 cents in on the article: https://fightersweep.com/2548/f-35-v-f-16-article-garbage/

Man this debate is gonna rage and rage. It sucks to have to speculate on so much of the topic. Seems like a lot of the articles pick someone or something to argue against, and it goes back and forth. WRT maneuverability, I've seen the debate rage back and forth so much it's hard to keep track of all the arguments. I remember when Pierre Sprey (granted he's off base on a lot of things) said it was gonna be a turkey, people came out of the wood-works with how the internal bays, 11:1 T/W engine, lifting body attributes, and the clean exterior surface of the 35 more than made up for weight and width. Now we see tests like this, with a station wagon flying with two tanks as an adversary, and it everyone flies back the other way. Who really knows though, most of these articles are just as much opinion as this post! (So here comes more opinion) Put a good enough radar on something, give it good enough missiles, and you'll end up with something that will win every time and never need to maneuver at all as long as the enemy you're facing can't come up with an effective counter-measure. That's what we've seen with the Eagle's awesome AESA and modern AMRAAMS. But that's not a permanent solution, and generally only works as long as you're the biggest economy with the biggest budget, fighting against some semi-third world countries with hand-me-down air forces. The JSF has some great ideas and attributes though, no one can deny that. I don't think it'll get us through WWIII but we do need it, and I think we'll learn more from the research that went into it than in any other fighter project. Until then I just hope the AIM-9X, distributed aperture radar, and other similar technologies can bridge the gap. You gotta give it to Lockheed; although the program has taken way more time and money than it was supposed to, no one has died, and the only total loss was P&W's fault, not Lockheed's. EDIT: To clarify; by "station wagon" I meant two-seat D model Viper. If you look at the original War Is Boring article on the brief, it mentions that the Viper was a D model.

Imagine how easy it would be to make a remote-controlled or even fully autonomous train or monorail, but that isn't ever going to happen. The technology already exists to make fully automated passenger airliner flight (far simpler than the tech that goes into making that K-MAX work too), the issue isn't a technological one, it's a moral one. Two pilots checking each other and the aircraft systems, with their lives just as much at stake as everyone else's is the point. Even if you had a significant enough portion of the population who was willing to fly on such a jet, could you imagine the outcry and lawsuits that would take place in the event of an incident? It wouldn't even have to be a total-loss crash. A similar argument could be made for cargo planes, since they endanger other peoples lives even if the jet has no one on board. This is the same argument for rail freight. Exceptions like the K-Max are simple; the threat of the chopper crashing into something or someone is pretty low, and the extent of the damage would be limited. It also mostly only effects the military anyway. Just like flying cars and autonomous cars, it really makes my laugh to see companies throw tons of money at these projects. People can afford to have flying cars, they're called helicopters, you don't see many people flying them because of the safety, financial, and legal limits, not the technology. Watching Dr. Moller and his going-nowhere skycar project is pretty sad. Now seeing Google working on their no-one-is-gonna-buy-those-things-anyway car is just as sad (but also a bit funny).

That's the thing with this program though, they've been "in the schoolhouse" forever cuz they can't take their jets to Iraq until the nation has stabilized itself (from what I heard the training itself was taking longer than they though too). Sadly, I'd say there's a good chance that he was the same guy, granted Hassan is a pretty common name though.