Space & Missiles Flight Suits (GONE!)

[Festivius]

By the way, I value my enlisted aircrew members and their contributions 100 times more than I value whatever you do in the Air Force. Thank you for sitting in your chair--in your 1G, zero knot environment.

The above comment is self-critiquing: It serves only to highlight an apparent lack of fundamental knowledge regarding your chosen profession (which, even if you don’t like it, extends beyond the confines of your MDS).

[Napoleon_Tanerite]

The above comment is self-critiquing: It serves only to highlight an apparent lack of fundamental knowledge regarding your chosen profession (which, even if you don’t like it, extends beyond the confines of your MDS).

The comment was well intentioned, but poorly delivered. The truth is there is no "useless" job left in the Air force (though a substantial number of useless PEOPLE remain). Every useless position (and tons of useful ones) have been eliminated. I value my enlisted aircrew, as our mission would be impossible without them, and I have had an FE keep me out of a bad situation on more than one occasion, but I wouldn't go so far to say that I value them more than a career field that I admittedly know little to nothing about.

[Champ Kind]

I wouldn't go so far to say that I value them more than a career field that I admittedly know little to nothing about.

I would, and I do.

[Guest]

Since we're talking about the value of sweaties, how much is one worth?

[HeloDude]

The above comment is self-critiquing: It serves only to highlight an apparent lack of fundamental knowledge regarding your chosen profession (which, even if you don’t like it, extends beyond the confines of your MDS).

Whether or not you agree with my comment, it stands on its own. Gravedigger said that a navigator is useless, and I very much disagree with him (and I don't even fly with navs...though I know what they do and the benefits they bring, specifically on Spec Ops type platforms).

I then shed some light in that I value the FE's (non-pilots) I fly with 100 times more than I value what he does in the Air Force. FE's have literally saved my life many, many times, and I could not do my mission without them. I have saved other people's lives with the hard work of FE's. So yes, I would not give up my enlisted aircrew members for more space guys...therefore, I personally value them more.

That being said, I very much appreciate anybody who puts on a uniform. But when you start whining and throw aircrew under the bus to make yourself (and your profession) look more higher speed than it deserves, you get called out--and when you get called out, you find out where your profession stands in the eye of someone else. I know this sounds like a Direct TV commercial, but this is how things work. The truth hurts sometimes.

[Gravedigger]

Dudes, I don't believe my job is better or more worthwhile than anyone elses. I was just throwing some shit BQZip's way because he seems particularly emotional about this subject. I sincerely respect aircrew for what they do on a daily basis (pilot, nav, enlisted.....even ABMs), I also have tremendous respect for the maintainers that keep shit working, and most importantly the dudes on the ground that live with real fear and cheat death on a daily basis. I take pride in my job because I enjoy being able to contribute at least a little bit to making your jobs safer and easier.

That said, space is much more than just SATCOM and navigation. Those two mission areas barely even scratch the surface (although the entire global economy depends on the timing signal provided by GPS). The dudes saying they don't need space only prove how little they know about what space provides. Go talk to the space guys in the AOC if you're in one, or talk to your space liaison if you're in an AFSOC unit. Go find out what space assets are tasked on the ATO. Talk to the space aggressors next time your at Red Flag, or to the space patches. There are tons of avenues out there to learn more about space, if you care, and it might change your perception. We aren't all trying to feel like we're pilots.

EDIT: And just to comment on the crew flying construct. I had a vacuum system failure in IMC a few weeks after getting my instrument ticket. I was 18 and thought it would fun to putz around in a storm. The attitude indicator didn't tumble for quite a while. I noticed my turn and skid indicator showed a pretty steep bank when I thought I was level. When I finally got it leveled out, I had some very serious spatial d. I asked my friend who was in the right seat to hold the plane level for a minute while I tried to get my brain back in order. We had no GPS and it took a while for me to get the approach plates together and find an ILS and get us on the ground. Had I been alone, I probably would have augered in, I don't know.

Edited April 18, 2012 by Gravedigger

[Murph]

I don't get why you guys give a shit about what uniform is worn by the space guys or anyone else for that matter.

BFD.

Bingo.

Besides, I used to think I knew what space does and had no problem throwing hate their way until I went to the weapons school. Now I know It's pretty myopic to think we can fight and win a war with China, Russia, Iran, et al without the space guys.

Edited April 18, 2012 by Murph

[Beaver]

Since we're talking about the value of sweaties, how much is one worth?

Appears to be $12,400 ($100,000 combat related) Death Gratuity + $400,000 SGLI +

55 percent of the retired pay to which the member would have been entitled based upon years of active service if retired on the date of death (if the member was retirement-eligible).

https://usmilitary.about.com/od/theorderlyroom/a/adutydeath.htm

Edited April 18, 2012 by Beaver

[Guest]

Whether or not you agree with my comment, a fucking navigator is useless (and I don't even fly wit​h fucking navs...).

FIFY

Appears to be $12,400 ($100,000 combat related) Death Gratuity + $400,000 SGLI +

55 percent of the retired pay to which the member would have been entitled based upon years of active service if retired on the date of death (if the member was retirement-eligible).

https://usmilitary.ab.../adutydeath.htm

Cool, thanks.

[busdriver]

Since we're talking about the value of sweaties, how much is one worth?

It depends, are we talking about flight engineers or gunners?

[Guest]

All of them.

[busdriver]

Well gunners are border line retarded, so they actually add to the overall cost to the Air Force as I have to buy a second marker set of crayons to brief to them. So I'd say that FEs are more valuable but less costly, average value is incalculable. I mean how do you put a value indicator on a guy who will happily charge into a hot HLZ with you, who's only thinking about how many Hadjis he's going to get to kill?

[Guest]

I mean how do you put a value indicator on a guy who will happily charge into a hot HLZ with you, who's only thinking about how many Hadjis he's going to get to kill?

Priceless.

[BQZip01]

Dudes, I don't believe my job is better or more worthwhile than anyone elses.

Bullshit

Space deserves a little Goddamn respect from the flying Air Force...That said, it wouldn't kill you to learn a little about something the world would literally stop functioning without.

Stay the fuck in your own lane until you have something close to a clue about what other careers do.

...we do it without appreciation...

Let me guess? You have penis envy of Pandas?

Many of us here have PLENTY of knowledge of how space works. Sure, we don't know everything, but we know a LOT more than you give us credit for.

[skibum]

The truth is there is no "useless" job left in the Air force (though a substantial number of useless PEOPLE remain). Every useless position (and tons of useful ones) have been eliminated.

They got rid of TIB? Awesome!

[Stretch]

Shit, I'm a Space guy and I don't even know everything space does. Skip to the last line if you really don't want some rant.

Here's the rift - and this is all assumption because my ass has spent all its time firmly in an office chair: aircrew has community. It doesn't matter the type or mission, there are very core tenants to your world. Lift, grav, drag, thrust. Stay between the spacy and earthy parts of air. 2 gets the fat one. At least from the flyers I've met, they all have a pretty good, if not functioning, understanding of what each other do. From that, you build identity, history, and comradeship. Sure. The next CSAF or whomever gets crap for the type of mission he flew, but as long as its someone who's been there and done that as an operator, he might not be immediately dismissed. Look what would happen if a Logistics guy got the glance at the job - doubt galore. Why? He doesn't have that common thread available to the rest of the (still most visible) Air Force - aircrew.

Space isn't like that. In my impressively short time in this AF, experiencing nothing other than the Alcohol Sex and Booze Course, I was given a ten week course containing only three weeks of information about the rest of the Space world. It was barely in the secret level, and my instructors all deferred to ignorance for all details not contained in the lesson plan. I get to my first assignment and am promptly cut off from the entire space community at a geographically separated unit, like the vast majority of my and other wings. No Flags, no higher education unless you claw for it, and a four year tour doing something of questionable relevance to the last twenty years of war. If I stepped on Schriever for a little while and tried to shoot the shit with my 'peers' in Space, the disjunct between their ops world and mine would be difficult to bridge, what little information we could exchange for security or understanding reasons.

So, foul on the 13S guys for not being able to know ourselves enough to have that community. Without community, you can't build a heritage, for ourselves or as a part of the larger Air Force. Very few, without being burnt out by a few isolated tours and some bullshit staff work, really seem to have that span and connection to the rest of the field to have that community build - I'm thinking the Weapons officers and some of the really good bros that are here to get the job done (also, the only reasons I'm considering staying in). Its easy to drop into the trap of office days/crew shifts and not see the reason for doing all of it. Operators become checklist monkeys, myopic to the ripples that they could induce.

If we can't even get our shit straight, how can we expect you guys, an established community and force, with real and tangible results in your work, to follow our occasional frustration? Most of our guys couldn't care about getting praised for their day-to-day work, so making our efforts known is a low priority to the operators. Our photos and stories are the best and latest in Christmas Party planning, poorly coordinated exercises, and DWI abatement efforts. Our CGOCs are active as hell. In other words, the only parts of our work that most people see, to include many of us "on the inside", are the parts we hate the most. It's epidemic of the AF as a whole, but seemingly all the worse in our little part of the force. Others do the same thing, keeping the Silent Professional card close to the chest, but these people also know the connection and difference they make to the world. That's not an easy jump for some wearing the Space Insignia (I refuse to call them Space Wings or Spings).

I'm lucky. I had good mentors that have crossed my path and really set me straight. They got me to apply to WIC, to hunt down the best and most training I could outside of my lane, and recognize that shitty leadership comes and goes, but the bros get shit done because that's what we're here for. Space has a future, both in mission and community.

Gravedigger, I'll guess you've got more time and experience than me, so call me out if this is bullshit to you - it's what I see. I'll be heading to the Springs in the future, so maybe that will change my tune. Don't mean to step on your toes, man, but we've got to work on ourselves before anything else gets better. Unappreciated? Maybe. Sometimes.

But all I could give a ###### about is that somehow, somewhere, some ripple that I started in the process is helping some 18 y/o kid with a rifle lay waste to some stone-age ###### in the most expedient way possible. They don't (always) assume room temperature themselves.

Rant off.

[Homestar]

Talk to the space aggressors next time...

Which one?

[Danny Noonin]

Rant

Nicely done

[Wolf424]

I sincerely respect aircrew for what they do on a daily basis (pilot, nav, enlisted.....even ABMs)

Whoa...easy killer.

I keed, I keed...

But seriously.

[Guest]

I'm lucky. I had good mentors that have crossed my path and really set me straight. They got me to apply to WIC, to hunt down the best and most training I could outside of my lane, and recognize that shitty leadership comes and goes, but the bros get shit done because that's what we're here for. Space has a future, both in mission and community.

Fuckin' A.

[EasyOsey]

Gravedigger, on 18 April 2012 - 06:01 AM, said:

I sincerely respect aircrew for what they do on a daily basis (pilot, nav, enlisted.....even ABMs)

Whoa...easy killer.

I keed, I keed...

But seriously.

I am sure the incoming AFCENT Deputy Commander/Deputy Combined Forces Air Component Commander appreciates it.

[Guest]

I am sure the incoming AFCENT Deputy Commander/Deputy Combined Forces Air Component Commander appreciates it.

You are? Why?

[Hacker]

I mean how do you put a value indicator on a guy who will happily charge into a hot HLZ with you, who's only thinking about how many Hadjis he's going to get to kill?

This is someone we clearly need to clone thousands of to replace the "warriors" currently occupying large parts of the USAF.

[BQZip01]

This is someone we clearly need to clone thousands of to replace the "warriors" currently occupying large parts of the USAF.

Did someone say clones?

[Napoleon_Tanerite]