Time to abolish the Air Force?

[daynightindicator]

Apologies in advance for slight thread derail, but I'll try to bring it back at the end...

They told us how Gucci the new CITS would be (that, for example, it would have common codes pre-programmed so you wouldn't have to type in a 20 digit alpha-numeric, that it would display 8 lines of data, etc). I'm not in the test squadron, so I haven't seen the new one yet, but I'll be a little disappointed if it really is just the same three lines we currently have.

The new CITS can display 19 PMCs at one time, can access PMCs via selecting an aircraft subsystem, converts volts and hex code into English values, and provides expanded CMC info (a "real" English message) when something flags. You can save code lists to a card and load it in the jet to avoid hand-jamming all your codes. It's far from perfect but it's a huge step forward, which is how I would describe SB-16 as a whole. Huge leap forward with some potholes that we'll have to deal with.

As for the radar display, that's a Northrop Grumman product (vice Boeing) so it's a separate upgrade (RMIP phase II/III). Still fighting for funding on that one and there are several COAs to include a possible but financially unlikely AESA. I'm actually going to get a look at the prototype RDU replacement next month at the Northrop facility in Baltimore - I'm looking forward to seeing what they've come up with.

The reason these systems are upgraded in the manner that they are is because it is increasingly difficult - nearly impossible, really - to ask for modifications and enhancements that bring new capabilities to 3rd and 4th gen aircraft. The F-22, F-35, and LRSB are sucking up all the acquisition money, so all that's really left is money for sustainment. They key for the ops/test communities in the old-school jets is to leverage sustainment funds in smart ways that will enhance capability.

Let's say you own a video game console - we'll say it's an Atari - and receive "sustainment" money every year to keep your capability of playing video games. Since Atari's and their components aren't being manufactured anymore, you would try to sell the gov't on the fact that to "sustain the capability," you need to purchase a new system (PS4). Obviously with a PS4 comes enhanced performance, but this request still falls under "sustainment." You make this argument by saying that life cycle costs will be reduced because now, instead of taking your broken Atari to some guy in his mom's basement who charges a million bucks to fix it, you can take your PS4 (which since it is new should have fewer problems anyway) to Best Buy if it craps out, or buy much cheaper replacement parts since they're still being manufactured on the open market.

We have to do the same thing with the jets/radars/etc. since there's very little money for true "upgrades" unless you're 5th-gen.

To bring this all the way around - if the USAF can't get costs for poorly negotiated acquisition programs under control, we'll abolish ourselves. It's mind-blowing how poorly we do acquisitions. Almost criminal from a taxpayer point of view.

[Vprdrvr69]

Apologies in advance for slight thread derail, but I'll try to bring it back at the end...

Lots of words....

To bring this all the way around - if the USAF can't get costs for poorly negotiated acquisition programs under control, we'll abolish ourselves. It's mind-blowing how poorly we do acquisitions. Almost criminal from a taxpayer point of view.

SHACK! We keep playing this retard game with acquisitions and keep getting the same result. Big bloated bureaucracies don't learn well and repeat mistakes over and over. Oh well, back to the force management thread!

[SuperWSO]

DMS = Diminishing Manufacturing Source. I think that was the justification for the VSD replacement and possibly the new INS. When absolutely no one makes an Atari any more, you can get the playstation, but we usually get the PS3.

When I was at the 337th, we were working the block D to Block E mod. One of the problems the AF ran into was that, by the time the SPO got done wringing out the PowerPC chips they wanted in the new ACUs, that version was no longer available. The new part had twice as much memory and ran faster, but it hadn't been tested. The AF finally had to press the "I believe" button and take the currently available part because they were stuck in a too slow testing spiral.

[Clark Griswold]

Apologies in advance for slight thread derail, but I'll try to bring it back at the end...

To bring this all the way around - if the USAF can't get costs for poorly negotiated acquisition programs under control, we'll abolish ourselves. It's mind-blowing how poorly we do acquisitions. Almost criminal from a taxpayer point of view.

Good way to put it, the AF really is suffering from a long series of self-inflicted wounds (mostly procurement fiascos) that have been compounding over a several decades. What is the solution to our crappy acquisitions process?

Just finished "Boyd" and the Bigger-Faster-Higher-Farther crowd appears to have won against the Fighter Mafia but are dragging the whole institution down the drain, to put it another way, how can you save the Air Force from itself?

[Junglejett]

The government does not let big corporations fail, even the undermanaged and wasteful ones...so the Air Force LLC is safe.

[deaddebate]

https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/download/deptula_11-05-15

SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE HEARING: Revisiting the Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces

Thursday, November 5, 2015

Witness statement of Lieutenant General David A. Deptula, USAF (Ret.)

[...]

However, while Air Force officers are perhaps the most joint of all the services (almost half the Air Force budget goes to enabling the other military services), they have been historically excluded from joint command and staff positions. To optimize the solutions that our military provides to the nation, it is imperative that the options of exploiting the dimensions of air, space, and cyberspace be well understood and considered in military course of action development, planning, and execution. However, the military can’t do any of those activities if Air Force leadership is absent from the key military organizations involved. To put this in context, here are the facts why this is an issue, and requires attention. From 2006 to early 2010, there were no U.S. Air Force officers in any of the top 11 positions in the Pentagon—the Chairman, the Vice Chairman, the Director, the J-1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 on the Joint Staff—almost 4 years with no leadership position on the joint staff. A look at the historical record of how the Air Force has fared in command assignments in the combatant commands is quite revealing. Since the establishment of regional combatant commands—the warfighting commands—on January 1st, 1947, there have been a total of 105 commanders—only 6 have been Air Force officers. That is less than 6 percent of the regional combatant commanders in the entire history of the Department of Defense have been from the Air Force. There is a story behind those statistics, and it is not a good one from a joint perspective. The issue here is not simply that the Air Force has not been given its “fair share” of joint task force command assignments, but that far more than just 6 percent of those areas of responsibility could have benefited from an air-centric perspective, as is the case in today’s fight against the Islamic State. Furthermore, the Air Force needs to look at itself in the mirror in this regard to appreciate more honestly how it grooms, selects, and offers officers for these critical positions. The situation involves more than just other-service prejudice and turf protection.

[...]

Air Force aerospace power will inevitably be pivotal in future wars. This is by far the most preeminent unifying theme that has emerged from the collective global combat experiences of the last quarter of a century. Operation Desert Storm in 1991; Operations Deliberate Force and Allied Force in the Balkans in 1995 and 1999, during the major combat phases of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in 2001; Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq in 2003, Operations Odyssey Dawn and Unified Protector conducted over Libya in 2011, and most recently, combat operations in Syria and resumed operations in Iraq. These operations underline the fact that the Air Force has been at war not just since 9/11/2001, but since 1991—now approaching 25 years. The nature of the modern security environment demands that we focus on not just sustaining, but accelerating Air Force contributions. Whether providing stand-alone options or serving as an integral part of joint operations, the Air Force is a vital national asset. Modern combat operations are simply not feasible without the capabilities afforded by the Air Force. Our nation has three services that possess air arms—the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. Those air arms primarily exist to facilitate their parent services’ core functions—their mastery of operations on the ground, at sea, or in a littoral environment. However, our nation has only one Air Force. Its reason for being is to exploit the global advantages of operating in the third dimension of air and space to directly achieve our security objectives around the world. It is this unique and specific focus of the Air Force that makes aerospace power America’s asymmetric advantage. Said another way, while the other branches of the U.S. military have localized air arms suited to supporting their respective domain activities, only the U.S. Air Force possess the capabilities and capacity required to facilitate sustained global operations anytime, anywhere—and the perspective to exploit those capabilities in a way no other armed service has the expertise to provide.

[...]

[SurelySerious]

Are we really sure we want Air Force officers in charge of more things they can mess up?

 

[TnkrToad]

Are we really sure we want Air Force officers in charge of more things they can mess up?

 

Clearly, you haven't spent much time in joint billets.

[Clark Griswold]

Are we really sure we want Air Force officers in charge of more things they can mess up?

Depends on which ones.  The average O-6 and above that has gone thru AF Shoe Clerk Fight Club training not so much.

The first rule of AF SC Fight Club is not necessarily to do a good job but to have nothing go wrong, embarrassing or awkward on your watch.  

The second rule is to do a good job if it is not in conflict with rule 1, a mediocre or even piss poor job is acceptable if rule 1 is preventing rule 2 from being accomplished.

From the JQP, a precisely worded moment of clarity:

the base has too many managers trying to zip around the base to too many make-work meetings under the pretense that anything they’re doing is actually important. 

and that gem reminded me of a related article I read a few days ago:

https://warontherocks.com/2015/11/its-time-to-upgrade-the-defense-department/

The focus of this article is the rise of tail at the expense of the tooth in the whole of the DoD, for the AF I would imagine it being par or greater than our sister services.  The micro management of the Died being just a prominent manifestation of this problem.  

Just dreaming here and this has 0.69% chance of happening but if we want to fix the AF, we need a panel of O's & E's in the mid range of rank and experience to go thru and just ask O-5's to O-8's & E-7's to E-9's...

 

[11F]

Thanks for posting, deaddebate. I'm currently on a 365 in the desert, and the Army staff of CJTF-OIR are nothing but a worthless waste of manpower and bureaucracy that get in the way of what the CAOC is meant to do -- FIGHT AN AIR WAR! Seriously, it's maddening. The joke "The word Joint is spelled A-R-M-Y" couldn't be more spot on.

[Clark Griswold]

Dr. Farley again discussing his idea for abolishing the AF.  More nuanced arguments with more historical references in this discussion than previous ones I have heard him make.  

He can pry my AF from my cold, dead hand but interesting none the less to hear the other side of an argument,

  

Edited June 18, 2016 by Clark Griswold
happy to glad

[SurelySerious]

Thanks for posting, deaddebate. I'm currently on a 365 in the desert, and the Army staff of CJTF-OIR are nothing but a worthless waste of manpower and bureaucracy that get in the way of what the CAOC is meant to do -- FIGHT AN AIR WAR! Seriously, it's maddening. The joke "The word Joint is spelled A-R-M-Y" couldn't be more spot on.

If you combine the raw bureaucracy of CJTF-OIR with a lack of any achievable goals at the top, it's a special kind of operation.

[Fuzz]

12 hours ago, SurelySerious said:

If you combine the raw bureaucracy of CJTF-OIR with a lack of any achievable goals at the top, it's a special kind of operation.

"Lack of achievable goals by regular Army personnel", the SOF is doing most of the heavy lifting while the regular Army at CJTF-OIR and CJFLCC-I sit around in their meetings/DCOs/VTCs talking about how they are going to do stuff. Unfortunately the regular Army is in charge of CJTF-OIR which the SOF fall under. So its fun (an really damn annoying) to watch the in-fighting between people doing work and people talking about doing work.

[TnkrToad]

14 hours ago, Clark Griswold said:

Dr. Farley again discussing his idea for abolishing the AF.  More nuanced arguments with more historical references in this discussion than previous ones I have heard him make.  

He can pry my AF from my cold, dead hand but interesting none the less to hear the other side of an argument,

  

Ugh. If one defines "nuance" as ignoring the lunacy that one can easily see in the way the Air Corps was treated by the Army prior to 1939--when one of the most pro-airpower presidents in history (FDR) pushed the most pro-airpower Army chief of staff in history (Marshall) to start building the Air Corps from its emaciated interwar state--then yeah, I'd say he might have a nuanced argument. I could go on with his selective use of history, but this is the problem when political scientists pretend to be historians. I think his idea of giving the Air Force back to the Army is moronic, but I'll bite.

The bottom line is this: sure, we could reorganize and get back to two services, but I don't think the Army would be all that happy with the way it would turn out. If we were to divvy up the services, I'd think we'd split it into (1) a high-readiness service, consistently deployed around the globe [you could call it the Navy if you really dislike the Air Force name and are happy with tradition unhindered by progress] and (2) a break glass-in-case-of-war service, that generally remains stateside [Army] that expands and shrinks, according to what overseas adventures our civ leaders find for us.

How would I split the services up?

- "Navy"--gets all AF's: tankers, airlifters, OSA, fighters [but for A-10], bombers, big wing recce, CSAR, AFSOF, Global Hawk, space [missiles, satellites, all of it], cyber, and the bulk of the training infrastructure. I probably missed something, but that should mostly cover it. Maybe if one service owned both land- and sea-based air, we might make more rational decisions about using carrier battle fleets to do jobs that land-based air can do as well or better...around the clock. 

-- BTW, if you really want to rationalize force structure, the Army's THAAD and probably Patriot should also go to this new "Navy." It would put all air theater air defense capabilities in one service. Come to think of it, I could probably make a strong case for handing the Ranger Regiment over to MARSOC...it would put the nation's "911" force all in the same service

- Army--gets AF's: Preds, Reapers, A-10s . . . the stuff that primarily exists to directly support conventional ground users. They could buy all the Super Tucanos, C-27s, RC-12s, etc., they want to directly support ground users. Of course, the Army would have to get rid of stuff that has nothing to do with direct support to ground users [THAAD & Patriot above come to mind]

-- This way, the Army could focus on their two-dimensional world, where all that matters to them is defined by the ground they own and the fixed-wing assets that only support them (rather than all joint/combined users across big theaters), and the amalgamated Air Force/Navy could own the oceans, air, space and cyber and non-CAS missions

The podcast brought up an interesting point about USAFA--what would happen to it? I've got an idea for that: a Merchant Aviation Academy. 

- People who want to kill people and break things overseas--in air/space/cyberspace/over, on and under the sea--go to USNA

- People who want to defend the homeland--in air/at sea--go to USCGA

- People who want to make money driving civilian boats--go to US Merchant Marine Academy at King's Point

- People who want to make money flying civilian planes/launching rockets for SpaceX--go to the US Merchant Air & Space Academy at Colorado Springs [on the grounds of the former USAFA]

- People who think two-dimensionally and/or who aspire to be Fortune 500 CEOs--go to West Point, then into the Army 

Would my plan work? Perhaps. The funny thing is, it would ultimately end up in one service being even more dominant at the joint level (and it wouldn't be the Army), and with the addition of a whole bunch more land-based aviation, aviators would likely become even more dominant in the Navy than they already are.  

TT

 

[Clark Griswold]

5 hours ago, TnkrToad said:

Ugh. If one defines "nuance" as ignoring the lunacy that one can easily see in the way the Air Corps was treated by the Army prior to 1939--when one of the most pro-airpower presidents in history (FDR) pushed the most pro-airpower Army chief of staff in history (Marshall) to start building the Air Corps from its emaciated interwar state--then yeah, I'd say he might have a nuanced argument. I could go on with his selective use of history, but this is the problem when political scientists pretend to be historians. I think his idea of giving the Air Force back to the Army is moronic, but I'll bite.

The bottom line is this: sure, we could reorganize and get back to two services, but I don't think the Army would be all that happy with the way it would turn out. If we were to d

-- TT

 

Nuance was the best way I could describe it but it seemed in the interview he was making what seemed to be a "softer" argument(s) for his idea, which I am only about 10000% opposed to.  No argument that rearranging the deck chairs from 3 groups to 2 groups would probably not have that much affect or if it did it might have the opposite effect he (I and I suspect others think he has which is to massively expand the size and missions of the US Army).  

I imagine that most who believe in reviving the Army Air Corps are animated by hindsight and interpreting US military history failures as often involving a disconnected / ambivalent AF, some of it deserved most of it not. 

Follow on:  I emailed Prof Farley and asked him to participate in this thread, I hope he establishes an account and does so, would be interesting.

Most of the complaint about the AF even when it was the AAC/AAF was it has always favored Air Interdiction and Strategic Attack at the expense of CAS, the USMC might have the same complaint about the Navy, fix that and our habit of gold plating our procurement and much external critique falls apart. 

Edited June 19, 2016 by Clark Griswold
lasr thing

[TnkrToad]

3 hours ago, Clark Griswold said:

Nuance was the best way I could describe it but it seemed in the interview he was making what seemed to be a "softer" argument(s) for his idea, which I am only about 10000% opposed to.  No argument that rearranging the deck chairs from 3 groups to 2 groups would probably not have that much affect or if it did it might have the opposite effect he (I and I suspect others think he has which is to massively expand the size and missions of the US Army).  

I imagine that most who believe in reviving the Army Air Corps are animated by hindsight and interpreting US military history failures as often involving a disconnected / ambivalent AF, some of it deserved most of it not. 

Follow on:  I emailed Prof Farley and asked him to participate in this thread, I hope he establishes an account and does so, would be interesting.

Most of the complaint about the AF even when it was the AAC/AAF was it has always favored Air Interdiction and Strategic Attack at the expense of CAS, the USMC might have the same complaint about the Navy, fix that and our habit of gold plating our procurement and much external critique falls apart. 

Copy all--sorry, didn't mean to nitpick your word choice. Mostly I was reacting to reviews of his work that say his argument is somehow sophisticated or insightful. In my mind, many of the Air Force's issues for its first two to three decades as an independent service can be traced to the way the Army treated its AAC/AAF. It'd be interesting to see him on the forum. 

TT

[Clark Griswold]

1 hour ago, TnkrToad said:

Copy all--sorry, didn't mean to nitpick your word choice. Mostly I was reacting to reviews of his work that say his argument is somehow sophisticated or insightful. In my mind, many of the Air Force's issues for its first two to three decades as an independent service can be traced to the way the Army treated its AAC/AAF. It'd be interesting to see him on the forum. 

TT

No worries, no offense taken and no hurt feelings report required.  

I emailed his .edu account I found and hopefully the e-mail doesn't get just routed as junk.  I would really be interested in his participation also as his opinion is based on his academic experience and research and he is well accomplished in that respect.

But it runs so contrary to everything I have seen in my experience as an AF officer that I have to check myself.  I am fully willing to concede that as an AF officer I am biased against his proposition but I considered his opinion from reading several articles on his book and idea, listening to a few interviews / discussions he has given on it and reflecting on my experience, military science and history education, organizational knowledge and have concluded not just no but hell no.  Not the most eloquent response but that's my answer now to get credit you have to show your work...

In relation to Airpower, they see it as only a tool to the ground commander, in reality it is both, an independent action and supporting action.  Extending their idea, anything that separates the ground commander from control over Airpower is a hindrance to be eliminated.  The problem is that it is likely we would not have Airpower that would be relevant at all the levels it is required to win wars, not just battles, if a ground-centric leadership were shaping Airpower.  From Army Aviation bubbas I have had the honor to serve with, they even complained that Army Aviation was poorly used / understood by Army ground commanders and they're in the same service.  

To light a candle and not just curse the darkness, we need to train / exercise together more in not just the same canned LFEs but new scenarios that will force cross service coordination, have exchanges at the squadron / company level at Company grade officer land junior NCO levels and PME at every level should be joint and hosted / taught by a mixture of officers & NCOs from all the branches.

 

[SurelySerious]

On 6/19/2016 at 0:21 AM, Fuzz said:

"Lack of achievable goals by regular Army personnel", the SOF is doing most of the heavy lifting while the regular Army at CJTF-OIR and CJFLCC-I sit around in their meetings/DCOs/VTCs talking about how they are going to do stuff. Unfortunately the regular Army is in charge of CJTF-OIR which the SOF fall under. So its fun (an really damn annoying) to watch the in-fighting between people doing work and people talking about doing work.

When you look at it from the perspective that big Army's purpose is to conduct maneuvers to gain and hold land...it makes total sense that big Army guys are just sitting on their hands doing nothing because our troops aren't out there doing that...just SOF and special skills folks advising or whatever they call it.  So what they really need is to just take most of big Army out of the chain and trim the fat.  That would help with the bureaucracy part a bit (although less infighting entertainment).

Then, if they would drop some actual achievable goals, it would be great.  Our forces are great at fighting force-on-force, and our counter-terrorism is spot-on...but now they're nearly at the insurgency phase of existence.  And we all know how well that goes.

[Fuzz]

11 hours ago, SurelySerious said:

When you look at it from the perspective that big Army's purpose is to conduct maneuvers to gain and hold land...it makes total sense that big Army guys are just sitting on their hands doing nothing because our troops aren't out there doing that...just SOF and special skills folks advising or whatever they call it.  So what they really need is to just take most of big Army out of the chain and trim the fat.  That would help with the bureaucracy part a bit (although less infighting entertainment).

Then, if they would drop some actual achievable goals, it would be great.  Our forces are great at fighting force-on-force, and our counter-terrorism is spot-on...but now they're nearly at the insurgency phase of existence.  And we all know how well that goes.

Yeah that was my point, even the A/A/A we see is done by SOF, but yet big Army is calling the shots. Also they are pretty bad about failing to listen to what the Iraqis value as important objectives and continually trying to force our way or doing things on them instead of enabling them towards their goals. Sure it's a little slower, but if it defeats ISIS in the end and keeps the GoI credible who cares?

[Clark Griswold]

Article related to the idea of getting rid of the AF, this guy (retired AF Lt Col William Astore), argues Air Power ain't all that...

https://warisboring.com/dominating-the-skies-and-losing-the-wars-713819dcc441#.xph2o2xg5

His bio from the article and his blog (https://bracingviews.com/) says he taught at the Zoo (History) - was he a professor for anyone here on the forum?

When you read these type of articles and they are just from random academics, bloggers, writers, raving lunatics, etc... you get what drives them or the illusion / appearance that drives their argument(s), that the AF doesn't give a shit about supporting the Ground Forces.  I disagree with that on a basic level but given some of the less than perfect procurement decisions we have or have not done in the past few years:

Ditching the JCA when we got control of the program, never procuring a LAAR for on demand tactical ISR (Overwatch, Route Scan, etc...) & CAS, getting chewed out by the then SECDEF and only then surging ISR with MC-12s and now we are stepping on our dick to get rid of the A-10, etc...

One can see how it is possible for the poorly informed to think we are not interested in supporting Ground Forces, so for the good of the AF, why not dedicate a portion, an appreciable portion to this highly sensitive and visible mission to defeat the perception that you don't care?

I'm sorry but if we can't afford to fly these relatively inexpensive airframes in again relatively small numbers (maybe 75-100 tails) with a $140 Billion dollar budget then we need to get a cranium-rectum extraction

   

 

 

[Sprkt69]

Those who love to power chug the blue koolaid will often comment that in an austere fiscal environment, the services will go vector toward their core competencies. This does not not include COIN for the AF as it reeks of Army operations. 

One, and just one B-1 deployment could have purchased suitable off the shelf COIN aircraft for the inventory. I have heard the amazing questions from the mental juggernauts in the O-8+ ranks asking who would want to fly such machines with such high risk. Or even taking the stance that the AF should not be involved in Afghanistan or Iraq as that is not our mission. 

Why must we relearn past lessons learned, especially when those in power were raised by the guys who last fought a COIN with specialized aircraft?

[ATIS]

11 hours ago, Sprkt69 said:

I have heard the amazing questions from the mental juggernauts in the O-8+ ranks asking who would want to fly such machines with such high risk.

I just threw up a little in my mouth.

John Paul " “I wish to have no Connection with any Ship that does not Sail fast
        for I intend to go in harm's way.” Jones (and many others) are rolling over in their graves.

ATIS

[Clark Griswold]

11 hours ago, Sprkt69 said:

Those who love to power chug the blue koolaid will often comment that in an austere fiscal environment, the services will go vector toward their core competencies. This does not not include COIN for the AF as it reeks of Army operations. 

One, and just one B-1 deployment could have purchased suitable off the shelf COIN aircraft for the inventory. I have heard the amazing questions from the mental juggernauts in the O-8+ ranks asking who would want to fly such machines with such high risk. Or even taking the stance that the AF should not be involved in Afghanistan or Iraq as that is not our mission. 

Why must we relearn past lessons learned, especially when those in power were raised by the guys who last fought a COIN with specialized aircraft?

Yup - I have heard that anecdote before and it never ceases to disgust or amaze me, how can that GO say that and not dishonor the memory of WWII pilots flying headlong into fields of FLAK, Sabre pilots flying to MiG Alley in Korea or Thud drivers taking the mighty 105 over Hanoi or Stealth Drivers going into Iraq first, etc, etc. etc, too many examples of courage to list... this is easy for me to say sitting here at 0 knots and 0 feet with 0 threats on me right now but there is inherent risk to what we do, I have seen a tad, not nearly as much as others, but a tad of risk, it is an accepted part of the life we chose, it is their job to lead us responsibly not keep us in a bubble where nothing bad could ever happen...

[raimius]

The Super-T/Light CAS combo is one of the few things that would get me to just about instantly volunteer for something.  
If the O-8s think the troops don't want that kind of thing...there must be more than one USAF, because that's not the one I'm in.

[sqwatch]

Yup - I have heard that anecdote before and it never ceases to disgust or amaze me, how can that GO say that and not dishonor the memory of WWII pilots flying headlong into fields of FLAK, Sabre pilots flying to MiG Alley in Korea or Thud drivers taking the mighty 105 over Hanoi or Stealth Drivers going into Iraq first, etc, etc. etc, too many examples of courage to list... this is easy for me to say sitting here at 0 knots and 0 feet with 0 threats on me right now but there is inherent risk to what we do, I have seen a tad, not nearly as much as others, but a tad of risk, it is an accepted part of the life we chose, it is their job to lead us responsibly not keep us in a bubble where nothing bad could ever happen...

You're on the right track with "0 knots 0 feet", but the rest? I don't follow the logic. The last thing I want to do is pack it in because it's the cheap option and I don't buy that a b-1 deployment could pay for the acquisition AND training / mx to support any MWS, no matter how cool a super Tucano looks in you Facebook feed or on some bean counter's spread sheet. Lastly, when you pay the costs in PR and dollars of a downed pilot, all of the sudden those gbu-54s dropped from a viper are a great fvcking deal.