TreeA10

Another War is Boring article. The thoughts "Never say never" and "Those that fail to study history are doomed to repeat it" keep cropping up. https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2015/07/06/usaf_promised_the_f-4_and_f-35_would_never_dogfight_108180.html

Spoiler Alert: the Gatling gun doesn't work. Something to do with a mil error in the helmet mounted sight. But they did solve the overheat problem by not using too many computers.

The Wright Brothers by David McCollough. You've probably heard of them. Great read.

I thought it that was caused by rape songs.

It's not like we are going to relying on this jet for decades plus future adversaries will never develope their own stealth technologies. 10 or 15 years from now, our pilots will never be forced to enter a visual fight. I see no problem with it.

Entitlements will consume 75% of incoming dollars here by 2031, 100% by 2051. Greece might be a glimpse into the future for us.

Very nice!

Just added my CSEL last year. Background is A-10/T-38 IP/EP and ATP with numerous large aircraft type ratings. No single engine time meant I had to do the checkride. I ended up flying 4-5 hours with an instructor in a 172 prior to the check which I flew with a DPE who happened to be a First Officer with AA. We did normal, short field, soft field takeoffs and landings, chandelle, 8's around a pylon, stalls, and a power off 180 to a landing. I'd rate my least graceful event was landing. Finding that flare picture with my butt just a couple feet off the ground after decades of 10 feet or better took a few attempts before I found something reasonable.

Nueroscience brain mapping studies are showing that young time intensive gamers are changing up how their brains function causing depression and social interaction problems. This dude might make a good case study.

A-10s didn't work a lot with AWACs and we were routinely left out of the big picture, getting very little warning regarding threats. So, I would send my wingman over to the frequency being used by blue air to give us a better picture. Sending him to the red air freq was even better.

Like I needed more reasons to not like Airbus. I starting to think CTRL/ALT/DEL should be the first step in any BOLDFACE for an Airbus.

Every situation is different. I've seen leaders step up to help their people and I've seen managers ignore the issue and not make a decision. Planning ahead as much as possible to cover problems while you are TDY helps. Day to day, this also applies to coordinating with supervisors/leadership and letting them know of your situation. Approach them with solutions or suggestions to solve your problem. Do not start the conversation by asking them to solve your problem. Finally, and this is the really hard part, if whatever is going on in your life is going to prevent, distract, or impair your ability to safely execute your job and may result in injury or death to you or others, make the very difficult decision to not strap into the jet, turn the wrench, etc.

So you look down upon those of faith, particularly those in the southern states......well, bless your heart.

This also applies to the world of commercial aviation. I've flown with a lot of civilian guys that have said "I would have flown in the AF/Navy/etc but didn't get selected because of eyes/ears/drawdown/got cheated/etc." Some don't hold a grudge, some don't like military guys. I had one civilian guy say he didn't like fighter guys in particular because of the outsized ego. So I guess it is safe to say you are going to find disgruntled pilots across the board from a variety of backgrounds.

When I attended SOS many years ago, I had been a classroom instructor and Emceed graduation ceremonies. I wasn't nervous speaking. However, I had to present a prepared briefing prepared by someone else. It was horribly written but we had to give it as is with no changes. So, it sucks no matter what you do. Our section leader critiques my performance and says I need to do better. My response to his comments was "FedEx couldn't deliver this speech." Idiot.

Instead of EKIA, you could rewrite that into the current PC language of the day. "Improved the lives of women and same sex couples by providing kinetic education with a 100% guaranteed non-recidivism rate."

I'm not sure how this fits in perfecting our skills of killing people and breaking their stuff or intimidates those who we might want to modify their behavior. How absolutely ridiculous.

As an example, on the 737-800, we start the GPS and then the FMS system asks for starting coordinates. After imputing those coordinates, the next page has a REQUEST prompt, press the button for that line and the FMS will, via ACARS, go get your flight plan, winds, weight/balance/cruise info, and finally Takeoff data. All you have to do is press the LOAD key and the EXECUTE as each piece of data is brought in. I guess someone could mess with that data but we verify all of that against paperwork after we load the computer. Once airborne, the only data that might be requested and input into the FMS is WINDS updates if you end up at a cruising altitude different than planned.

How does the networking profiles with larger formations work regarding training? A simple thumbs up or down will suffice. The F-35 sim was pretty frigging impressive but I never got to see multiple sims working together. The LM guys put together a sim profile of an F-35 doing CAS for me but their version of CAS and my version of CAS weren't exactly in the same ballpark.

300+ seems about right. I ended up with 1200 in the T-38 in a little over 3 years and 2900 in the Hawg in 15 with only 6 years active, 2 years full time Reserve and the rest part time. Working F-35 issues for the Reserves before I retired, I was astounded by the number of sims required. Sitting in a briefing at Hill, some dudes are briefing their plan and saying the sims will run from 9-5. Some of my Reserve buddies and I start cranking numbers...#sims*#pilots*#sims*hours required per sim and figure that they'll need to run from 5am to midnight assuming 100% sim status. That was a few years back that's old data.

Apparently the problem is due to the Bible, the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence. https://dailycaller.com/2015/04/13/defense-department-the-bible-constitution-and-declaration-of-independence-all-perpetuate-sexism/

Slow rate apparently created vibration that cracked bulkheads.

Geez, sounds like a blast from the past, circa 1987-ish. FAR guys did 4 ship tactical formation work and TTB guys did more low level and navigation work in the 38. That was a change from everybody flying the same syllabus after a mid-air at Columbus killed 3 during a 4-ship rejoin from a tac formation.

General Holmes: [...] The A-10 is always going to be cheaper to operate than an F-35 will be, and I would stipulate that. The question is that in the environments of the future, can it get there. And so what we are trying to do is make sure that we have a way to support soldiers in the future as well that may be operating in a place where there are sophisticated surface-to-air defenses. We estimated that the loss rate of the A-10 in the Fulda Gap scenarios back in the 1970’s was really, really high. They were not going to last through the conflict and they were going to take a really high attrition rate. And if you looked at the places that they employed in the first Iraq War, if they got up into a sophisticated ground threat, they took a pretty good beating. It is a tough airplane and they were able to fly a lot of those home with the damage they took, but they could not fly them again. And so they could not support ground troops the next day because of the damage that they took. Yes, not flying home is a better indication of combat capability. Hard to argue with that twisted logic. An engine wrapped in a fuel tank protected by thin aluminum or composite is much more survivable.

If someone ever has to jettison their jet and walk home, I'm pretty sure they want a Hawgdriver or another entity who understands the difference between CSAR, FAC-A, and CAS vs proving gravity works by throwing high explosives at the ground.