Danger41

@BashiChuniis just upset that the loss of this B-1 will free up some serious cash to fight his Russian pals.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/crashed-b-1b-bomber-seen-in-satellite-image That's pretty interesting.

I'm sure I will regret weighing in on this, but do you seriously believe this? Like actually think people "punish women for existing" and hate them? Based on the stance on abortion, they hate women?

You gotta be an MC dude…

I think it’s only a matter of time when players will opt out of games during the season, as well. Looking at FSU’s schedule ( not a SOS discussion) but why wouldn’t those same players opt out of easy wins like North Alabama, Wake Forest, Syracuse, etc? They could get hurt in those games too. Also, I’ll bet within the next 5 years we’ll see kids going straight to NFL via some new league until they are done with the 3 year moratorium and never even play college.

I’ve always hated the weaponized Q3 thing but the one I really don’t get is the Q3/Q1 or whatever it’s called. I’d never heard of it until I went to AIS and a bunch of AMC guys had horror stories of busting a level off by 100’ and immediately correcting or other minor things and getting Q-3 then immediately Q1 with no further action. Total lunacy.

That’s how I remembered it as well. He then said something how everyone needs a Q3 for some reason since he’d given out dozens.

I didn’t say anything about intelligence. I don’t doubt USAFA grads rank high on that. Having said that, I accomplished commissioning 16x faster than you at OTS so as a vastly superior intelligence, you should listen to me*. I agree with everything you said about independence and experience. In that case, why the hell isn’t an Academy grad getting that prior to showing up? They should absolutely smoke UPT in all aspects because (as a tax payer) I want Academy graduates to be BAMF at their jobs. Pilot candidates should show up with a bunch of time in T-6’s or something else to advance them through UPT quicker**. I could care less about their ability to do advanced engineering math (systems engineering anyone?) I say this as a DO in AFMC that’s full of Test Pilots who do all this math as part of the course and then never do it again because we evolved past the slide rule. And the Academy absolutely sets the standard for commissioning sources. If it didn’t, shutter the place yesterday. Regarding @FourFanscomment about prior E’s, I agree in theory but reality is very different (and I’m the son of a prior E pilot). In my career, the drastic poles of Officer quality were with the prior E’s. Fantastic or giant turds and everything in between. Off the top of my nugget, I can think of 6 O’s doing UCMJ and criminal type offenses and 3 were prior E, 1 Academy, and 2 were from classic military ROTC schools (VMI and VT). I don’t think that means anything big picture, just interesting. Maybe it proves that my 16x accelerated course didn’t spend enough time on not being a criminal turd. I got pretty good at flicker ball though. *I applied to and got appointments to all 3 service academies and was really wrestling between being a pilot, SEAL, or SF officer (I even took 4 years of French to prepare). I ended up going to my state college to play football and OTS but I’d be lying if I hadn’t thought “what if” about going to an academy. If that doesn’t prove that I was a dipshit 18 year old, I don’t know what does. **The obsession with fairness and whatever at UPT is super gay. I don’t care at all about fairness in UPT assignments. If USAFA grads get tons of extra training by getting into USAFA, good on them. I only got picked up for OTS because I was a CFII so UPT went well for me. That wasn’t fair for most of my classmates that didn’t have much experience. With how much money gets poured into a cadet at USAFA, for them to show up and find out they don’t have hands is a serious waste of money.

I’m a fan of the Academies and think they should exist as a means to produce the top caliber of Officer for our military branches. What I see coming out of USAFA is a bunch of cynical weirdos that seem to have gotten an accelerated education on bitching about everything, knowing the levers to pull for career advancement, and (in a sad amount of grads) a lack of warrior spirit that I can only assume isn’t inculcated at the Zoo*. That last point is my main gripe with USAFA. Not to discount the academic rigor and the outputs of that such as the AC-130 gun fairings mentioned above, but IDGAF about that. I want Officers with a warrior mentality produced there, not big brain nerds. If you can make both, perfect. Some folks can do both. However, the masses can’t and if you have to favor one over the other, pick the warrior side. *This doesn’t apply to all grads. Some of the best I’ve seen are Academy grads.

The one that really seems weird to me is the Cannon OG. Scuttlebutt was that was a lot of processes not being followed, poor admin for flying ops (DNIF flyers, etc), and things of that nature. Not personal conduct. If that’s true, that should really be a case study at PME of how that happens.

IMO that game was more of an indictment of their fanbase for running Kyle McCord out of town and probably robbing their future as well by putting Lincoln Kienholz in an impossible situation. Now the true freshman goes out and lays an egg in his first start and everyone now calls for him to get benched and get a replacement via the portal. Same vicious cycle will continue and hollow out a blue blood program.

Thanks for the inspiration to type that into YouTube. Amazing trip down Memory Lane!

That’s a tough development. Sorry to hear that. Whatever you end up doing, know that the Air Force needs studs at every AFSC. You can make a giant difference in mission and morale by your competence and leadership in support roles. Quick story…WW2 kicks off and my grandpa, his cousins, and brother all left their town of Lakeside, SD (population N/A because it was just an incorporated farming community) to sign up. My grandpa only had a 9th grade education and wouldn’t be accepted by any service but the Merchant Marines as a baker. He was very disappointed but did his best. Fast forward to 1944 off the Philippines when Typhoon Cobra hit (3 destroyers sank, over 700 killed). From his rodeo background, he was one of the only guys that wasn’t violently ill and ended up relaying the orders to help control the ship and save the crew. He was also the POC from the ship to Admiral Halsey and was personally cited for heroism and exceptional performance by Halsey after the typhoon. The whole point of this story is that I don’t know if there can be much more disappointment after Pearl Harbor than being told you’re too dumb to do anything in the military and can only bake bread for the Merchant Marines. However, you never know when your number will be called. Even if that had never happened, baking bread and providing good food for men is a worthwhile and important role that you should be proud of. Whatever you end up doing, it is also a worthwhile role and an honorable profession that deserves your best effort.

It’s not even the way of the future as much as it’s the way of the now in all aspects of life. As everything has become more networked, it gives access to so many things that we wouldn’t have had access to before and is one of those inflection point type things they mentioned in PME. It can do everything from ISR to SEAD/OCA (why send the gorilla package to clear the lane when you just turn off the fuel pumps at the base?) to nearly every other core function of the military. If you have a chance, look at the SOCOM budget allocation for cyber compared to airborne ISR compared to 10 years ago. Our cyber enterprise has a hell of a retention problem similar to pilots because of what you can make on the outside, especially with a clearance.

If you decide to not go the CSO route, give a serious look into Cyber Ops. Hugely impactful career field and will set you up very well for post-AF career.

We would have a bunch of IFS graduates who think they should be flying Raptors go into the portal and left handing out towels. Much like the current transfer portal.

Recruiting is such a strange thing in modern college football. It's always been overrated, but now with transfer portal and everything else, it's insane how if you bring in a #1 class, you now just lost your previous #1 class to the portal. Such a weird phenomenon.

Sorry to hear that. Lots of good advice here. Look up Lewis “Chesty” Puller, Tom Norris, or Chuck DeBellevue if you want some examples of military officers that did okay after not making it through their services pilot training.

Not sure if it's "standard", but I met a guy that went to the Raptor from the EA-18.

At least in the U-28, the fleet was shared between at home units and deployed sites so squadrons never really owned iron in a traditional sense (to include FTU/OT/DT/WIC…all shared). I may have old data but they were actually assigning aircraft more traditionally and the 75 made sense. That probably also assumes GWOT commitment levels so may be a logical fallacy given current time.

What isn’t addressed in that article but I’m convinced is really happening is that other entities with SOCOM didn’t do their due diligence when initial requirements went out, didn’t like the requirements that were set (bell had already been rung), went to the hill and all their fanboys in congress to get their way, and here we are. This program is not a U-28 replacement and they don’t want to lose that capability and gain what OA-1K offers. BL - SOCOM money avalanche from GWOT is done and now the knives are coming out.

Schedule was about done when it was revealed the ADO was non-current.

California and Texas alliance? That’s one hell of a fantastical leap! Probably a smart plot device actually to not make it an easy red vs blue thing.

So first thing I’ll say is great on you for being honest with yourself that alot of your problems seem to stem from poor preparation and/or study habits. More on that later… For the near rocks of getting through this ride, it should be the relatively simple pre-solo stuff that requires very little improvisation and athleticism to fly well. Everything you do should be under the “control and performance” concept where you set a known pitch and power setting and get a known result. If you’re not getting exactly what you’d expect from that setting, then make small corrections from that instead of just guessing the correction. This definitely applies in the pattern and will help control any wild deviations. Whenever you pull closed, pull the same amount nose up, the same bank angle, the same pull to displace you appropriately every time. When you get to that known spot, you make adjustments based on wind for when/where to perch etc. Also, by doing that very rote maneuvering, it will gain you a few seconds of SA to actually assess and get you caught back up to the airplane. A trick I learned back in the day from the F-15 community was “left hand, right hand, sight picture, feel”. It applies to everything and I personally like it because it breaks things down very cleanly and will set you up for success. Try drawing out the pattern or wherever you feel jammed up and apply that mnemonic. Even your GPS thing, look back at that scenario and think what you could’ve done with left hand (power setting), right hand (probably bank back towards the center of the MOA), sight picture (level turn away from a border now eyes go to GPS to push buttons in a sequence), fee (1G unacclerated turn). Once you’re done setting up, what’s next on your lineup card? Same deal to set up for TP stalls or whatever. Lots of words there but the last thing I’ll tell you is that worrying about all your sacrifice and hard work won’t do shit to help you on this ride. “Fighting in the air is not a sport. It is scientific murder” said Eddie Rickenbacker. The airplane couldn’t care less about your personal life. Compartmentalization is massive in this business and learn to leave all that behind you and focus on your left hand, right hand, sight picture, feel. Good luck!

On the transfer thing…I see a bunch of these guys entering the transfer portal and only having practice tape available. Dude…unless you plan to move down significantly in caliber of play, maybe just stay where you’re at. That’s symptomatic of the new recruiting landscape as well where all these kids get told they’re the greatest thing since sliced bread but forget that every swinging dick on the roster from the previous 4 years was told the same thing and has that much more development.