JimNtexas

My best friend was in an F-4 accident where he ejected because the plane was on fire, his parachute streamered, and he bounced off the side of a sand dune and survived. He would up finishing his career in EC-130s at 20 years/O-5. He now admits it would have better to have medically retired after the ejection, because he's constant pain and on full VA disability these days. He gets huge jars of methadone every month from the VA.

I'm double retired, 20 years in the Air Force, followed by 20 years in a couple of small Austin software startups. I agree with the commentator that if you are working at a FANG in a technical position you would be crazy to go active duty at age 36. Max out your 401K and do some conservative investing, you'll be fine in your old age! I do understand that tech companies consider people over more or less your age to be 'poor culture fits', but if I could work as a software developer until age 63, you can stay in tech also. But I'm not you, I admit. If you want to go to pilot training or as a non-rated officer, apply for it and make them say no. As an American, I wish the USAF could get more FANG type people into the Cyber and Space related positions. Good thing I'm not Dictator of America or I would probably just draft you to Security Hill in San Antonio! 😉 If I were you I'd look towards the guard or reserve. My understanding is that the big FANG type companies are Guard/Reserve friendly. You can stay in your high paid but maybe a little boring day job, and still live the glamorous life of an active duty officer enough to scratch that itch and earn a nice retirement package at age 60. And you'd be ready to go if Uncle Sam gets his ass in a crack and really needs you! Edited to add: You won't be stationed in the War Room, and 'Fly and Fight' is kind of a thing in the rest of the Air Force. Don't worry about that.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xwgkv/us-military-urgently-seeking-truly-enormous-underground-complex-for-undisclosed-experiments https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=8260d35188c377a0be5bf2ef1ee5ed41&tab=core&_cview=0

FAKE NEWS!!!!! NBC had to retract two fake news stories today. This was one of them.

I hope this is fake news. My Dad and my son were both born in Europe while their Dads were stationed there on active duty. There should not be any question about anyone in similar circumstances being born Americans!

Being a PA officer has to be one of the most miserable jobs in the Air Force, at least if you are not a 100% pathological liar with no shred of conscious. I can't really blame the poor smuck for going on a record breaking bender. I don't even drink, but I'm sure I would had I worked in PA.

Putting the C-172 on the list and leaving off the J-3 Cub is unforgivable!

I am not in the least bit qualified to even comment on what flavor of pilot should instruct in what flavor of airplane. But I was in the Air Force for 20 years and can recognize a massive elephant sized anal probe from toxic leadership when I see one.

Top gun has to be the most unrealistic, inaccurate, and down right ridiculous aviation movie ever. I can’t wait to see it.

If you read this in a novel you would give it one star for making it impossible for the reader to suspend disbelief: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/28976/italian-cops-raid-neo-fascists-and-find-air-to-air-missile-that-france-had-sold-to-qatar

Being a pilot in the USAF is awesome. Being an ANG pilot is more awesome. Don’t obsess over the size of the ride, they are all great.

“Just remember, before fracking we had to be able to keep the Straits of Hormuz open. Now all we have to be able to do is keep them closed. And if Iran decides to close down oil shipments from the Gulf, it’s basically an oil embargo on China.” https://pjmedia.com/instapundit

I'm an old retired fart, but I had a great Air Force Experience a couple of weeks ago. A client of my wife found out that this couple had a kid who was all ate up about flying, flew flight sims for hours, but had never been in the cockpit of a real airplane. So I volunteered to give the kid an incentive ride in my might Piper Warrior. It turned out he was a junior in college, majoring in mechanical engineering. He wanted to know all about the Air Force and wanted to hear my war stories. Of course I cleverly managed to never get shot at, but I shared some 'peace stories' with him while we stopped for a hundred dollar hamburger. Anyway, my Warrior is based at Austin Bergstrom (KAUS), and we get a lot of military transient airplanes. As we were putting the Warrior back in the hanger a black T-38 showed up in the pattern and flew a couple of overheads and then landed. As we started to walk back to the Signature terminal the Black 'BB' coded T-38 was parking right in front of us. My pax asked me if he could take a picture of this T-38. Of course I knew that nobody would care if someone took a picture of a T-38, but I said 'Why don't we ask the pilots'? So I walked over as they were climbing out of the cockpit, introduced us as 'once and future Air Force guys' and asked if we could take a picture of their jet. It was a looker I'll say that. To make a long story short, the crew were two U-2 pilots. Of course they let us take all the pictures we wanted, but more important they asked my young friend what he wanted to do in the Air Force, and he told them he wanted to be a pilot. They spent about 15 minutes telling him about pilot training, suggesting the best paths to a commission for him, and in general talking up the fun of being in the Air Force. I'm sure the guys were probably a bit tired, and in a hurry to get to Sixth Street, but to this young person they were heroes bordering on Living Gods. I really appreciated the time they took and their enthusiasm for my young friends dreams. It reminded me how cool it is that the Air Force sometimes would give you the keys to a jet plane and a gas card, and tell you bring back in one piece next Monday!

Varks! 😁

Interesting presentation by Robin Olds daughter: https://youtu.be/SwBK0a3n658

The FAA has never cared about my disability for knee issues, even after one of them needed to be replaced.

Interesting RAND study: Costs of training USAF pilots by MWS inforgraphic

The F-111 had five radars. It is not impossible that a crew might not have put them to stand by until after the crew chief parked their jet.

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2019/04/01/vr-flight-training-goes-international-brits-join-pilot-training-next/

Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t President Obama finance a small war in Lybia with an EO?

"Verb 27 (no clue what happened..)" Well in the USAF we do encourage speaking in multi-syllable words. 😁 Seriously, You look like a good fit.

Griswold - Stop Making Sense!!!!!

I'm old enough to have graduated from 'Universal Nav Training', which basically was about a nine month course in table navigation with a little bit of radar and low level thrown in. After UNT I went to EWO school which was about four or five months and then to F-4s.

I suppose that EWOs going to Growlers and some F-15E's must do both courses. I hope anyway.