Vito

My son is a CFI, has all the required quals to enter into this program, and he's currently flying as an F/O in a regional jet. After spending the last 5 years following his progress I can tell you that there is a clear difference in the way civilians are trained versus the Military. I witness the differences every year at my airline job when it's checkride time. The difference is, civilian training is low threat, train to proficiency. Unless your a real flight safety threat, they will give a student many chances to pass a phase, or checkride. If you screw up your V-1 cut, "let's try that again, and this time remember to step on the correct rudder". Each year at my airline, I am 110% prepared for my checkride, I have all the gouge, intel, and scenarios. Yet every year I'll run into a civilian guy and I'll offer my gouge, and his response is, "I don't want to know what's on the checkride, I rather see how I'd do without ithe intel" My reaction is always, "What alternate universe did you grow up in!" Many of them were trained to proficiency, so check rides are considered a non-threat event. This breeds a more lax, less prepared, less aware , mindset in my opinion. If this program succeeds the civvy pilots that succeed will have to be very good, highly prepared, and the type who goes above and beyond what's normally expected. It myay be an eye opener for many of them when they find out you don't get 4 or 5 strikes before you strike out.

Back during Desert Storm, MARS radio was 24/7 entertainment. You'd have 15 guys waiting to make a phone patch to call home and there was always some doofus who would have a 20 minute conversation with his wife , not realizing everybody was listening in as well. I used MARS all the time, even in the C-17. My kids loved hearing from me and the guys who handle the morale calls are great!

Quick question, and please refrain from the " Jersey jokes". I notice that over the past few years there are very few McGuire C-17 assignments dropped. I know other bases have more airframes, but I'm just curious why.

Azimuth, I'm just curious, what was the issue that caused the FEB in your post...you can be General, but I'm curious how bad an event needs to be to warrant the FEB. My only exposure to a FEB was a 130 dude who could not transition to the C-17. He was asked nicely to take a non-flying job or risk an FEB..he chose the non-flying job. Some of my airline buds who knew him at his old C-130 unit said he sucked at flying the Herc as well.

Back in the day, 1987. We had no idea what the drops were. We did have a strange scenario that affected my class. We graduated in March of 87. During the summer of 86, there were a few F-16 mishaps resulting in a temporary halt of F-16 assignments to new UPT grads unless they were the #1 graduate. Our Class Advisor told us, essentially, that if you were FAR'ed (fighter qual'ed) you'd probably become a FAIP since fighter assignments would be rare for our class. He wasn't kidding..started UPT with 52 studs, graduated 24, 2 fighters, an F-4 and an A-10, zero Vipers Top 3 guys in the class got an A-10, a 135 and a C-130..strange times.

Sad thing is last week in two separate videotaped discussions, 2 CNN producers and Van Jones were both taped basically admitting that the whole Russia collusion conspiracy was BS, and they were only pursuing it for ratings. Also they retracted two stories alleging Trump associates were colluding with Russia (Anthony Scaramucci). Yet they get upset over attacks against them?

"If You Ain't a Pilot" by Ray Wright. Hands down the BEST book written about UPT. Hilarious, witty and every Air Force Pilot can relate.

Was in San Diego once for Comic-con, the women , not models, were pretty scary there too.

I left law school after my first year and joined the AF to fly. Never, never regretted that decision once. Saw things, and did things that 99.8% of people will never do. You will forever regret NOT attempting to follow your dream..you'll always regret not trying.

I'm sure as soon as that hornet pilot trapped he was whisked away to debrief and media quarantine! No high fives and parties topside.

I remember hearing about how tricky the 38 was to land. One day I parked my car near the runway and noticed that it came in nose high and if you didn't do anything you'd hit hard but no flare was really needed to change the deck angle. On my first landing all I did was take it down to about ten feet, slowly pull power and flare slightly...easy.

As an airline guy, how do you plan on keeping AR pilots current? In the AF I had to get a plug every calendar month...in the Airlines, especially for long-haul widebody flights, it's difficult for pilots to get landing currency. Also, seniority rules in the Airlines, so your young hot shot sticks won't be refueling, it'll be the old fat guys, who may may have the seniority but not the skills....the whole idea is untennable for a passenger airline...maybe cargo, but as a UPS pilot, you'd have to pay me a big premium for any AR mission!$$$$$$$$$$$

Thx TreeA10, what flights were you an IP in? I was 87-04 Orion, Dowdle was the Flight Commander

That Snuff Puppet video is twisted, like Burning Man meets You Porn meets Sesame Street back to the T-38, I do remember a bunch of Columbus IP's got into trouble for landing on super-highway under construction in the 1980's. Rumor had it that they turned off their transponders and did touch and goes on the highway. They even made a patch for the "Club". Anyone else hear this story?

Need pics of this girl to give you a proper response

Guineapigfury, whether they were valid or not the Press portrayed Reagan as a dolt! They still regard him as more lucky than good...

The Left, and media said the same things about Ronald Reagan when he became President. They called him a dumb actor who had no experience. What they didn't realize, was Like Trump, Reagan was a leader....

"Are You A drug addict" I agree, I got to fly a T-45 sim two years ago and was not impressed.

What do you guys think?

1339 hours! I got that much time during Desert Shiel/Storm in about 10 months!

And our Commander-in-Chief is spearheading the vital issue of Transgender bathrooms!

This, and it can only fly during sunset near a thunderstorm, when the sky is turning that beautiful shade of orange, Crimson, and purple with lightning bolts in the background!,. Cue up some AC/DC and nobody can beat us!

Sad to read about delays and other issues with the KC-46. I retired after 28 years in the AF in 2014. This program was suppossed to have a 767 based tanker flying in 2007!. I hoped to accomplish an Air refueling with one before I retired and it's pathetic that The AF and Boeing has screwed up this program since the early 2000's.

Bought a house with a buddy back in 1989. We rented the extra bedroom to one of my Squadron bro's and everything was awesome for about 3 weeks. My Bud gets a job transfer to another State, no prob, I rent his room to another squadron bro. Then the first renter gets a PCS, and it takes me months to find another dude. I get married and mov a year or so later, then the Air Force decides to change their PCS policy and tells all pilots at my base that if they've been there more than 3 years they need to PCS. The house was empty for months while I tried to find renters, pay my own mortgage, fix stuff that broke, all the time listening to my whiny bud complain about how much it's costing him, even though he lived in another state and didn't do anything. Almost bankrupted me at a tough time in my AF and airline career. Like others have said, what could go wrong? BTW the house cost me $139,000 sold it for $ 110,000 6 years later I couldn't fathom buying something worth $1,000,000

The only question that should be answered by the leadership is; Does this action /policy strengthen or weaken our armed forces.? The answer is obvious and this liberal, feel good idea should have never been entertained much less implemented.