BigFreddie

I remember a guy started a landscaping business (yards/grass in summer, snow removal in winter, etc.) and he did very well with it. The only issues started when he wouldn't fly because he needed to be home to manage the business. He was close to retirement then and I think he decided to drop his paperwork.

The news report on the radio this morning was literally two sentences so it is good to hear the crew is safe.

How do you like that Vortex scope? I've heard really good things about them. They also offer a 35% MSRP break to military members...

Unless something has changed in the last two weeks this is a false statement... Maybe a wishful statement but a false one... Full acceptance is mid-May 16. Please mark this response so we can all point and laugh when it rolls into the summer and then into 2017.

New "chicken coops" or double stacks were supposed to be opened in Oct. When they went to test the electricity and A/C units there was a bunch of smoke. Apparently the amperage was about 50% higher than required. The contractor wanted to just wire the A/C for off, low and medium and skip high but that offer was politely declined. New opening date is set sometime in Mar 2016.

Agree with above. First time I met him I was a sophomore at the Zoo and he was a senior major. He starts in with some of his flying history then tells me about the two Masters he had plus a Doctorate and the couple books he's written. We then end up talking for about an hour about hunting. I think once he retired he ended up on the US Forest Service's payroll helping with their aviation branch and safety. I never had him as an instructor but he was a speaker at an event I attended once - he is a very good speaker and did a great job conveying information to the audience in a very understandable manner. I would recommend him as a speaker at an aviation (or hunting) related event...

I remember a classmate who bragged to his IP in T-1s that he never got less than an E as an overall grade. Well his streak of Es ended right there! As a T-1 IP you always knew the top couple students and the bottom couple. The middle if the pack was always pretty normal. And if you spend a lot of time flying with the senior IPs that's a pretty good sign that you're a "special" student...

It was ok, nothing special. There are much better Vietnam helo books out there.

I was at ATA last week and the AMC/CC said one COA is to retire the entire KC-10 fleet starting in FY15 with the entire fleet being gone 3 years later. The cost savings come from "divesting" the entire fleet, not taking small pieces away. This is all coming from the AMC/CC who was a KC-10 guy in the true Gucci days. His explanation for why this was happening was the KC-46 - the money is needed for an uninterrupted roll out of the new hotness. He also said the C-130 fleet won't get new avionics and 50-60 of the old ones will be retired in favor of eventually getting more J models. He said there would be pain in the next 5 years but we would end up with a more capable fleet in the 5 to 7 year window. I'm a C-5 guy working at TACC and see the value of the KC-10. If you want to see the value look at Talisman Sabre from this summer. Also, as someone mentioned, this hasn't met the beast that is Congress and politics. I can't think of toe worse delegations to cross than the ones from CA and NJ. If the relatively young delegation for AK can make the AF stop moving a single squadron of F-16s from Eielson to Elmo, this battle will be really tough to win...

I've got one I plan on eventually getting cut down. I haven't seen one for sale in a long time. If you're really patient I'd wait for Arsenal to maybe release some more. Get on their weekly update list for product news.

Thanks for coming forward - big balls man! You got rolled by the system... Had Combat Camera not been on the aircraft you would have been heroes. Personally, I would have run the full checklist to see if it would have worked. I also flew an airplane with a flight engineer who would have beat me to death with a Maglite for not running it. I too had a Class A. Life pretty much sucks when you really have mere seconds to make a decision and those investigating can take months to determine what you did wrong. My incident resulted in neither a CDI or an AIB.

I understand HeloDudes comments. I also had several items in the NFA registry as well. I wanted to know if I needed a lawyer before they came knocking on my door. 5 minute conversation using all the best SERE techniques I knew and I never heard back from them. Personal choice and it worked out for me that time. All the other comments are spot on too.

Keep it for a long time - like brick said - and I think they can dispose of it if they give up their FFL. Shortish story about the defacto registration: Lived in Del Rio as an instructor for 3 years - ended up leaving in late 2008. While there I bought AKs and ARs plus an FN PS90. When I PCSd my FFL calls me and tells me the ATF inspected him as part of the "we're sending guns to Mexico" movement in the late-08 / early-09 timeframe. He said the ATF was going to every FFL on the border and looking through their bound books. His impression was the ATF was looking for those with multiple purchases of ARs, AKs, 5.7 chambered rifles, etc. I had bought a ton of AK kits so I bought matching receivers and I had started building ARs from parts - I must have had double digit purchase in his books. My multiple purchases flagged me and I ended up speaking with an ATF agent about it. They asked me if I still had the rifles and I still had the majority of them - I sold a few ARs to my buddies in the squadron to which they said I couldn't sell at a profit or I would be considered a dealer (WTF?). They wondered why I needed so many AK receivers - I told them I was a collector and they let it be. The funny thing is I also bought NFA items during this time so the ATF had ALL my info and knew exactly when and where I went. So... yeah, there is a defacto registration. There were a couple articles about how the ATF traces firearms in crimes recently. They start with the manufacturer, go to the distributor, then the shop or dealer it was sold to, then through the shop/dealer's log book to you. Then they ask you where the gun went.

Too bad they wouldn't hold the media to the same standards...

The Star of Africa: The Story of Hans Marseille, The Rogue Luftwaffe Ace Who Dominated the WWII Skies by Colin Heaton and Anne-Marie Lewis. Hans Marseille is probably what all pilots once aspired to be - drinking, whoring, flying machine! Who else could tell Mousolini he was an ignorant fool or play banned music for Hitler, Goering and Himler? He shot down an aircraft after his engine seized then deadsticked the aircraft back to his base. Over the course of 3 sorties in a single day he downed 17 Allied aircraft. He's a very interesting look at the Luftwaffe in WWII.