Leaderboard

The original vision for the association was mixed support to FTU and ops, and we had half the squadron aligned with and actively flying the FTU mission. But RegAF asked us to support the combat squadron exclusively, and at that time most of our FTU augments pulled chocks because they weren't looking to deploy at that stage of their lives. The billets that came from the 9th/28th were vacant UMD billets that hadn't actually been filled by AFPC in some time. It cost the 28th zero actual personnel, the requirement for the 28th to maintain some people CMR to support 9th deployments went away, and seeing as the B-Course classes are 1/3rd smaller now and the FTU is out of the TX and FIC flying business, the demand signal on the FTU is demonstrably down. When we were told to support the combat squadron we naturally adjusted our hiring strategy and brought in more off the street and crossflow guys, so naturally we need our instructors to instruct our non-instructors... Not to mention supporting MQT, upgrade, FIC etc. at the 9th [who we associate with, not are "part of"]. And we are required by our MAJCOM to fly our own Flying Hour Program, so while we did the rainbow crew thing as we were standing up [we're still "standing up," we've only gotten to 2/3rds of our planned footprint so far], now sometimes we just need our instructors butts in seats, flying the line, making RAP, and getting CT. Instructor CT is a good thing... Especially when we rainbow up in the deployed arena as we should. When we've gotten a specific request from the FTU that we could actually support (i.e. not three months ago, when we were deployed) we've sent people... Case in point, two of our IWSOs flew with them this month. And two of our new hires (1x IP/1x IWSO) are going to live/work primarily in the FTU (with the caveat that they have to stay CMR and will have to deploy). But our force structure can't change on a dime just because one year RegAF wants us all-in on ops and two years later new local leadership wants us back in the schoolhouse in a big way... Especially because while RegAF's near rock may be FTU production, AFRC's long game is B-21 involvement and at Dyess that means Ops/Test/WIC, not FTU. There are two parties to this association, and AFRC is not going to let the other party unilaterally dictate our priorities. RegAF needs our Ops/Mx manpower and we need RegAF's iron, so we each hold some of the cards, and we (ARC) know we aren't going to get everything we want, but when y'all don't get everything you want it isn't because we have bad attitudes. It's because we're pursuing our organizational interests (from Sq to NAF to MAJCOM) like any rational group of people.

Okay, thanks for clarifying that.

No thanks, I'll take the knife set.

Which is kind of the core problem, IMHO. "Black lives matter" as a concept is really not controversial in any way. Yes, anyone who believes that all humans are individuals and of equal objective value philosophically can confidently agree with that. We might disagree on the degree to which the statement relies on an unproven implication that society inherently values the lives of individuals with a certain skin pigment less than other individuals with a different skin pigment, but that's leading us down a different path of discussion Unfortunately, "Black Lives Matter", the organization and movement is something that is completely different and stands for something that is completely different than the plain English phrase means (as evidenced by their now-deleted "what we believe" webpage. So, just like with a lot of sophistry used in the name of advocacy, not being in support of "Black Lives Matter" (the organization) gets to be weaponized against whomever states it as "racist" (or whatever other word from the deplorables litany one wishes to arm themselves with) by intentionally co-mingling the concept with the org.

Not by a long shot. BLM is protesting for a forced Marxist-style transfer of social power and financial wealth from whom they perceive are the "haves" to whom they perceive are the "have nots"...in the name of "equity" (e.g. equality of outcome; where we all have the same social power and we all have the same financial means). That has absolutely zero to do with the status of being "equal before the law", which is what actual "equality" is in a western democracy. Equality and liberty in a free society comes with no promise of social status or financial wealth, good or bad.

Man this thread has aged terribly... now back to digging again because the search function isn’t finding what I am looking for.

The flying wing design isn't necessarily something new...

It’s bad. I’ve heard many say that an “11/10” on the scale of how bad it is would be an understatement. Solarwinds stores network topology, configuration, and credentials for all of those organizations. The Air Force is also a prime user. If the network was a bank, the hackers would have access to floor plans, schedules, vault keys and maybe even have an inside man still depending on the level of compromise. CISA/DHS is saying that if you have Solarwinds installed (or Orion) that was updated since March of this year, you need to assume everything in your network is compromised. It’s actually insane how big of a deal this is. Many affected companies and organizations are literally talking about entire server rebuilds of everything. SIPR is just one example of a potentially entirely compromised network: https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-12-18-pentagon-orders-shutdown-classified-networks-solarwinds-orion.html#

Well, no. I have no questions about what a cyber red team is. I was just curious if you knew what one was.

https://theintercept.com/2020/12/24/solarwinds-hack-power-infrastructure/ I’m completely uneducated in cyber security and the likes. However even I know that the password for an update server shouldn’t be your company name with 123 on the end of it. Any input on this? US Government was listed as a customer of solarwinds/sunburst. Along with like 452 of the Fortune 500 companies. How far could they (hackers) have reached, what could already be done that hasn’t even been looked at yet? The article mostly focuses on the power grid/production side of it. While seemingly trying to downplay the severity of it. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Fortunately, there's a solution. https://imgur.com/gallery/BlK4jzM

But come on? No ball turret or waist gunners?