arg

Cool, showing the "Big Guy" around. I want to hear every word spoken by any American to that government. That includes past trips there by Pelosi etc. You know there were private meetings. I fully support helping Ukraine, spending money instead of our blood, but I want to know where every penny went. As a taxpayer I'm entitled to that info.

Which may or may not be signed

Back in the day it was E-7/O4 and above

We flew that mission many times in the old Talon sim at Hurbie. Shadow guys were using our sim while theirs was down for mods. Cline came through refresher and we offered him to fly his own crash. He did. 70% flaps and 85 knots at the end. He said it was just like real crash. Not many pilots get to fly their own crash.

What? https://redstate.com/bonchie/2023/02/12/pentagon-confirms-shot-down-objects-arent-balloons-makes-an-even-weirder-admission-n702817?utm_source=rsmorningbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=bfcab5f0c58b3691765086d28bfa5c1c

In the dirt

That's funny. During my retirement ceremony a Load said that he could remember when things seemed to be going a little sideways and then there would be this voice that you didn't hear very often that would bring calm to the situation. That voice was mine. I hadn't thought of that during my career as an FE but after thinking about what he said I thought it was kinda cool.

Peacetime story in the war thread. ORI at NAS Cecil, 95 I think. Four ship of Paves going up to VA to meet up with some of our Navy friends. They need fuel to get up there and back. Guess whos crew got that mission? We got airborne full of fuel and met them off the coast, gave them all the gas we could then climbed up to hit a tanker. Filled up then descended to give the Paves all the fuel the tanker just gave us. Climb again, hit the tanker, descend, give it to the Paves. Three times on the way up, hold till they were done, then three times on way back. I don't remember how many thousands of pounds of fuel we moved through the airplane but it was probably in excess of 175k. Them Paves could suck up some fuel. With one on each hose and ten pumps running it still took awhile to fill them up. Not as bad as the 47s though.

This popped up on my FB feed. Post 96 since the fulton whiskers are gone

My first memory of seeing them was when my Dad was at Misawa, I was in first grade, I remember it being loud and cool. They were flying the F-100 or maybe the 105. I would have to dig out the old 8mm film and projector to be sure. The next time I saw them was in Alaska when they were flying the F-4 1970ish. Big airshow, they had this giant new plane called the C-5 there. I checked out the C-130 ski birds that were stationed there. My girlfriends dad was an FE on those.

When MAC decided we were going to learn CRM in the early 80s we were taught by United Airlines instructors. We learned not just the Asians have that culture. To start off just the Pilots and FEs got the training. During the initial class my pilot, who was a great pilot and AC(you need to be both in a Herk), sarcastically asked "Does this mean I have to actually listen to what the FE says?" Of course the instructor didn't get the sarcasm. Bit of a learning curve for him about Herk crews.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11Xd6D7vLimF46DZ015idcuipQgGkQOLC/view

A preface to the story. My daughter was four years old. She had watched me pack my bags for for countless trips . I always came home. While packing my bags for DS she came to me with her favorite little teddy bear and put it in my helmet bag. She said "here daddy he will take care of you". I smiled and hugged her. Somehow she knew something was different. That little bear is still in my helmet bag and I've carried it to this day on sim training and observation flights. People ask why I don't get a new bag because this one is pretty ragged. I can't, the bear is still in there. Your kids know

Balloon funny

Seventeen years on gunships, first 3 1/2 as a gunner, never seen the naked gunner hug. On a man anyway. I have seen naked gunners in the showers at various locations, there were no hugs. The initial dedication of Spectre Island had a couple of pavelow dudes, they paid respects without nakedness. I retired in Y2K, what the hell happened after I left. Chugging beers from a prosthetic leg? Not sure I could do that. Drank Jim Mays moonshine from a skull that Wayne Fisk brought to a Spectre Reunion. He said it was a VC skull from Viet Nam.

Quoting you again. Watched a Gutfeld clip where he said something like, if the guy doing the talking didn't tell any lies he wouldn't get heckling from the crowd. Radical thought.

The chick on the far left is certainly an expert on big balloons. Would like to do balloon research with her.

After googling that I'm proud to say I didn't know what it was.

Ryder said it was a balloon

Bosnia, 18,000 feet in December in the whstling shithouse there were no naked people.

I agree. But I noticed MTG caused JB to walk back his statement on SS a couple of levels.

Dude, I told a couple of gunship stories in the 32 years ago thread. I'll update that in a couple of weeks.

He mentioned a familiar name at about 10:40