frog

10th MTN and 4th ID. You? And you completely missed the point. None of us are special. Failure for reading comprehension. Keep up the circle jerk though, it sounds like you are really enjoying it.

Thanks for illustrating why everyone gets the pay. You want a hard and fast rule, but you are already making exceptions to suit your tastes. Let's make the rule as exclusive as possible, but damnit, don't exclude me! And you are a warrior? I sure as hell hope you are a STO or something after throwing that spear. I'm sure there are a few true warriors on this board, but most of you guys who make the warrior argument are pretty lost. I'm no warrior, but I'm proud to have supported those that are.

GBock nailed it. I didn't want to quote his entire post. Owning gives you freedom. What is that worth to you? If you just want to bore holes in the sky one hour at a time, renting is the way to go. If you want to fly multi-day trips or fly that one beautiful weekend morning in January when the rental is booked, owning is for you. Just make sure you can afford the entire price tag up front.

I have a Cherokee 140 and I run about $12K per year flying 150 hours and BEFORE engine reserve. 100LL: 150 hours *8 gal/hr * 5.30$/hr = $6,360 Insurance: $600 /yr Hangar: $160/mo * 12 mo/yr = $1,920 Annual: $2K/yr Maintenance: $1K/yr Total: $11,880 Be advised that this is an average year, it can be more expensive...especially during the first few years that you have the airplane. You have to get all of the quircks fixed early, and you probably won't be ready to do oil changes, brake pads, etc by yourself yet. An RV-4 will have considerably less MX cost since it is experimental, but you will have to pay an A&P for the annual since you won't hold the repairman's cert for the aircraft. Engine overhaul is a valid cost that needs to be considered, but I don't throw it in my costs because it's already paid for. I set aside $20K the day after my last overhaul just in case. Obviously, hangar, insurance, and fuel costs vary widely based on location and experience. Two years ago I wasn't flying as much and was running about $8K/yr. Also, I fly 25 hr/yr or so TDY, so that is essentially free gas. Just my two cents: don't do it until you can really afford to fly as much as you want, have your overhaul money set aside as soon as you buy it, and try to hangar it whenever possible for peace of mind. Last, but not least, enjoy the type of flying that owning your own airplane can provide. It's a great feeling. The RV is a great airplane and I would have one if I didn't have a family of three. Edit: One other thought: make sure you get the avionics you want with your purchase or budget accordingly. Avionics in general aviation are pretty amazing, but they cost a not-so-small fortune. If you plan on flying IFR, WAAS is a pretty good gig.

Pitts already covered most of the points. Just to clarify a few things: 1. AAFES must fund new consturction and while they aren't explicity under normal MILCON rules, anything over $750K requires congressional notification. Guess where that is headed in the current budget climate. If they keep their funding under $750K, their approval authorities reside at a lower level (although they still sometimes require congressional notification after the fact.) As Pitts mentioned, with the higher prices of steel, $750K will buy you a nice garden shed that meets all building code when executed in compliance with federal contracting regulations. Now for the real gem...if the AF owns the building, the AF is responsible for paying for repairs/renovations out of O&M money. 2. If this is an AF owned facitiliy, repair money can be used for renovations if no additional footprint is constructed. Based on that, AAFES may choose not to spend their NAF funds on a new facility if they can pressure the AF enough to fund the renovation of the current facility...but you can't add to the square footage. See where this is going? All of this is driven by congress, so there is very little that the local CE or even wing have power over. But surely these inane rules don't apply to actual combat support, right? Wrong...you really can't go to war without breaking a host of construction laws. But I won't go into detail on that in a public forum.

I find it hilarious that you guys still don't realize that you are getting stabbed in the back by your own community. About half of your "bros" that talk a good game right now are going to promote and then use their new found power to impose "shoe" rules on you. You guys keep referencing this aircrew versus the world situation...but in reality you are eating your own. In the CE world, our SNCOs always greet these new policies with a "I guess now they expect us to enforce this bullshit, too" attitude. I expect that is true in the MX world and about half of the support world. The reality is that everybody in the Air Force works for a pilot. It is in your hands to change it. Stop bitching and do something about it. Please, for the rest of us that will never have any real power. If some pilot O-9 out there put his foot down on uniform regs, they would change. If some O-6 flyer said that the "Home of the Fighter Pilot" sign at Nellis will stay up, it will stay up. Trust me. I'll take all of the negative ratings as a reflection of how close to home this hits.

From the token CE guy: -That's pretty funny shit. That dude is lucky that the punishment stopped the way it did. -Conserving water within reason is no joke...a couple of years ago there was no water for two weeks at Balad because the channel ran dry. -Sometimes, when you get off a convoy or out of the jet, it takes a few extra minutes to get clean. Who gives a shit if it takes an extra couple gallons of water?

Smaller versions of these things are going up all over theater. As usual, Air Force leadership has no long term vision and has completely ignored this program. Flying jets is more fun, got it, but I really wish they would understand that protecting the jet mission means doing less glamorous stuff like UAS and blimps also. The Army found a way to provide continous ISR coverage from the air without us...way to go blue.

So let me get this right: 1. Some Indian contractor made a menu with a Chinese jet on it. 2. Flyers get panties in a wad. Call out non-rated for not knowing airframes. 3. Airframe discussion ensues. Turns out flyers don't know each others airframe. 4. Conclusion: Non-rated suck. BMT needs to be revamped. The sky is falling. Nice.

Keep the faith! I just got an email with the base policies for my next deployment. - No relective belts (not optional, they are completely banned) - No saluting - Shower shoes to latrines is okay You guys just need to get a step or two further down range. Drink a beer for me though!

4fans- CE guy here...never been deployed to the Deid but I've passed through there a few times. All my time has been a little further down range, but some of the same lessons might apply. First off, if all of the lodging is through FSS and they run a KBR MX contract...you're screwed. If CE does the MX in the living compound, read on. Believe it or not, CE usually isn't sitting on their ass if the job is taking forever...they usually don't have the parts for stuff like AC. The options are usually to buy shitty knock offs on the local economy that break in a week or order it through the supply system and it takes 3 months to get it. We found out that sometimes we had a hookup with the mobility guys...a home station CE could buy the part, hand it to a load going downrange via milair, and tell him to make sure it got to Capt XYZ at Balad because his bros were melting in their building. We had about the same success rate as the supply system except that it usually took 2 weeks instead of 3 months. My bet is that KBR is doing your living compound MX and you're hosed, but you never know. Grab the next CE guy you see and ask who the ops officer is. Give him a ring and see what the deal is...you never know what kind of hook up you can get if you ask the question.

Good point, didn't think of it that way

Yep, it's just like a 7 month deployment. Except that you get to go home every two months, go to the kids t-ball game, kick back some beer, and bang the wife. Wait a second, that sounds like a pretty good deal! Bitching about 60 day deployments to the Deid...wow. I don't understand the endless pissing match about deployment length...just do what is asked of you. It's okay if you don't deploy as much as somebody else. I'm sure some poor cop A1C out there spends more time in much more austere conditions than any of us.

[ CE guy here, just want to let you know where I'm coming from. That's a pretty typical misconception. You've seen the CE guy fix your HVAC, the finance guy jack up your voucher, and the comm guy reconfigure your email account. What you HAVEN'T seen is the CE guy fixing the airfield lighting or runway spalls, the finance guy moving money to fund flying ops, and the comm guy fixing the TACAN. These are what the support squadrons are actually there for, but you aren't a part of it and don't see it happening. This stuff happens everyday and you don't hear about it because it is done right the first time. And yes, I have seen the mission stop due to runway damage. Runway repair coordination with the Balad SOF was the best ops/support relationship I've ever seen. Our guys busted their ass to fix the runway to meet sortie times and the ops guys really took care of them. Back to reflective belts, we really need to stop calling each other out from an AFSC perspective. There are mission hackers and non-hackers in every career field. We need to unite the misson hackers and do away with the idiocy.

Summary... The AF donated/loaned a Twin Mustang to CAF in 1968. They changed their donation regulations in 1970 and now want the plane back. CAF flew it until the mid-80s when it was damaged, but they have almost returned it to flying status. The AF is now demanding that it be returned to the AF museum, which already has a Twin Mustang. Their primary reason is that they don't want it flying...seriously, would you rather see this thing at a museum or flying at an airshow? CAF Twin Mustang