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Time to send them back to the Guard so our MX guys can unfuck them again, then the AD can take them back.

Listening to a podcast on my way home from the airport and it's been estimated than "the Ferguson effect", I.e. the pullback by law enforcement as a result of the Michael Brown shooting, led to 1000 to 6000 more deaths since it happened. The carnage is going to be worse going forward.

I spent hours looking at what was presented in the Chauvin trial. If not a single juror could find reasonable doubt to any of the charges brought against Chauvin, we have a real problem with media influence. I was in the "lock him up" group until recently. Now I can't help but wonder if the media is intentionally focusing on cases that are "questionable" in order to further divide the population. Michael Brown, George Zimmerman, and now Floyd. Either outright fabrications or very difficult to parse, but never clearly racist murders. Those cases seem to just fade into the noise. This man had 3 times the fatal dose of fentanyl in his system. Plus meth. He was foaming from the mouth, a clear symptom of Fentanyl overdose. "I ate too many drugs." Saliva covered pills in the back of the police cruiser. The prosecution witnesses were almost comically irrelevant in the first couple days, yet they were permitted to take the stand. The MMA "effort" witness was a joke. The prosecution's own witnesses confirmed the validity of the restraint method used by Chauvin. The paramedics had to drive three blocks away before administering first aid because of the angry crowd. The video showing Floyd fight his way out of the cop car, already screaming that he couldn't breath (also a symptom of Fentanyl and meth overdose). Innocent? Who knows. But not a single reasonable doubt? Between holding the trial in Minneapolis, a sitting congresswoman calling for increased confrontation, the mayor saying the police are at fault regardless of the verdict, and the judge failing to sequester the jury until the end, I hope his appeal judges have more courage than the jury did. I don't suspect this is going to do any favors to the rapidly rising murder rate in America.

A few random and/or cool things happened this week that I couldn't find where to post appropriately, so my intent on this thread is for those items that aren't "WTF," as that, to me, has a negative to shocking connotation and the items here are not that. It would be great if they were all uplifting, but one of mine is not going to be, unfortunately. Mods, apologies if these have places to be sorted and I missed it. 1. NASA flew a freakin' helicopter on Mars twice over the last week. 2. NASA via SpaceX flew a previously-owned rocket and ship to the ISS taking a four-man crew including the wife of the commander of the first SpaceX launch. 3. An Indonesian submarine sank on Thursday and is still unfound. Although likely having gone down below crush depth already, the crew runs out of oxygen tomorrow if they haven't. One of the top three ways I wouldn't want to die.

I don’t necessarily disagree that “mainstream” media is shit in this day and age (and I would include most right wing media in that description). However, I find it comical and ironic that many on the right claim to fervently support the free market, only to make a full 180 as soon as the market doesn’t align with their goals. Seems to me that those who espouse personal responsibility would extend that very American idea to include being more media savvy. That doesn’t mean going all in for InfoWars btw. It means there are sources out there that, while certainly biased, still do real, detailed journalism. Find them, read a wide variety, and you can be a reasonably well informed human being.

@BroncoEN remembering all the illegal direct-to-fixes he did

Can't get people to give up their liberties and freedom if they feel safe....

They’ve got great info and flowcharts for getting from A to B .... even if you don’t have to test / prep

With respect to RNAV, prior to GPS for sure, and I think to this day, some FMS's use ifr approved rho/rho, rho/rho/rho, and rho/theta nav systems. My flying club had a rho/theta King KNS-80 what was ifr approved for approaches.

Did anyone really believe he would get a fair trial or impartial jury? Dude was good as guilty before the opening statements started. He'd have been better off fleeing the country. To your second comment, I've already witnessed this happen locally. Quite a few of our part timers are LEOs and many of them are seeking full time employment on base right now. One of them in OPS just took a stripe off to get a position. They all say the same thing, it's getting worse wrt the aggressive interactions and you're just one edited video away from being fired or put in prison. Even before all of this, the stories these guys would tell you were ridiculously eye-opening. They deal with a segment of society that many don't belive exists.

2 on sheppard air for any written test. I've used them 4 times, only missed one question on 4 tests. Worth the cost. Outside of that, FAA has some decent materials, though navigating around them can be a pretty big shift from the military. Info is generally similar, just arranged differently. A good CFI is worth their weight in gold. And just like any checkride, ask around for gouge on examiners, as most have a script or common questions they go through. Advisory circulars are kind of like FCIFs or FCBs, lots of info out there arranged by topic, released or updated as needed, if you want to self study on topics. AIM is another good general reference https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/aim_html/index.html CFRs are your regulatory guidance, part 61 and part 91 are good places to start. https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=2cae74ca26976e27b503c11b598ffada&mc=true&tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title14/14cfrv2_02.tpl#0 If you're a military IP, don't forget to also grab your CFI. Just takes a written exam (again, use sheppard air to prep). Though once you get it, make sure you don't let your CFI cert go non current, since you'll have to do a checkride to reinstate your CFI. Typically all you have to do is a set of CBTs (multiple vendors out there, $100-200 for the course) once every two years.