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Didn't realize Iran was employing balloons.

Any FedEX guys know when the iPad (10) lanyards are getting ordered? I’d like one.

Re-sharing these gems:

Man, this idiot doesn’t know crap!

*Promote ahead of peers*

He is there because WEF, Blackrock and Vanguard want him in that chair.

Bottom line, those MudHen drivers went to bed with a smile on their face, knowing they did a great job. Plus they garnered the admiration and Thanks of another nation. They will be honored in the future. Nice Job!

Stolen

Honestly it was a ballsy move by Iran, if they had killed any US with the TBM strikes on IZ I think things would look different right now. The mood was lethal. When we had zero casualties (granted many folks had TBI) the decision was made to stand down. It could have easily gone the other way. Fun side note: since they destroyed our hangar with TBMs I used the event to clean up 5 years of property book shenanigans. Seriously, it was very beneficial. For anyone reading this: if your stuff ever gets destroyed by the enemy, seize the opportunity to do your unit a solid.

Okay, I've been there, done that although it was a while ago in 1994. Got hosed by what passed for DEI back in the day but that's another story. So, got hosed as the A-10 Division Chief of Stan/Eval for the Wing and my AF career is pretty much over. Not much I can do to fix that. "Should I stay or should I go now..." was an appropriate song lyric and I chose to go. However, I wasn't prepared to go with no airline apps but airlines weren't hiring, no Guard/Reserve contacts, nothing. So, I had to get those done before I cut the income lifeline and I ended up sticking around for about a year and a half before I separated from Active Duty and left with a $52K separation bonus. Got a GS-13 job as an IP at Barksdale but I was looking at the job as a place holder until I could get hired at an airline. I did get promoted to Major. After 2 years, I got hired by American so I switched to the traditional Reservist role. Somewhere in there I hung up the G-suit and got a staff job at 10AF. Got promoted to Lt. Col. I retired with 28 years total service although I wanted to retire earlier but 9/11, a faux bankruptcy, age 65 retirement, and a real bankruptcy made me not want to give up that lifeline until I had to. I'm currently paying back the $52K. As much as getting passed over was a huge insult, I think I'm better off for it. I wasn't worried about the next promotion, I wasn't worried about the next school, and I wasn't worried about the next job. I flew T-38s and A-10s for 21 years. I got into a more lucrative career and approaching my airline retirement, I have financial stability I'd never thought I'd see. That $52K that I'm paying back was basically a 30 year interest free loan for a house now approaching $1M in value. The military retirement also includes medical which helps. So, you have skills that are marketable and there are companies out there that value them. Even after getting hosed for promotion, I did do Air War College, I did an Electronic Warfare School and a few other odds and ends. Making yourself more valuable is always a good idea and don't burn bridges that you might need to cross back over. Your life isn't over but it is going down a different path than planned. Best of luck to you!

My favorite output from that was the crater directly where the hangar with gym in a box was with a quote “I told you to stop dropping the weights!”

FIFY

Ballsy move Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Multiple visits shows the unit you are interested. We never hired anyone that we hadn’t seen stop by a few times. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

I am in charge of both, thanks 😃 Do you seriously think that Democrats are not in the military or in other positions of authority? New flash, people of all political stripes serve and do so well. My politics has little to do with my service in uniform. A fellow pilot on my team is a HUGE Trump fan and we joke about it all the time, but we work great together. He gives me shit, I give him shit, we fly the mission, etc. We'll be checking different boxes on election day 2024, but pretty much every other day we're fully aligned on killing our nation's enemies and protecting it's friends & interests with airpower. If that seems weird or foreign to you, I in turn hope that you are retired. TYFYS.

Call my accounts manager…. Tell him to put half of it in Raytheon. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Only counts if this is how it was done

It counts for nothing

You old bastards know if you decide you want to add something to your post, you can just edit the post, instead of making 6-9 in a row...? FFS.

Don't worry, they learn how to read once they hit elementary school.

Nothing Uncle Bosey's nephew can't handle.

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but a year and a half of rushing is just getting started. I know it seems like an eternity, while in your 20’s, but if you’re a gov employee, as you stated, then you certainly should understand the glacial pace the system moves in. Have you interviewed anywhere more than once? You do realize that guard units typically select pilots only once per year? So in a year and a half you haven’t even been through the cycle more than once. Other than that, the advice offered to all the others on similar threads still holds true: -Widen your net (Heavies, Reserves, USAF, USN, USMC) -Enlist in the unit -Practice your interview skills -Get more flt time -Polish up your resume -Network

Another area we disagree. The longer we wait, the weaker we will be for the actual fight. As our weak governance racks up increasingly absurd debt, the pressure to divert military spending to welfare programs will only grow. The longer we wait, the fewer war fighting experts we will have coupled with less and less modern military equipment to fight with. I still think we win based on geography and natural resources, but it'll cost more lives and treasure to wait. Whether or not there is a nuclear exchange, which is not nearly as certain as you propose, does not change the calculus. Will we be better capable of fighting Russia today, or after another 10-20 years of peaceful decline? I'll be honest. I don't care about you. Or me. I want what is best for my kids. I am not interested in adding WWIII to the list of hardships we are pushing off to the future. Appeasement does not work. History is clear on this point, and that's exactly what you are proposing.

I’ll answer: We let it fall. We have no treaty obligations, and although I’m opposed to Russian aggression I do not believe WW3 is the best option for our interests. If they start some shit with a NATO ally then fights on.

Awards/medals are embarrassing compared to the days of old. Even bronze stars and to some extent, DFCs, are handed out for simple baseline-doing-your-job. Everyone gets a trophy for just breathing and doing average shit. Ridiculous.

During my sentence...I mean tour... As an ALO with an armor battalion, I was having a conversation with one off the air defense guys and he proudly stated that the AD folks could visually ID 67% of all aircraft. I guess the other 33% are screwed.

Back on the personal finance front... Fidelity will allow SPAXX as your sweep account in Cash Management Accounts (CMA) starting around June 15. IMO this makes CMAs a no brainer. No need to mess with separate online savings accounts to get higher rates on your cash. I know this took me a while to wrap my head around and I wish somebody had broken it down for me earlier, so for those that don't habla CMA, here's the skinny... CMAs are brokerage accounts that operate "like" checking accounts. Debit cards, ATMs, fee reimbursement, checks, online bill pay, direct deposit, etc. Your cash balances by default are kept at various banks around the country. You can see which banks, but there's no reason to care. You get FDIC protection, ~2.7%* interest, and manage your cash centrally via Fidelity. If you elect to keep your cash in SPAXX, you give up FDIC coverage, but you can get ~5%* on your cash balances. Vanguard just started "Cash Plus" accounts to compete. I'm sure they'll be great accounts, but I moved from Vanguard because (IMO) their service starting slipping around 2020 and became untenable. Bottom line, especially for the young dudes: Look beyond USAA for your banking needs. With some work, you'll be very wealthy one day - learn to manage it well now. *all rates are as of 4/15/24

This is completely wrong. I work SIMCERT stuff on staff. AMC self-certifies its sims to level C+/D “equivalency” (AMC has its dets go to the FAA course) but none of it is FAA certified. The time counts for nothing and do not put it on your apps.

Another good example of how a bullshit deployment can turn on a dime. Good work strike bros. And awesome work by all the maintainers getting it done under very hairy circumstances.

USAF shot down 70....repeat 70 drones last night. How many drone aces in the strike eagle community today?

Not to be a simpleton, but do they ask? In the past hasn’t really been their thing.

Today watching Tim Pool he informed his audience that You Tube has deleted some of his shows for violating You Tube rules. Who owns You Tube , Google does, what are the two biggest share holders of Google, Vanguard and Blackrock. In fact look at every major media corporation who are the two largest shareholders, the same. They almost have controlling interest in every Fortune 500 corporation. It will be just like 2016 again with alternate media types getting deplatformed for fact checking the mainstream media. Don't even get me started on the on the military industrial complex and who has majority interest.

Spoiler alert - Biden: “It’s Trump’s fault”

Another inevitability. The move to "re-shore" some critical manufacturing capabilities is the only good news these days. The sooner the better. Trading with China was the biggest mistake of the post-WWII era. We could have pulled the entirety of Latin America into the modern world, instead we funded the buildup of our biggest geopolitical adversary, and got an immigration crisis as a bonus.

If you think Tommy Tuberville will make that decision, we really are fucked. And hearing a high ranking GO actually be honest about costs, troop numbers, etc is a nice departure from the Afghanistan hearings.

Vance 24-10 added to our board at work.

A nice check that comes every month as long as you have a pulse and don’t commit a felony. Also Tricare Select at a very reasonable price. ETA: I know your question was bout decorations, but as nice as a decoration is, what I wrote above is what I really wanted.

It'll be an interesting and tough call for Israel. Do they gracefully accept the help they received and use the short term international good will to free up a hand to do more damage to Hamas or do they strike back at Iran in a significant and public way to show they won't accept this type of thing? Striking back may be popular and gratifying in Israel but might end up doing more harm than good in the long run. My bet is nothing happens for a while and then some Iranian leader has 'an accident' or one of Iran's centrifuge facilities suffers a mysterious explosion. Something that everyone knows was Israel but no one is really able or willing to prove thus decreasing the chance of escalation while showing that they won't sit by while a country launches a horde at them.

I just finished watching Master's of the Air. Well done series imho . I look at each and every one of them who brought down an enemy plane with a 50 cal as an ace whether in a P-51 or a ball turret.

You ever seen Joe Biden reading a teleprompter? Can't concentrate more than that...

Great decision by Obama...I am sure none of that cash was used to buy/build drone/cruise missiles/TBMs that were shot at Israel last night.

Send John Clark

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/13/iran-israel-drone-missile-attack/ If we need to launch a "massive drone attack" against IRGC-affilated bad dudes in response, I volunteer to take flight lead. I know a ton of good dudes & dudettes who can fill out the strike package 🇺🇸

C-130H and C-130J sims are certified Cat C or D (Full Flight Sims) sims and count for sim hours in the civilian world for maintaining currency. Yes there is a civilian type for the C-130J (L-382J type rating is different than the L-382 type). Yes, there are civil carriers that operate the C-130J. They exist, the end. If you doubt the certification of all the C-130 sims, go look up the Sim Cert folks at Little Rock. Certifying our sims to an FAA standard is literally their entire job. It's sim time. Log it and keep track. It doesn't count toward total time for civilian companies (though there may be a few exceptions). Don't expect to get anything for it though RIGHT NOW. Realize that at the drop of a hat the FAA or some airline you might fly for in the future may want to see that sim training, or even count it towards some time counter they track. The civil aviation career field is known to be ossified and immovable...right up until it changes over night. Be ready. Long view: It's professional training you've accomplished. Keep track of it in your own logbook. If you don't have a personal consolidated logbook (all civil, UPT, mil flying) start one. You're a professional and that is your professional resume and professional journal. I've met more than enough airline pilots who stopped logging their own hours when they got hired at their "forever" airline, only to be shocked years later when they needed to find a new flying job and had to scramble to make sense of the 'flight log' that their company kept. Pro Tips: DO NOT TRUST USAF HARMS RECORDS TO KEEP TRACK OF YOUR FLYING Keep your own logbook. Also, yes it will be years before your log PIC time. That's normal. Don't fudge those numbers to make it look like you've got turbine PIC before you should. Airline hiring shops see right through those tricks.