TreeA10

Have the F-16/15/35 doing the Sandy mission? Sandy 1 is a never ending helmet fire centered on finding the survivor, authenticating the survivor, protecting the survivor, and making the final go/no-go call. Sandy 2 has to manage comms to keep track of all the players while executing the FAC gig to defend the survivor. Sandy 3 needs to find a way in and out for Pedro/Jolly and troll the route for threats as the helo transits. All Sandys need to be down up close and personal doing "Hover Cover" with eyeballs on the pickup ready to deliver ordnance quickly on pop up threats to the helo or survivor. Doing that at 400+ knots up in the Bozosphere is not going to work. Doing that at low altitude at 400+ knots won't be any easier and certainly not an improvement over the A-10.

The Air Force decision process is much like the pendulum on a clock but without the ability to remember what the pendulums location used to be or predict the future location. So, the AF just repeats history thinking it has found something new and unique.

A lot of those people are becoming my neighbors here in Texas. 95% are nice but the 5% complaining about the weather or "how we did things in California" are getting on my nerves.

Yes, there are places that have a high suck factor and most people with a choice don't want to live there. But people with a choice are choosing to live elsewhere and a lot of them are leaving what used to be a very nice state.

You can throw all the stats you want but the biggest indicator of the desirability of remaining in California is those voting with their feet and U-Haul vans. Price for a 20 foot truck from Dallas to LA, $1602. You want to flee what California is and what you fear it will become, that same truck from LA to Dallas will cost you $4656. Dollars and feet don't lie.

I don't want to throw Biff under a Frontier Airbus but, holy moly, I've never had a car stolen or broken into and describing those issues as "comes with the territory" is a sad summation of civilization in a once great state.

Would the WaPo reporting be any different with a Democrat administration? Was there outage at the Afghanistan withdrawal with 13 killed by a VBIED? The killing of an ambassador in Libya? I don't recall the published moral outage or pronouncements of national failure for those or any other Democrat admin led military action.

Hey now, don't be throwing all wide body guys under the ill fated bread truck just because a couple guys went looking for red over redder on the PAPIs. I've done lots of non-straight-in ILS approaches in the 767, the 777, and the 787. Haneda in Tokyo, Nice France, and the Canarsi arrival into JFK and probably a few more I don't recall. 787 with the HUD is by far the easiest, set the 3 degree pitch line on the touchdown point and put the flight path vector on top of it. All that being said, the UAL crew has some 'splainin' to do.

Was that uniform idea stolen from Star Trek "Wrath of Khan" or the Empire in Star Wars?

Great country song lyric "I ain't drinkin' anymore.....but I ain't drinkin' any less."

I think the Army should: A) Give the dude a medal for the mission, B) Commend him for his outrageous confidence level sufficient enough to bet $33K of his own money but chastised him for a potential security violation and C) Require him to donate the money to a veterans charity like Wounded Warriors.

The last A-10 RTU has closed so..... What now?

I'm not talking about getting on the basket, I'm wondering if you have an obstructed view to put the gun or bomb pipper on the target as you squeeze the trigger or hit the pickle button.

Not like a freaking 2-3 inch wide pipe directly in front of the HUD is going to cause field of view problems with pipper placement for weapons employment.

I wonder if that includes the millions of military aged Muslims that Merkel allowed into the country.