Danny Noonin

Not rumor, it's full up true and in writing. Director of ANG is fully on board by the way. AFRC CC was not, but he lost.

Great post Champ

Except when they cut the iron, the cut the hours because that's where the actual savings are.

Hate to break it to you, but it's going to get worse. If sequestration holds, FY15 is going to be absolutely brutal. And it's not the chief's fault. It's just a math problem.

But are you that far removed from reality that you think there is enough money to do that? We can't afford flying hours in the name of readiness yet you are suggesting we can afford them in the name of retention?

Oh, so you mean all we have to do is scrape up billions of dollars in added flying hour money and procure enough new jets and train enough people to spread the deployments to meet COCOM (not Air Force) requirements around a little thinner and the problem will solve itself?

Interesting point. I had not thought of it that way.

That's the heart of the problem. A mere handful of any platform, let alone the F-35B, cannot provide those capabilities sufficiently and therefore would need augmentation.

Same here. I literally could not turn my neck to the right. Was referred by the flight doc and didn't want to go but one crack and I could move again. Might be worth noting that about 10 years later, after years of intense discomfort, I finally needed neck surgery due to fix everything I'd destroyed over the years, so you may have real underlying problems that a good crack can't fix, sts.

This

Nice

So you're only lagging an s&p 500 index fund by 5% and 12% respectively and paying extra for that honor? Haven't we talked about this before?

IAW the reg?

Ummm... https://security.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/04/i-dont-want-it-airman-gives-back-paycheck-asks-others-to-do-same/

Yes. Flyovers at Arlington are no small deal.

Wait, what? You're mixing issues. You said 69 is just a number. So to speak is a common phrase. Nothing to see here. It's all perfectly innocent. When I pointed out the obvious bullshit of that statement, your response is that I'm wrong because 98% of dudes don't say it at the ops desk??? Huh? Can't have it both ways, sts. They are either innocent words or they're not. If they're innocent, then you would have no need to avoid saying them at the ops desk. The truth is that far too many dudes have zero SA. Far too many are obnoxious and can't shut their cake holes no matter what the audience. We all know it and there far more than just the "2%" wingmen. It might not be many or most, but its not exactly rare. Given the temperature of the water right now, this is why the hammer is getting dropped. No, it doesn't contribute to sexual assault. But you can see why your poor 1CO or intel troop wouldn't want to listen to that shit all day. Should not be difficult to understand. I find it very difficult to believe all the dramatic reactions to this. 69 and sts are not important parts of the culture nor are they true tradition. They don't enhance camaraderie, help burn off steam, or anything else important. It's also not the first time there has been a high profile ban on those phrases. There were bans way before the sexual assault era back when men were men and real jets carried AIM-7s. The world did not end then, it won't end now, and fighter pilot culture and tradition will be just fine. Songs on the other hand, are a completely different story...

Really?

I agree with most of your post, but... Gimme a fucking break. It's colossally low SA like this that has caused this little bit of unwanted attention. If 69 is just a number, no different than any other number, than start throwing 25 into sentences instead. It's just a number as well. You can't throw that stuff around in public (which happens all the time and we all know it) then claim innocent intentions when anyone points that out. No one is that naive.

I know what you're saying, but that's a road they can't go down. There are tons of funerals every day at Arlington, many of whom were AF heroes in some way shape or form. If the DC guard started doing flybys for all of them simply because they are nearby, that's all they would ever do.

I don't entirely agree with you. I fully agree on the training part. But what you are saying is that you'd rather have F-15Cs do a fighter sweep instead of F-22s because the Eagles are single mission and the F-22s are not. Ummm...hello McFly. F-35? It's going to be awesome. I read about it in a powerpoint brief. It's being talked about, believe it or not. So because we are not cutting our newest, most advanced airplanes you think that means we are going to start up a multi-billion dollar new acquisition program during unprecedented budgetary pressure? For a mission set we can do (on paper) with other airplanes? Sorry man, you are out to lunch in almost every regard here. First, it isn't posturing. It's just math. Second, you are on crack if you think we can produce a 5th gen anything in a decade. Third, battlespace interoperability? You're kidding right? You haven't the slightest idea what 5th gen actually means. I mean not even close. You must not be very old, because your view of history is pretty recently focused. Congress is the one cutting the money. And DoD has a little strategy called the "shift to the Pacific"...you may have heard of it. By the way, the Army is going to cut 130,000 active duty troops and cut brigade combat teams by 45%, so they understand the money crunch pretty well right now too. The Army gets to demand CAS. They do not get to demand CAS with an A-10.

$750k pays for less than 50 A-10 flying hours. That's roughly 2 days of home station flying for one squadron. We're going to have to "just find" a lot more than that.

One little problem with your theory...if we dont have the money, where are they going to come up with the money?

You're so uninformed I actually feel bad for you.

You asked a yes or no question. What the fuck do you want? No, it's not possible. This one is completely money related. There is no vast conspiracy to axe the A-10 in order to develop a 5th gen pure CAS platform. What exactly would be 5th gen about it, by the way? Stealthy? No real need for that. If we're doing down n'dirty CAS A-10 style, they pretty much know we're there without a radar, don't they? Advanced sensor fusion? Advanced handling? Advanced propulsion? The money crunch is real. Very very real. It is not some manufactured illusion to mask secret plans or a military-industrial complex conspiracy. Is that better?

No