HU&W

https://www.newsweek.com/quora-question-what-it-become-air-force-pilot-537415 Favorite part of the article: The Talon is the most beloved plane of all time (IMHO) and you’ll almost wet yourself the first time you take off in one and realize that all this money, this whole base, all this stuff, was to get you up and flying in one of these. (...) So, I’d dive down and turn off my transponder, clearing like crazy for other traffic. Then I’d bust through the bottom, down to about 10,000 feet, slam the throttles into full burner as I pulled it vertical and then started rolling, vertically. The Earth spun wildly about me. I was a solo Thunderbird! Passing 40,000 feet, I’d let it arc over the top, rounding out at 50,000 where the sky had turned a dark purple. Then I’d pull it down and turn on the transponder at about 40,000, knowing that center wouldn’t pick it up until I was back below 35,000.

I couldn't say better than everything CH has said above. I will add, however, that sensor fusion and background automation/integration are extremely expensive. In fact, all those little assists can add up to the tens of millions, negating the purpose of a low cost solution. Single seat may reign supreme in a fast-paced duel where agility and laser focused SA are king, but in the dirty light CAS/counterinsurgency slugfest, a crew makes complete sense. Especially true when you account for international partners.

I'm exactly as OK with that as I am with HRC's. That is to say, I absolutely don't want a foreign power subverting our networks, but I do appreciate the value of unvarnished information. Everything about modern political candidates is fake/staged/analyzed/brainstormed/etc... Given that our media is complicit in crafting the desired image, I appreciate getting a peek behind the curtain. Perhaps if our politicians had to hold themselves to a higher standard in private, we'd see a higher standard of politicians in public.

The language is actually significantly more complicated than that. It reads: "Necessary modifications to the military retirement system, including the retired pay multiplier, to ensure that members of the Armed Forces under the pay structure are situated similarly to where they would otherwise be under the military retirement system that will take effect on January 1, 2018, by reason part I of subtitle D of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 (Public Law 114–92; 129 Stat. 842), and the amendments made by that part." That 1 Jan 18 retirement system is the new one that includes TSP contributions. Clearly they want to modify the multiplier. I hope us old guys will still be grandfathered as we were supposed to be with the new system, but that will be very complicated with a mass multiplier adjustment based on an entire new pay structure. Might by time to buy stock in KY.

Well, here's what congress has in mind. Sounds very much like what you're describing. "a new pay structure for members of the Armed Forces, including new pay tables, that uses a single-salary pay system (as adjusted by the same cost-of-living adjustment that the Department of Defense uses worldwide for civilian employees" -SEC 604.b.1

NS, overall I agree with and appreciate your post. The one place I disagree is quoted above, and it's semantics. Did they really hack our democratic institutions and processes? They didn't actually change any votes, influence voting machines, or manipulate the election day vote counts. Certainly they maliciously uncovered and exposed the dirty laundry of one of the political parties, but the laundry was already made dirty (and hidden) by that party. Had our investigative media done what is arguably their job and been willing to bring this information to the fore, we'd be celebrating the exposure. In the absence of an independent media, however, average Americans were left to rely on normally unthinkable sources, and the DNC's arrogant reaction certainly didn't help things.

Their majority was only 59% in both houses. Not enough for a 2/3 supermajority.

"In spring 2016, APT28 compromised the same political party, again via targeted spearphishing. This time, the spearphishing email tricked recipients into changing their passwords through a fake webmail domain hosted on APT28 operational infrastructure. Using the harvested credentials, APT28 was able to gain access and steal content, likely leading to the exfiltration of information from multiple senior party members." Were the compromised folks up to date on their cyberawareness challenge? If so, they should turn their trophies in.

I don't think I said there's a new insight. There's just a lot more purple in the form of bluish red and red-ish blue (politically blended) than I had expected; both in cities and the midwest. I especially found insight in the islands of deepest blue (DC & San Fran) and the web of solid red, while I was surprised by some of the places I'd expected to be solid blue that were actually purple.

Here's an interesting map. It sizes the counties according to population, and it shades them according to how much of a majority was won. It really shows that the nation is far more politically blended than one would expect.

Ugliness is required for CAS aircraft. Oh, wait...

Perhaps not. On further reflection, I think the numbers and percentages argument serves to validate the importance of the electoral college. There might be a few, but most of the demographic is likely the California transplants that have taken over Austin.

https://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president Texas votes for Clinton - 3.9M Massachusetts votes for Clinton - 2M Pretty close to 2x. California votes for Trump - 3.9M Alabama votes for Trump - 1.3M Almost exactly 3x. So fact check's good, but the statistic is meaningless when corrected for population. Broken out by total population over 18, Texas votes for Clinton - 19% Massachusetts votes for Clinton - 37% California votes for Trump - 13% Alabama votes for Trump - 34%

I once asked a wing historian what something on a patch was. GPF is 100% correct in the response.

In summary,

For some government workers, the greatest contribution they can make to their organization is minimizing the damage they do. There are a few people I know who should probably be watching a little more Judge Judy during the day.

In this situation, I'd expect you'd be facing more than just a loss of wings from an FEB. There are a whole host of UCMJ articles that could be used to make an example of the first few folks to test this in a stop loss, and the airlines would likely notice a felony conviction.

Happy to have Mattis taking the helm. I hope he can inspire both our military and civilian leadership to return us to our warfighting roots. One of my favorite Mattis-ism's below. https://www.strifeblog.org/2013/05/07/with-rifle-and-bibliography-general-mattis-on-professional-reading/ "Going into Kuwait 12 years ago, I read (and reread) Rommel’s Papers (remember “Kampstaffel”?), Montgomery’s book (“Eyes Officers”…), “Grant Takes Command” (need for commanders to get along, “commanders’ relationships” being more important than “command relationships”), and some others. As a result, the enemy has paid when I had the opportunity to go against them, and I believe that many of my young guys lived because I didn’t waste their lives because I didn’t have the vision in my mind of how to destroy the enemy at least cost to our guys and to the innocents on the battlefields."

Not quite. Those are the 300 candidates selected out of the 800ish that applied. Now those 300 have to jump through a few more hoops (FCII and another board for starters) to get it down to the final number. As of now, the final selectees will only go to the GH, nothing armed. Personally, I expect that may change in the next 2-3 years, but we'll see. 11x pilots that have not recatted will be released back to manned based solely on TOS.

Absolutely correct. If you're really bored, you can watch the video on youtube. BL, he sued the border patrol agents who stopped him for 34 minutes, but he was found in federal court to have caused his own delay by acting abnormally uncooperative. He was an active troll on this site, going by numerous aliases over a few years. Here's a link to the case.https://www.law360.com/articles/759666/air-force-officer-extended-border-patrol-stop-justices-told Here's the video.

PYB is back? Didn't the SCOTUS deny your appeal in this case earlier this year?

Bingo. There's literally nothing to see here. Millions of NPS Airmen have gone through tech school without being able to drink in their dorms. The only real story is that Tony Carr's once excellent blog has devolved into a mouthpiece for the whiners.

So your commander isn't in the group of commanders that scores what the Lt's write about themselves to determine who should fly which plane? You lost me.

So, a strat based completely on how well a bunch of Lt's fill out what amounts to their own 1206/PRF. That, with zero leadership input or independent assessment? What could possibly go wrong?

You're competitive. At least 2-3 of the folks in my pilot training class had a resume like yours. I would definitely consider lasik. Either way, you'll need a waiver. Tactical flying in glasses can be obnoxious. It's not too early to apply. Start rushing guard units now.