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Launch at 4:30pm EDT today (27MAY):

You won't be disappointed with the experience. I was given a UPT slot with Alaska in 2014 with welcome arms. If anything, its a great reason to visit Anchorage for a day or two.

Weather canx 😕 next attempt Saturday at 1522 eastern according to NASA.

I went for testing a couple of weeks ago. Can’t comment on the medical aspect, but the only difference I saw due to ‘rona was everyone had to meet in a conference room at the MEPS hotel and get their temps taken, and the recruiter had to sign a form saying that you were appropriately quarantined. This wasn’t a huge deal (though me and 2 other AF OCS potential were the only ones with paperwork issues, figure that), but something additional. The AF liaison got us all squared away with our messed up forms.

I talked to the POC listed for Beale in early March and they sent me an application. However, they said they'd just been assigned some pilots from UPT and didn't plan on having a hiring board soon. Granted, things can change fast, so its encouraging to see the job posting.

I went in April. Seemed pretty much the same as described above. Except you have to wear masks now and they try to keep up the social distancing part to the best of their ability. Other than that, pretty much the same deal. The physical was probably a little less intrusive because of the social distancing deal, but still thorough. (I.e. the physicial couldnt really check out my throat or nostrils or get close to do those kinds of checks. Interview with the doc was easy. Keep to what you wrote on your form. No new information needs to be given and dont lie about anything. It seemed like there may have been a bit of preferential treatment since I had the "red" commissioning folder instead of the regular enlistee tan folder, but not much if any really. Just listen to directions and you'll be in and out. Its amazing how many people cant follow simple directions because they are so uptight/concentrated on not screwing up lol.

Guys, guys, guys! This is not how online discourse between flyers is supposed to work! Not one of you used the term “libtard” or referenced the “orange man.” I think we should all take few minutes to peruse Airline Pilot Central (pick a thread, any thread), then come back here and discuss this topic like mature adults with internet anonymity.

You would rather have Schwartz? Hope you’re wearing your blues right now, it is Monday after all.

Please stop referencing things that remind me I might need an age waiver soon, ok??

If you were to make masks "mandatory" for airline travel, what would your criteria be? - Medical research shows that if they are not tight fitting, the efficacy diminishes. How do you measure/determine if they fit well enough? - Can people hang their nose over the mask? - I'm on a 17 hour flight to Singapore: do I get breaks when I can remove it? How long? Do I only do it when in the lavatory? - We give accommodations to people that need support animals because of various emotional issues such as PTSD. What about those that have claustrophobia and find a mask to simply be impossible to don? What accommodations will we make for them? - What materials are acceptable? One research study I read stated that 600 count cotton along with two sheets of chiffon (made from polyester or spandex) was one of the most effective combinations. However, I've seen some pretty shaky homemade masks that don't appear go do much of anything. Who decides what is allowed and what isn't? Is the person deciding trained to know the difference?

definitely thought you meant real grenades for a min. then i remembered the jersey shore

If I ask you to show up with 5 beautiful woman and you show up with 6 grenades how would you think I will feel? moral of the story: follow the instructions. Provide what was asked of you.

This is the most terrible justification in the entire philosophical pantheon.

masks are such bullshit "but it couldn't hurt" lots of things "couldnt hurt" but we dont fucking do them. its about power and control now, NOT public health.

As a lieutenant, I spent a month shuttling cargo out of an airfield somewhere hot and desert-like to shut a base down during a “drawdown,” only to fly to the same ICAO as an AC to deliver infrastructure to support a less politically visible mission. I’d say that about sums up what’s wrong with the military as a whole. Policy has to change above the DOD level before it starts to feel better, in my opinion. Shutting down qweep deployments will help, but it won’t solve anything long term. I honestly thought my non-flying deployment to Incirlik was a nice break from the grind. It was 4 months of my commander telling me to do my job and don’t ing bother him if things were going well. Got more drinking and reading done than I ever have in my life!

I’m jealous of you having 19 months between deployments.

Appreciate the good words-- it's always been about trying to make sense of this crazy ride. whether it's barbs and spears I'm throwing, or making reflections of, or commentary on, things I've seen--the artwork (and sometimes the writing) serves, for me at least, as the medium through which I'm exploring, coping, and sometimes trying to shape. There's more that's never seen the light of day (sometimes that's a good thing), and I'm working on (yet another) side project that puts everything together-- from the first days of the Dodo as a SMACK at the zoo, through eDodo and anything in between. There's a lot of started-but-never-finished projects in there... alot of things that started as good ideas but just ran out of time or inspiration... One of the projects that I still consider one of the greatest missed opportunity was an attempted collaboration with other mil cartoonists around the 2009 timeframe. Air Force Blues was at its heyday... the B-52 toon kicked ass, and there were mil cartoonists that were just killing it left and right. I had the idea that we could all get together on a collaboration that took our characters to a Red Flag-- the audience would see the same scene from multiple perspectives such as the initial mass brief-- each artist would tell a part of the story (and you'd see the others in the background or silhouetted to keep the continuity... it'd progress through the flying and culminate in an absolute riot of a Friday night that I envisioned would be like the hotel scene in the Reno 911 movie... and then we'd all retreat to our individual comics again with a slight walk-of-shame cloud hanging over us all in a "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" moment. Never even made it past the idea stage... and then we all just seemed to grow up overnight and our works were overcome by events. It is funny how things come full circle... and now being on the backside of the power curve, I feel like I've got a little more time to get back to the works. Man, it was so much easier when eDodo was around. Times have changed though... social media eclipsed most websites, and humor has been pushed into sound-byte clips that can be quickly digested by instagram users; I wonder how eDodo would even be received by the current generation, though I suspect that. like most cult-followings, it would take root again and flap its fat little wings to make waves... just like always. Cheers, Zero

If only... Japanese US-2 Seaplane would be my choice if the resources and solid requirement were there for a military seaplane: Now, not to inflame righteous indignation over the controversial topic of aircraft that self-identify as amphibious, there could be some argument made for a capability to reach and supply far flung bases in the Pacific / Indian Ocean theaters that either have little or no infrastructure or in the event that infrastructure (runway, port, helipad, etc...) was destroyed by long-range attack (conventional ballistic missile, cruise or stand-off weapons). The case for a fixed-wing amphibious aircraft would be for a longer unrefuelled range with a greater payload vs a rotary wing or tilt-rotor aircraft, for a land or sea landing/takeoff. With typical hot & humid conditions, that would further erode vertical takeoff / landing performance, the option of a fixed wing water takeoff at a higher GW becomes more valuable. Expensive aircraft for a niche but potentially valuable capability ($116 mil a copy when offered to India in 2016 - ouch that's a lot) but if you were nation with your national interests linked to ocean power projection capabilities with a sometimes bullying neighbor, you might want that...

Yeah we can’t allow a “flying boat gap” to develop. Probably need to prioritize this right after F-35, KC-46, B-21, new ICBM, Light Attack, 6th gen Air Dominance, hypersonics, nuclear cruise missile, fixing hurricane damaged F-22s, stopping the invasion of Central Americans, Space Force, maintaining the Afghan live fire training range........