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Yes. Although the Cathay flight is my doing - not the company's. They had me direct to CAN on Air France in business class for $6400. I decided to deviate from their plan, found the first class ticket on Cathay for $5500. Saved me some $ for other travel expenses, got a better ride, some AA frequent flyer miles and all it costs me is a 2 hour connection in Hong Kong. That should be enough time to stop by their lounge for a free foot massage and a few fingers of 18 year old single malt (ah.. who am I kidding, it'll probably be at least a whole hand).

Are you going to yell at someone to get off your patch of sand next?

It's not that this place is even that bad; by deployed standards it's pretty decent. It's just so much crappier than it needs to be. We're like a half hour from a major city in one of the highest human development index countries in this part of the world, and yet many of the buildings are falling apart, the food is not great, and the comm infrastructure sucks (not just wifi, Nipr and Sipr outages are a constant occurance at work). It's not like the war is right outside the gate, this base could be pretty nice if it wasn't run like a prison and treated like a dump by some of the people that live here.

So today a good guy with a gun in a school stopped a bad guy with a gun in a school. Liberal skulls exploding everywhere.

Affirm. Not Cannon. http://www.cannon.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1198568/legacy-lost-the-524th-special-operations-squadron-moves-on/

Sucks to suck! Lol

I didn't even apply and I got one. I must really suck!

I thought I was in heaven when I got regular mail service and read these things us old guys called letters that were soaked in perfume. Coffee was those tasters choice packets out of a MRE. When we got 2 week old Stars and Stripes we scored, crap somebody beat me to the crossword.

Or no one was killed by cancer, or died in an auto accident, or got sick from eating Tide pods...

That's f-ing awesome. Didn't you also say you have your great-grandfather's original pilot license signed by Orville Wright?

I think we all know the answer to that. It's pretty satisfying that the guy he was criticizing got the invite but he didn't.

Do it. Good flying. Good location. Good people.

Anyone know if our favorite Buckley applicant got the call?

Well I picked up this new toy today, the M&P 15-22, for $335 + $35 local FFL fee (seem to remember it being $20 last time, but oh well). I haven't shot it yet, but it seems like it will be a blast to play with. My initial impressions are that it is very light, and feels very plasticy - almost like a toy - because, well it's made mostly of plastic/polymer. It feels about half as light as a real AR, and the magazine didn't slide out when I hit the release. The charging handle doesn't come out as far either, but I read about that and the polymer upper/lower thing so none of this was a surprise. The MBUS sights and stock are as expected - real. Also moving the safety felt kind of cheap (again due to the polymer) and you can see the model number is molded into the polymer as opposed to stamped like it would be with metal. But no big deal there either. Seems to break down similar to a regular AR as well. While at the local gun store, I handled the Shield as well as the Glock 43. I'm tall with XL hands (at least that's what size nitrile gloves and Home Depot work glove size I wear, LOL). The 43 didn't fit in my hand - I thought they sawed off the last inch of the grip. I asked the lady for the pinky extension thing and she said it was already on! The Shield was a very comfortable fit, and my pinky sat nicely on the extension of the +1 magazine that comes with it. From online reading only, i was all but sold on the Glock 43, but now I am totally sold on the M&P shield (maybe next month after the wife finds out about this last buy). There was something about the grip as well that just felt right. I didn't have time to shoot either of them (they have rentals there at the range). So I wanted the Shield with the thumb safety, but they only had the 9mm without for $430, which I thought was a tad high. She did have a .40 Shield, with safety and with Crimson Trace laser for $430 also. That seemed like a great deal, but I am not sure if I want to go the .40 route, mainly due to the ammo cost and because I think ammo will go up in price in the future as more departments get away from that caliber. Plus I hadn't even considered a laser on a concealed carry until playing with this one. It didn't add hardly any weight or extra length/width to the pistol. Both the .40 and the 9mm shield seemed to weight the exact same and have almost the exact same dimensions. You lose a round with the .40, but according the lady there, the .40 packs much more of a punch (I know, I know, there is a lot of controversy there and it wasn't the time to start a long discussion with her). The crappy thing is that I will have to pay local sales tax, which would make the above guns more in the $470 range each. I can find these online for like $320 with a $30 FFL fee. Part of me wants to buy local and support the local shop, especially after the help they gave me, but a big part of me feels like I am getting ripped off with the $100+ higher price.

I actually can't really complain because AMD will soon be leaving the CAOC and setting up in a new CONUS facility. So this rotation is finally the much desired end of AMD at Al Udeid!

FIFY.

How do you think I feel...I thought I was really good at flying and I made O-6 BPZ...I guess I am lucky I haven't crashed into a tree yet.

Holy hell, maybe it’s the 4.5 hours I just spent in an ejection seat and only spent 15 seconds upside down but F-ck me!!!! Us old salty sport b-tching bastards have complained so much we have UPT bound cadets worried. Alright Bird12, listen up, because you are wrong. If anything the ship is righting itself from what I see, but Us old dudes were on board when it was sinking so different view People on here have generally been/there, done that, diverse backgrounds/experiences. I get tired of my buddies b-tching about the same things I’m bitching about in the sq bar over the same brand of scotch so I read this forum. I want to hear how lousy the poor bastard flying the other jet has it so I can feel better -or- how good he has it so I can complain that community x gets all the good deals and wtf was I thinking taking the bonus because xx is at delta making $xx and here the f-ck I am getting $3.50 per day not allowed to drink beer on St Paddy’s day. Sport bitching is in fact a sport among pilots. (Hence the name) Very few of us really hate our jobs or the USAF. Perspective. I had a brand new straight out of MQT Lt on my wing in the AO, we flew a 4.5 hr mission full of in my opinion, sh-tty taskings, sh-tty scenery, sh-tty tankers, ATC, well you name it, to me it was all sh-t minus the 2 x barrel rolls in the descent. When we got out of the jet I wanted to apologize for his first sortie in the AO being so sh-tty. He was smiling ear to ear. My sh-tty 200th AAR was his first on that type of tanker. My sh-tty 200th time over the desert was his first. He loved it See my point. So you f-cking should be excited bird12, you got a chance at the coolest job in the world. Keep some perspective and know who you are listening to on this forum. If I were in your shoes I’d pay good money for the flight I did today however at my age/experience I’d just assume send someone else so I could sit in ops, drink coffee and complain about how f-cking stupid the USAF leadership is, how I’m not getting paid enough, how cool the Cold War days were, how great the airlines are according to my friends etc. Out

Is this the DRAM thing? Several years ago Travis AFB declared that every flying squadron wasn’t allowed to pour beer in the bar unless everyone was trained to recognize when somebody was drunk. Seemed to us at the time to be an obvious plot to get people to drink in their shitty combined club. The OG recognized the bullshit ploy, but was made to enforce it anyway. He held a special CC call and told us the bad news. Then, after watching a 5min video used for training Applebee’s waitresses, he declared the entire OG to be “DRAM OK”, pulled back the curtain to reveal a bunch of kegs and solo cups, and gave us the rest of the day off. A great piece of theater, and the only cool thing he ever did.

"personing" the grill, please

We're conflating topics here gentlemen. AFRC white jet dude != AD white jet dude. Much to the grimacing of Active Duty, there is a difference, or at least there used to be one. Invol IA for the institutional reserves is a game changer, and one that the sycophants at the puzzle palace seem to be seriously underestimating. AFRC does 22% of UPT/IFF/PIT pull on 17% of the effective manning. AETC is already on the record stating they cannot meet current production, let alone the surge, without the AFRC piece. Even the pipe dream of some in AETC, the elimination of the Reserve Associate IP Program, is statistical vaporware in a regAF already 2000 flyers in the red at-large. Pulling this invol non-flying IA stunt will yield effective manning below 50% in the less desirable GSUs for the AFRC side, just like the Navy Reserve folks learned in the late 00s/early 10s, as @Buddy Spike already alluded to. The BL is that this will directly impact AETC's ability to come up with the pilot production surge HAF is clamoring for, especially in these new days of UPT-Next and other assorted faggotry. Regardless of the fact we all understand the AF has a retention problem and NOT a production one, the fact remains UPT is the flavor of the year for HAF, good bad or indifferent. This move will not help AETC. It would be ironic if they had any hand in suggesting this myopic COA to the HAF against their supporting MAJCOM (AFRC). I have not heard any supporting evidence that AETC had a hand in this, so I'll reserve judgement on that end. At the end of the day, and as far as I'm concerned, AFRC just showed their cards. There's no going back now. There's is no amount of dollars they could throw at me in this environment to sign a retention agreement of any kind in the AFRC or ANG. Maybe wiser heads will prevail, maybe not. But they are truly asleep at the wheel if they don't recognize the sheer attrition they're about to cause themselves by doubling down on this checkers-move decision that benefits neither AETC or AFRC, only CENTCOM. Biggest moral hazard I've seen in all my years in AFRC. This isn't bluffing, the Navy Res has all the data already. How the eff do you think we know? We hired their exodus!

So, looks like I'll be running straight up the gut for the next year and a half. Selected September 2017, inprocessed this past week with the 340th FTG at Randolph. OTS: 9 Jan to 9 Mar ...2 days later: SERE: 12 Mar to 30 Mar ...4 days later: Water survival: 4 Apr to 5 Apr ...5 days of driving later: UPT (Vance): 10 Apr (report date), 24 Apr 2018 to May 2019. Not only did I get SERE before UPT and 2 days after OTS, but no real breaks in training, just PCS travel days. Let's get this party started!