FLEA

Are Bob's actually reading baseops? https://www.janes.com/article/94311/top-us-air-force-officer-sees-mq-9-reaper-uav-as-prime-candidate-for-armed-overwatch

RPA's, we are finding out, are a nightmare to deploy anywhere besides CENTCOM. Turns out, countries with developed Telecom infrastructure dont like it when you want to come in and consume huge portions of their highly limited spectrum. Especially in the middle of a global economic race to develop wireless broadband networks (i.e. 5G) . Furthermore, if people could see the SATCOM bill for RPAs you would remove any sense in your brain about them being a low cost option. It's absolutely insane what bandwidth costs!

Bro you act like these things are actually going to show up at Hurby or Pope. Did the C-27 teach you anything? Even after it's bought big blue can still shut this off before they have to own it! Those 75 LAFs are easily 1/10th of a shiny new B-21!!!

I just didn't see it until my wife would point it out to me. Or show me things i never noticed. If you know what you're looking for in the ways of tattoos, drug paraphinalia, etc.... You start to see it everywhere there. There are certainly nicer areas away from the city but the area south of I-10 to the CBD and the areas you mentioned are slums. Stoplight hell is the truth. Supposedly, 30 years ago the city voted on whether or not to build a bypass to I-10 north of the city before it got pushed up to the mountains. The city council was afraid Tucson would lose its "small town feel" if they did that and voted it down. Now 30 years later the population exploded to over a million and there is no room to put a bypass. Does smiling Sally still smile for her troops on Houghton south of the airbase?

Makes sense.

Wonder if it was uncovered in relation to his 89th Air Wing post. In his roll at that base I'm sure he'd have to recieve some fairly invasive background investigations given that he could have close proximity to POTUS.

Not sure what platform your dad or brother were on but you are probably going to make a hell of a lot of more difference in the MQ-9 than 95% chance they did in their MWS. When I begrudgingly TAMI 21d to the MQ-9 as a non vul it was at the horizon of the war in Syria. For a 3 month period, 75% of all munitions dropped in CENTCOM came from an MQ-9. We were extraordinarily kinetic and because we didn't go home after a 4 month rotation we developed more SA on the ground campaign than any other flying community. The assignment opened doors for me I would have never had in my manned community and I was offered positions in SOCOM, the Pentagon, and other communities. The assignment ended up becoming an apex of my career and when I went to staff I carried a lot of credibility for my time in MQ-9s, not so much my time in other aircraft. I would advise you life is full of dissapointment and failing to meet goals becomes a regular event. Frequently we tend to look at the Johnny Kim's in life and compare ourselves, leaving us to feel short or inadequate. The truth is we often can't control the circumstances that bring us to our outcomes and while there is no doubt more you could have done to reach your goal of being a pilot you must recognize a lot is contributed to luck and timing as well. A well known base ops'er used to say "grow where you are planted" and that advice, personally, helped me thrive. I found new interest I didn't know I had and quickly became an expert in areas most chose to ignore. But it brought me new oppurtunities and new successes. You'll find as you get older that success becomes more about the people you've surrounded yourself with than what you have achieved or accomplished. Whereever you go, hold good character, be a loyal friend, and help others out. You will quickly find that you feel more fulfillment in this manner than you do by overly stressing to meet arbitrary goals you set for yourself. That doesn't mean you should quit or end your pursuit to be a pilot, but realise it is not necessary to attain fulfillment. If your family can't recognize that, ditch them. Do not keep people in your life that drain your spirit. If you want more advice or mentoring, PM me and I'll give you my work email to reach out to. I spent 4 years in MQ-9s and loved the community. They took care of me, gave me chances other communities didn't, and I will never talk down on them.

Tucson proper is a slum. The city refuses to enforce odinances or has overturned them that have essentially allowed meth addicts to take over the down town. There is a heavy presence of MS-13 and 1%ers in the city limits and crime is relatively high everywhere except the CBD. My wife was a cop there for 3 years and worked homicide scenes enough to develop mild PTSD after we left. A member I worked with bought a house out the NE gate and had a stray round from a drive by pass through his 1 year olds nursery about 30 inches from the crib. I wish that base would boneyard itself.

Looks like CNN already wants to support it's counter narrative! The info wars are going! https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/31/asia/wuhan-virus-china-censorship-intl-hnk/index.html

Damn! Friend zoned!!!!

Nah I changed it to reflect lack of healthcare. I haven't specifically been to Wuhan, but supposedly for a city of 11M they have no centralized hospital system, just lots of clinics. There was a Chinese propoganda story floating around in how they erected one in 2 weeks but actually turned out to be a building 1000km away.

Some truth to all of that but to some degree I trust China more than I trust CNN or Fox trying to boost their viewership, so that tells you how cynical I've become.

I'm not a pathologist but I feel like the media is overblowing this and we are a following it. For one, of the cases in China, the death rate of the Novel Corona Virus is only about 2%. Compare this to 10% SARS and 35% MERS, the last big epidemics I remember. The prominance of these cases is in Wuhan which is very rural, has limited healthcare and no centralized hospital. Victims in more civilized countries seem to recover after 1-2 weeks. I'm curious what the age/health spectrum of fatalities is because there is likely a predominance of very young/old/already sick in there. There appears to be a misinformation campaign as well, designed ripple the Chinese economy by causing economic scare and withdrawal of Western businesses. I don't feel like getting overly panic'd about this yet.

You laugh. But I'd say this is a pretty fucking normal site at Osan. Long live the Sons of Pilsung!

LOL: I think we should start with the expectation management of "flying full time" means? On AD, you are only going to fly "full time" one year in your whole career.

Her story was her SFS commander who she hired a pilot for rather than from the SFS candidates. The squadron had some issues and the pilot was a civilian cop (outside the Air Force) who had the right personality type to address said issues. Her point to the masses was that not getting hired for command doesn't necessarily mean you're incapable of wouldn't be able to do it. It just means you weren't the right person for that squadron at that time.

I was listening to Col Sablan, the ABQ wing commander speak once. One thing that struck me when she talked about command hiring was that in the guard or the reserve they will routinely not pick the best qualified. Unlike AD, the reserve component doesn't see a check list of things you do to be a great commander. Instead she argued, they hire based on who the best fit is. For example, a certain O-5 miggt have particular strengths well suited for some problems a squadron is having. He may not have all the fancy schools or diplomas but if those problems are a real issue for that unit and need addressed that O-5 will get picked up for that unit before someone who may appear better qualified would.

A baseops original. I remember reading his post when I was still in HS, wanting to be a pilot, and I found this forum one day. Never knew him in real life, but sounds like he was a hell of a guy.

Dude that is fantastic. I've totally noticed AFPC is a lot more willing to play ball in the last 2-3 years. I'm glad there is finally some direction that people having some control on their careers helps to retain them.

I'm going OCONUS to OCONUS and my family is stateside. I got circuitous travel approved as an amendment so I can pick them up enroute but was told while I can procure my own tickets, I cannot use my GTC to do so now. I can't find a reference AFI or JTR paragraph for that. Is anyone aware of it? My plane tickets are going to be $12,000 total if I take a US carrier like I'm supposed to.

In regards to a lot of those foreign schools or special oppurtunities, the majority of aircrew find out too late about them. I had realised after talking to a few of the people selected that many of those slots are filled by people who spent their whole career trying to get there. They are smart and write the entire story of their OPRs on what makes them ideal for that oppurtunity, the pick a master's degree tailored for that result, etc etc.... If you are just now deciding Korean ACSC is your tea when you are doing your school apps, you are too late. There is a dude that is 4/4 in Korean, volunteered 2 short tours there and has a master's in Korean Military History or something like that already.

You need buy in from commanders to change culture as well. With the civilian help it's easy for some bosses to feel like you have lots of extra time to start new projects as well. There needs to be a clear culture that you job expectations are focused around operations and execution and not building admin systems and queep.

Lets not forget that nothing short of a solid hand full of these Saudi students have direct Royal ties. I remember a dude a class ahead of me at CBus was like 14th or 15th in line to the throne on the heirarchy, and he was sure to let everyone know it. I remember another Saudi needed help taking his car to the gas station. Noone ever showed him how to pump gas before, someone always did it for him his whole life. I really want this even to shine light on this but if they can pay money to a FTO to run planes into a tower, the murder of a few officers isn't going to change anything.

Yes but I had heard if you sign it overseas, every iteration it pays will be tax excluded until it runs out. Any truth to that?

Well, for those that are a die hard fan of the older style jacket and can't find it..... Apparently on sale at Uniqlo now.....