gearhog
Supreme User-
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Everything posted by gearhog
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Wow. Brutal....
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20 yr Retirement and Reserve Retirement
gearhog replied to HeyEng's topic in Air National Guard / Air Force Reserves
Reserve select was around $220 for me, the retired reserve is almost $1100 with higher copays. It’s insane! I’d wager almost any airline plan is more reasonable. Here’s a good tool too compare tricare plans: https://tricare.mil/Costs/HealthPlanCosts/TRR -
#4 was reported to have mag problems. #3 as well as #4 were feathered. Fuel was not suspect. The implication being an engine may have been inadvertently shut down, but there is no way to know for sure.
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Yes, it does. Very sad.
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Saddle up for Syria? Or Op Deny Christmas '13
gearhog replied to brickhistory's topic in General Discussion
Exactly. You've paid more than your fair share of the bill and I've paid mine, as well as most of the people on this forum. When I read "we" should be staying continuously engaged in Syria, it seems "you" is implied. Some people are tired of being threatened with the worst possible outcome being realized if we suddenly end our 18+ year subscription to the Middle East Clusterf^&* Vacation Club. There's war when we're present, there will be war when we're absent. If Russia and Turkey want to wear that anchor around their neck for a change, good. -
Saddle up for Syria? Or Op Deny Christmas '13
gearhog replied to brickhistory's topic in General Discussion
He seems like a reasonable guy concerned about the welfare of people and families. Perhaps he could start building the refugee camp for the 3.5 million Syrian refugees Turkey is about to move back into Syria. -
There was an article on Drudge yesterday (not seeing it today) interviewing one of the ship based radar dudes involved in this incident and others. He says after upgrading the ships' radars with a new technology/capability, they're seeing these things often. 80K feet down to the surface in a matter of seconds and back up. At first, they thought it was a glitch in the new tech, but what they're seeing on radar is corroborated by pilots.
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Yeah, I know... (eyeroll). I don't believe, I don't not believe, I've never seen anything. I just don't know and don't spend much time thinking about it. However, I watched the latest JRE podcast this morning and I had never heard of this guy. If I want to hear a UFO story, I want to hear it from a pilot. Cmdr. David Fravor tells an amazing one. EDIT: This is just the first part of the podcast. The full podcast is pretty good if you have almost 2 hours.
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Need to watch the trial to see if he blinks Morse Code for "G-U-I-L-T-Y".
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Genius. Free steak dinners would certainly improve morale and productivity.
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Another tanker seized. We're clearly being provoked. My guess is they're hoping to trigger a political/economic crisis in the West and are willing to risk conflict to achieve it. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1178571/iran-news-iran-oil-tanker-Strait-of-Hormuz-gulf-saudi-arabia-uk-us
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That is a wild guess, and wildly inaccurate. As I've said, I've been visiting Prestwick Aviation for 17 years and those folks are on the up and up. Contract fuel prices are set. Lodging and perdiem rates are set. The Turnberry was only offered when it was the only accommodation available. Do you know of an alternative airport that meets all the requirements of transiting military aircraft, crew, and pax with fuel prices 50 cents less? I challenge you to find it. There's quite a bit more to RON planning than the price of fuel. If you've ever been deployed and are looking to save $25K of taxpayer money in Scotland, you're looking in the wrong place. If an FBO/hotel provides a great experience while conducting business within the government rules and government rates, how is that a hustle? That's just good business. This is no Fat Leonard, just another instance of politicians throwing shit against the White House walls hoping something sticks.
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Not hating, I know you're just doing you're supposed to. I'm just fatigued with leadership's fascination with and addiction to electronic data collection, be it ORM, MICT, GTIMS, PEX, ASIMS, surveys, etc, etc, etc. All so they can walk over to HQ and present it to more senior leadership in hopes of an "Attaboy!" from people who pretend to be interested in it for 30 sec during a staff meeting. Let's face facts, none of this changes anything for the flyers. We've never cancelled for an ORM score at step time, we're just told to be "extra safe."
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Trigger Warning: Unpopular old-guy opinion ahead. 😁 Our ORM sheet is the last remaining untechnologified step in the administrivia process before we head out the door to the aircraft. 5 people can pick up a pencil and scribble a completely subjective number in about 30 seconds without requiring 5 individual logins with certificate-less CACs, computers attempting to connect, and a slow, if not stopped, network. Please don't take that from us.
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I stayed at the Turnberry last year. I've been stopping in Prestwick to/from deployments since 2002. We just tell the FBO when and how many people, and they make the arrangements. Last year we arrived right after a snow/ice storm that shut most of the major freeways for days. All of the hotels in Ayre (our usual location) and Glasgow were booked. The Turnberry, an hour drive away, had enthusiastically agreed to give us the government rate. The hotel itself was absolutely incredible and the staff thanked us profusely for our service. The bartender let us sample some of the local Scotch whiskeys. It was too cold for golf, but we toured the course which was an old WWII pilot training base, and some of the old runways/taxiways still exist on the course. The hotel called in a bagpiper to play us out the door as we departed for the sandbox at 5am. It was one of the best deployment sendoffs ever. There was nothing to it other than it was the only place with rooms available at the government rate, and the FBO was proud to have found a place that they thought we would enjoy. The media and politicians are idiots.
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LOL. I knew that would get a response. The less inflammatory thought I opted not to post was that the cognitive processes required to visualize whatever you're trying to study yield better overall results than if the visuals are instead simulated for you, in front of you. I think the VR stuff is a great addition to training, but it seems a few might believe it is meant as a substitute, a la downloading Kung Fu directly to your brain via the matrix. Maybe entire training programs should not be built around it, but who cares, technology is neat-O.
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Some are always looking for a way to shortcut the process. It takes far more effort, discipline, focus, and time to put yourself through the visual learning process inside your mind than it does to rely on the visuals generated by a piece of technology in front of your face.
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It seems like everyone is colluding with the Russians these days.
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Make America Great (Britain) again? No thanks, looks like chaos to me.
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What exactly is it you're defending? Because you're doing a way better job criticizing PTN than anyone else.
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Let the record show W. SHANE COHEN, Colonel, USAF539 Military Judge ...is a badass.
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Back in my day, IPs used to give test answers to the hot female students to claim a kill.
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Damn. Google says it’s a 1957ish model. It’s had a good run.