TreeA10

I've only had one RA. Base leg flying into Newark, we get an RA, I see nothing in front of me but follow the commands and start the jet climbing. A twin prop of some sort goes a couple hundred feet under the right wing. ATC sees nothing on their radar.

It is usually the threat that you don't see that kills you. Better to move the jet and land in one piece than blow off the RA, miss identify the threat, and try to land the many pieces resulting from the midair.

A marine once suggested the way to deal with Mogadishu was to build an 8 foot fence around the place and just throw khat (a form of amphetimine leaf popular with the locals) and weapons over the fence. His idea has merit.

I was a T-38 IP in the late 80s and the AF in it's infinite wisdom had screwed up the pilot forecast so nobody was being washed out of T-37s. These guys come to us having lost maybe 3 or 4 guys out of 30. Within a short period of time, we have students in big trouble in all categories, academically, military, and flying. The massive culling begins and we washed out half. It was ugly. I did have the class leader break down and start crying during the debrief of a formation ride. Not pretty. But it gets worse. My big kill for that class was the Class Leader. He earned that position due to the earlier departure of the previous class leader. I was the Flight Stan/Eval guy and a firm believer in "cooperate and graduate" and expected them to work together. So what happens? This guy takes a test, I grade it, he busts it, and I hand it back. This bust meant an automatic and potentially fatal ground eval for him. Shortly afterward, he comes to me saying I made an error in my grading. Interesting. I recalled that question quite clearly because it was easy and only one person, our hero, missed it plus I had gone over it twice because I knew the implications of him busting another test. I ask him if he changed the answer, he said no. I ask him to join me talking to the Flt CC and we repeat the process. A short meeting later with the Student Squadron CC and this guy is facing an Article 15 as a bonus to the whole getting thrown out of UPT. He ended up taking the Article 15 and I have no idea what happened to him later.

In the whole planning process of who might to what to who, a lot of people focus on intentions versus capabilities. Someone mentioned the 1930's and we thought Japan's intention's did not include at attack on the U.S but they certainly had the capability. We paid a big price for that bit of myopia. However, in China's case, their intentions are to reclaim Taiwan. Capabilities? They're working on it.

A few years back when I was stationed at Eielson, we had a Hawg land gear up after a gun malfunction. A slow burn round exploded in the gun bay and sent shrapnel through the bulkhead separating the gun bay from the nose gear wheel and caused the nose gear to be stuck in the UP position. The decision was made to land gear up and to also pull the Emergency Brake handle. This moves a valve that allows the brakes to work in the UP position. The landing was fairly uneventful with damage done to the lower tail caps, a couple of antennas, a saber drain, some TERs, and the main gear tires themselves due to the snubber. Rollout was about 3500 feet on centerline. A jet sitting on the runway with no gear and the engines running looked rather odd. The attitude of the jet sitting on the runway had the gun muzzle about 6 feet or better above the runway. The crash recovery guys were parked on the edge of the runway with a crane and had the jet up on the main gear in about 20 minutes and the jet was back in flying condition in a couple days.

I can't say I'm real involved in the F-35's at Eglin but I was down there last year to look at the Reserves getting involved in the test wing and the F-35 topic came up. Mulling it over some thoughts came up: Noise footprint. Again, not a decible expert but the thing is louder than the F-16. Luke already had land buffers that met requirements. Airspace. There may be some problems with our coalition partners sharing airspace with the F-22. Runway configuration. Not optimal for the sortie rates they are going to need. My guess is you will see the F-35 program start up at Eglin and then an additional RTU will be established at Luke.

This makes the drastic assumption that the Air Force gave a crap about CAS, as Hog drivers know it, before.

Airshow at McConnell, I got the "These things saved my ass in Nam." Must have been the same guy that wandered past Rainman. Same airshow, some yokel dad with his son comes wandering up. Dad is explaining the A-10 to his kid, points at the empty chaff/flare dispensers, and says, "This is where the jet exhuast comes out when the jet hovers." Tree