Torch09

It was, and yet the text of that memo didn't make it into this AFI rewrite. It was either an oversight/failure to update guidance based off of the memo, or an intentional change.

36-2903, 28 Sep 18. I don't see it on E-Pubs yet, but leadership emailed it out. TLDR: New uniform AFI does not authorize rolling up flight suit or A2CU sleeves, but OCPs can. 8.3.7. Sleeves. The FDU/DFDU will have sleeves rolled down to the wrist when performing aircrew duties in-flight. Sleeves may be rolled under if not performing in-flight duties; if rolled under the sleeve will not end above the natural bend of the wrist when the wearer's arms are hanging naturally at their side. (Add) 5.3. OCP Coat (Shirt). ...Commanders may authorize sleeves to be rolled up on the OCP coat; however, the cuffs will remain visible and the sleeve will rest at, or within 1 inch of, the forearm when the arm is bent at a 90-degree angle. Regardless as to whether the sleeves are rolled up or unrolled, the cuffs will remain visible at all times. (referencing A2CU, 2-piece flight suit) (Add) 8.12.3.4. The sleeves will be worn down at all times, not rolled or cuffed. AFI_36-2903_28_Sep_18.pdf

1. Wrong gender. 2. Vipers, not Eagles.

On the FAIP commitment and early release/matching up with a spouse's MWS timeline: I was in a nearly identical situation. My spouse was due to finish her non-flying FTU and receive an assignment about 6mo prior to my FAIP commitment (3yrs from end of PIT) ending. I spoke with my Sq/CC, she called AFPC to see what MWS FTU courses were available, and I departed my FAIP assignment 5mo early. If your (or her) CC is willing to let you/her go and suffer the vacancy, it shouldn't be a problem. However, your/her CC also has the authority to deny that request and jack up your join spouse timeline.

We've been directed to AR in Bronco a few times to justify it's existence. There's a B-21s-at-Dyess incentive plan to bridge Bronco and Lancer, add in some Link-16 infrastructure all the way out to Pecos, and make a super-MOA. They call it the Raider MOA...keen.

I received my AZ absentee ballot: Vindictive careerist (R) Commie lunatic (D) Sonuva beech

Lancer is surprisingly busy: 90% Bones, the rest from BUFFs (KBAD), Vipers (NFW), C-130s, and the occasional F-35 (Lockheed plant, DFW). IR-128, while flat and soul-less, starts and ends in Lancer for a hip-pocket LOWAT rehack. Snyder is a pretty good EA site, used and abused by all 5 squadrons at Dyess. Adding some AETC traffic is possible, but not ideal.

I got a little bored. Data for those considering a join spouse relationship: Of the 6.4yrs/2,352 days my wife and I have been married, 2.5yrs/909 days have been apart. That's an average of 4.7mo/141 days per year physically separated by TDY, PCS, or deployment. The average duration of separation is 37 days, including the occasional 1-2 day jet-swap TDYs. We've had one PCS separation that left an 11mo gap, with the rest stationed together. Days apart does not consider leave taken to visit each other while separated via PCS. We also have jobs that are highly compatible, both ops-focused and relatively easy to station together. If we were committed to different MWS's or didn't have today's friendly AF policy directing join spouse assignments, it would be far worse. The 1-3wk TDYs aren't bad. It's enough time for the spouse still home to work on house projects, hog all the time with the kiddos, and then appreciate the return of the TDY spouse. Deployments longer than a couple months suck; 5-6mo are standard in our jobs. Thankfully, we've had CC's on our side for the couple times we've asked for a break. One was simultaneous deployments, leaving our 1yr old with family. The other was staggered deployments, with only 5wks together over the course of 2yrs. CC involvement in both cases helped shift things around, and both worked out well for our family. Things that helped make the separations easier: 1. Set expectations low. Even if it's an easy TDY, walk into each one as though you won't have time to talk until you're both home. Any contact is then a pleasant surprise. 2. Block off leave and family time for after the TDY/deployment well in advance. Keep it sacred. 3. If the AF is paying you to go to Nellis, find a reliable babysitter (i.e. grandparents) for the kiddos and fly the wife out there for one of the weekends. Second honeymoon. 4. Don't overcommit on unnecessary projects. You're both making a decent paycheck, so don't go full dad mode and install a deck by yourself at the expense of relaxing with the family. Pay for the labor on tasks that you don't inherently enjoy, and consider it an investment in mitigating the stress of future time apart. 5. Enjoy the crap out of the times you get the kiddos to yourself. It's a lot of work on top of your day job, but good grief it's fun. 6. Your Family Care Plan forces this, but it's a good idea regardless: Have 2-3 close friends in the local area that you trust to pick up your kids and care for them overnight. I had to ask for help a couple times that a night sortie was unavoidable. Work with DOS to ensure you have as much of a nuggets' up as possible on sorties that will impact your ability to pick up kids from daycare.

Posted yes, but details are slim: https://www.flyingsquadron.com/forums/topic/22416-usmc-f-35-crash-in-south-carolina/

Juice/squeeze = negligible. The vast majority of UPT students walk into IFS/UPT with very little or no experience. Some of the best students I had were CFIIs, but they paid for hundreds of hours of training and then were getting paid to teach others; it's not something you do on your own without a significant financial investment. A couple of the worst students I had were also CFIIs, who had a slew of bad habits and a shitty attitude. Be a bro, study hard, and let the AF pay you for all the training you need.

Specifically, enough distance for Sandy to mow down shitheads around you just before Jolly drops in. The effective range of the GAU-5A (considering barrel length, twist rate/bullet stabilization, muzzle velocity, ammo specs) was carefully compared to 'distance' data from friendly weapons to set a minimum threshold. The max was limited by available space in the seat kit. We sent a weapons SME and AFE tech to a conference a few months back to ensure the GAU hit all those requirements. I'm only familiar with what one MDS had to give up in the seat kit to fit the GAU, but given the ground picture in CENTCOM I'll gladly take the GAU over those other niceties.

Galil Ace Pistol +brace isn't a new model, but just got it yesterday. Probably the smoothest-cycling bolt I've ever felt (sts). Helluva truck gun: https://iwi.us/product/gap39iisb/

Gorgeous

I'm not in DOS, I just bitch about the product. How did you learn how to use all the PEX functions? In-house SME? The 1wk training course? Add: a PEX guide or gouge floating around? To clarify: We tried using PEX for everything...entering commitments, tracking currencies, real-time updates displayed on a big screen as the executing scheduler threw 'pucks', etc. The primary drawbacks were: 1. Visualizing commitments and people available vs. lines to fill. Physical pucks or Excel perform this function in a far cleaner format. Even the attached flyers take the time to ensure those two methods of commitments are accurate, vice battling the daily PEX server meltdown. I have 4 hyperlinks to PEX bookmarked... 2. Constant inaccuracies in aircrew currencies. I would show green in ARMS and whatever other program the HARM shop uses, but show red in PEX even after HARM/SARM tried updating it. Additional issue that drove DOT to create a separate RAP tracker: Aircrew would log MARs, sometimes 2-3x, and PEX wouldn't save it. I never had faith our RAP reports were accurate reflections of training accomplished, even assuming a 100% MAR completion rate from aircrew.

We just moved from a magnetic puck board to a combo of homegrown Excel and PEX. PM me an address and I can ship you a metric shitload of pucks, complete with aircrew names dating back several PCS cycles. The pucks I've seen in AETC and AFGSC both arrived on a reel and you cut them to size, if that helps you order them.

A Snickers bar is not the instrument with which I, and most of the rest of America, will ultimately hold our government accountable to the Constitution. There is zero parallel to a child's lack of self-control and foresight on their future health. But to entertain your argument: Name a specific individual, and present medical and/or otherwise convincing evidence to a judge, showing that said individual is a specific violent threat to other human beings, so much so that the government is charged with stripping them of a primary Constitutional right, and I'll stand with you every time. Until you can do that, 'Murica.

Absolutely. A decent aftermarket trigger group, individual trigger springs, lighter buffer tube/recoil springs, etc. This article nails it: https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2017/10/daniel-zimmerman/reader-weve-painted-corner-bump-fire-regulation-gun-control/ TLDR: If the ATF is charged with following the letter of the law, the law means nothing since the only means of mechanically increasing the rate of fire is to decrease the time required for the gas to cycle the bolt. That's obviously not the intent. If the ATF follows the intent of the law, the law is insanely broad; it doesn't mention bump-fire stocks by name, and opens the door to all manner of stupid regulations. GOP: grow a goddamn spine, half a brain, and stop pandering to the left/emotional hysteria with useless/bullshit/unconstitutional laws that have zero effect on an evil person's ability to be evil.

Filling the tires as you go ensures more thorough fill, especially inside the sidewalls. That's pretty important if you're stacking them more than 5 or so tires tall, as the weight from above is going to crush the lower tires. I used a shovel for all of it and it was a painful project. Renting or borrowing a front end loader would help dump the dirt in the right place faster, but you'd still want to hand-shovel/spread the dirt around the tires to ensure you're filling the sidewalls. If you just stacked 3 or 4 tires at a time and then dumped in dirt, you'd end up with an unknown quantity of dirt in each column; when you shoot, you don't know if the bullet will impact several feet of dirt or just some tread and then empty spaces. Most pistol rounds will sail through 4-5 layers of tread. A trick I learned on the second backstop I built (same use of tires) was that you can fill the bottom row, drive some old lumber or fairly straight branches (stripped of any smaller branches/leaves) into the center of the pile, then continue stacking tires. The effort you put into driving that wood into the bottom tire (sts) takes up some of the dirt you would have had to shovel in, and helps keep the follow-on tires a guide for centering them up. If you have a 4x4 in the center, it will have about 1ft of dirt in front of it. It's going to take a lot of rifle fire before that lumber is destroyed, and even then the dirt is there to settle into the gaps. After a couple months and a few thousand rounds, I found that the dirt settled quite a bit. I just topped off the top row and let it continue settling. I have yet to have any columns fall over or collapse, though the bottom tires do need to be slightly thicker tread to bear the weight. If I had a front end loader, some heavy wooden beams as a support structure, and a supply of relatively rock-free dirt, I'd go for the straight dirt berm. I have none of those, and the tires cost me $0 from some patriotic folks in town. When I go to sell this place, I'm banking that the potential buyers are as enthusiastic about a large pile of tires on the land as I am. Otherwise, it's going to be a PITA to tear it all down.

Agreed, dirt is the way to go. I started with a wooden backstop (old, cut-up powerlines) and abandoned the project. It splintered like crazy, making it difficult to maintain and probably leading to ricochets down the road. I ended up stacking used tires and filling them with dirt. I didn't have access to a front-end loader, or I would have done a huge dirt berm. Those tires, once filled with dirt, have held up like a champ. Stack the thicker-tread tires towards the bottom, and be sure to fill the sidewalls as much as you can for structural support. Any tire store should be happy to be rid of their garbage. Go to a small local shop where all the jacked-up F250s get their tires and you're sure to find some beefy tread left. I stacked mine about 8ft tall, and past that I saw the potential for the tires to collapse under the weight. I drove a T-post into the ground before I started, so it would sit in the middle of each stack of tires and help support the weight. I stacked a front row of 8 tires, then staggered 7 tires behind them to fill the 'gaps' left in the front row. All told, I can shoot anywhere into that wall and have at least 2.5ft and about 2 layers of tire tread. In most places, it's about 4-5" of dirt and 4 layers of tread. I tested a 308 and recovered the bullet; it only made it about 2ft into dirt. The only weakness is slower bird shot loads, specifically shotshell loads from a revolver. They don't have enough energy to punch through the tires, so they bounce all over the place. 2rds of that pelting my shins and I gave up. Even the puny 20gr Aguila 22LR (480ish fps muzzle velocity) punch into the tread enough to stop and not ricochet, so I think it's just shotshells as an issue. I've moved a couple tires and found most pistol rounds just 6-9" into the dirt. As a bonus, you can drive screws directly into the tires to hang clay pigeons, steel targets, or old pallets from Home Depot to serve as a stable platform for paper targets. If you have a larger steel gong, wedge a couple pieces of rebar horizontally in between a couple tires as a hangar.

I found one at an LGS. It's significantly larger in all dimensions than a Shield or G43, and larger in height than a G26. It feels great in the hand (this whole post STS), and a solid deal on an HK frame, but not the carry gun I was looking for.

Update on life under AFGSC and PACOM deployments: 1. Ops Tempo/Deployment: It's still 6mo deployed/12mo home, with various TDYs punctuating those 12mo home. The CBP mission is quite different from CENTCOM; reference NK's latest rants and you'll get an idea of the missions we fly. The shift in TTP focus has been refreshing and provided training opportunities we can't find elsewhere. Home station TDYs add another 4-12wks away from home. Overall, life is fairly predictable and reasonable compared to stories from friends in other platforms. 2. Lifestyle/Family Stability: No change. Probably as good as you'll find anywhere in AF ops units. 3. Community morale: Still pretty high. AFGSC/SAC introduced some extra queep and nosy oversight (ACC hardly knew we were in the inventory), but the transition has been fairly smooth. GS seems to sincerely want to improve processes, and has adopted several B-1 dudes into 8AF/GS staff to smooth it out, but some things still don't translate well to BUFF language. CSNO: conventional support of nuclear operations...really? 4. Advancements & Future of the airframe: Blk16 (upgrade mentioned above) has now hit all the ops squadrons. It's a dramatic difference in CRM, increase in SA for all 4 aircrew, and cuts down on previously required fore-aft chatter. Future upgrades (next 1-3yrs) include JDAM mines, LRASM, FMV helmets w/targeting pod feed, and increasing bay door limits (will allow for supersonic weapons releases). For career moves, AFGSC initiated a program called Striker Vista. It takes senior captains/instructors and moves them to a different bomber platform. It promotes crosstalk between the platforms and probably feeds into leadership positions down the road. Pilots can apply to any of the platforms, though I have yet to see the a B-1 pilot go to B-2s. 5. Preferred PCS locations: The wife and I would have preferred Ellsworth for all the reasons above, but Abilene was a guaranteed join spouse move. I actually enjoy it. Land is cheap, the community is very friendly and patriotic, and hunting licenses are free for military. If shooting stuff and hunting aren't your thing, Ft Worth, San Antonio, and Austin are all within range for weekend trips. There are two good hospitals in Abilene, and Dyess only has a clinic so all other medical appts are referred offbase. The CDC is excellent and cheaper than any childcare you'll find offbase.

I thought it was a call from an unknown number 6wks after RTB from Red Flag, something about you're gonna be a father.

They're currently running 2x S1050s in parallel with Mark 7 Rev upgrades. Once they push some inventory, they'll reinvest in a larger commercial press. It isn't a CamDex, it's the same press Federal uses at their Minnesota Plant...I forget the name at the moment. Brass cleaning and media separation is all via machinery that they designed and built themselves. They both grew up farming for a living, and my dad will take any excuse to break out a welder. Copy on pricing. It's a small mom-and-pop operation (literally), so as they reinvest their initial sales into bigger and more efficient machinery, prices should fall. The long term goal is to produce everything but primers (see: recent Lake City Plant explosion) in-house, even the powder. Interestingly enough, the most expensive single piece of equipment is the machine that draws out and forms the brass. Enter promo code "HeyChongerSuckOnThisJASSM". It doesn't work for a discount, but it feels right.

Has anyone seen an HK VP9sk in the wild yet? It was released as the SFP9sk in the metric countries. https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2017/03/01/hk-sfp9-l-sfp9-sk/ https://hk-usa.com/hk-models/vp9-sk/

It took a wing-wide email from the Cadet WG/CC to "crush" it. Crush = just spread the story to the handful of folks that hadn't seen it yet. Oh, George...