ATIS

Yeah... guess I showed my age and too much Navy for this board. Headed off to a bourbon tasting iin SE DC as punishement. I'm out. ATIS

1997: Flying a PAR into Misawa after USS Boat was "not able to take us onboard"... threw the final controller freq in the UHF and keyed the mic. My pilot almost had a fit when what little bit of a "George" we had (yaw damp) decoupled, our dual pitch and yaw channels disconnected, and the rudder just started shifting on its own. Being the young stupid COTAC I was...I keyed the mic again, and we repeated the fishtail/disconnect episode (and subsequent loss of lift). I purchased 'Franz' a beer (or four) for that mistake later at the bar. 'Franz' had some great hands [sTS] getting us out of that mess and back on G/S and A/S. He was also a great stick [sTSx2] behind the boat day or night. Hands and experience, both are required. Terrible hands behind the boat gets you fired/sent home (and in some historical cases killed). Our last line period on USS "conventional shitcan" boat, a legacy F-14"A" (read: old smoky engines) pilot won Top Hook. The entire AirWing was in much respect mode toward that dude, because that is one beast to bring aboard with a piece of string and some Hasbro Lite-Brite things on the front canopy trying to represent a 1970's HUD. Hands and experience. I fell victim myself to technology while flying test with our new GPS installed in the jet. While not in a "hands" phase (Toff/LDG), halfway across this great country of ours blabbing with the pilot (I was flying just keeping the needle on the nose and watching the mileage click away)...I had to sudden urge to ask where the ###### we were. Since we picked up RNAV direct leaving Pax headed west.... I stopped doing my normal TACAN cross check with the paper charts (anyone still do that, or did I just show my age?). None to worry, we landed safely at Tinker and I ran off with burgers slated for a C-21 behind us with some generals onboard. Auto anything can get you in trouble. Hands and experience. Hell, even Luke turned off his targeting computer. Cheers ATIS Edit: GD me and my inability to get the font size correct.

I just shake my head at this one...well no ######ing shit it's ATT...if I'm telling you about it as it happens. If I heard this in one of my stacks from another ISR asset....I would go over and personally talk with the guy/gal who was keying the mic no matter what rank. Typically my debriefs were directed toward that 4-smoking engined shitcan of death that was in our AOR at the time, or the fresh meat coming into our platform (who quickly learned). Easy Herc folks...i'm not talking about you (AC types). ATIS

Will never forget this: One muggy Pcola day I crawl into a T-39 at VT-86 for a low-level ride with two of my other buds. G-man and myself have our self made low level charts and radar predictions for our portion of the flight. Third guy gets in...C/S "P".... and pulls out his chart and predictions. He then proceeds to pull out individual low level charts and predictions he created for the instructor and the TRACOR T-39 pilot. Now our instructor was a salty, bean-stalk tall A-6 B/N who a few years earlier earned some air medals for flying under power lines in Iraq avoiding AAA/SAMS (GW#1) and still managed to get his LGB's on-target/shack, and our TRACOR pilot was a A-4/A-7 Vietnam vet with more green ink in his logbook and things shot at him than Jesus Christ himself. The look on their faces was priceless when Q handed them their own personal charts. G-Man and I were just sitting there ready to pound this bag of douche. The pilot just threw his someplace in the cockpit to his left (I was sitting in the rear[sTS])...and the instructor just rolled his eyes and handed them back (he could fly the route with no chart as I found out on a later flight). Don't be a D-bag trying to snob the teachers or leadership...help your buddies that might be struggling. Party on your time off and put your nose in the books and chair-fly the shit out of things to get ready for game time. My class leader was a Marine Capt who had just come from OV-10's as an observer and was tracking/transitioning toward the F/A-18D WSO program. Nobody has ever had higher grades in VT-86 before or since 'Hap'. He already knew how to do everything, heck...he was forward observing and telling half the VT-86 A-6 Intruder pilots and B/N's instructor staff where to put their bombs a few years earlier (again, ref GW#1). **It wasn't the grades that he was known for...it was the fact that every day he was in the ready room quietly talking to the instructors and looking over grades to see who in the class was struggling and he went out of his way to help those students improve**. He would chair-fly and critique in a non-hammering way and that was priceless. I pink slipped my low level check ride on my ######ing birthday not soon after the above D-Bag event (with the same salty instructor, who cut me some slack because of the haze on the route and gave me a two below = no pink). Hap was right there the next day offering advice and assistance to get my head back in the game. Hap went on to a fine career (sqd CO) and I even think he was in county when I was (we might have shared some airspace in a stack or two). Unfortunately I never had the opportunity to thank him since he passed a few years ago in a civil air accident. Be Hap, don't be "P". Apologize for the long read folks. Cheers Collin Edit: damn font size, and changed the C/S to protect the guilty.

They are? Couldn't resist. Cheers Collin

This got me laughing. 1996: Two A-6 Intruders, one S-3 Viking, two F-14A's, and a Hawkeye in the VFR night pattern around NAF Atsugi...the JASDF controllers just stopped talking to us. DCAG came up (BN in one of the Intruders) on AirWing Common telling everyone call their own intervals. After ~35 minutes, the controllers started to talk again and I think he cleared us to land...or order a hamburger (it was hard to tell). Thanks for the memory Collin

Holy F&*king I really don't know what. Shit like this is the reason I just stayed on the compound except to eat, run the perimeter, "head out to work", and a quick in and out (STS) to get food (DFAC, Chow Hall...whatever they call it now). Micky Mouse in a WWII cartoon on OPSEC or getting VD is one thing...now I am just sad. What the hell has happened to us?

Fair Winds, Following Seas Gentleman

195lbs http://www.guardrese...file&id_vac=349 Two original/plankowner Navy types under 195lbs ready to go.... Cricket....Cricket Cheers ATIS

OV-10 returns to Pax River. http://www.thebaynet.com/news/index.cfm/fa/viewstory/story_ID/31716 Cheers ATIS

No U-28 CSO's? Interesting. I'm trying to get my old job back there but meeting static. Cheers Collin

If they come around the spaces telling everyone to muster in the hangar at XX time for a big announcement... something might be up. I remember that all too well while standing in a hangar... in Georgia circa 2001. Cheers ATIS

UTSanDiego.com March 5, 2013 More In Congress Want To Demote New Medal Davis, Issa sign letter about medal for drone pilots, cyber operators By Jeanette Steele Adding voices to the call to downgrade a new medal for drone pilots and cyber warriors, Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego, and 48 others from the House of Representatives dispatched a letter Monday to the new Secretary of Defense. The letter asks Secretary Chuck Hagel – who earned two Purple Hearts as an enlisted soldier in Vietnam -- to reconsider the position of the new Distinguished Warfare Medal. On Feb. 13, outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced the decision to create the award, which recognizes “extraordinary achievement” related to a military operation but does not require the recipient to risk his or her life to get it. The announcement caused a furor among combat veterans because the new medal is positioned above the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. The Bronze Star is awarded for merit and, when carrying a V, acknowledges valor in combat. Ranking below the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart is awarded for being wounded or killed in action. On Feb. 26, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, and two other military veterans in Congress proposed legislation that would demote the Distinguished Warfare Medal below the Purple Heart. Davis, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, said in a released statement that Hagel should “take a hard look” at the new medal’s placement. “We also feel it is a disservice to our service members and veterans who have, or who currently are, serving overseas in hostile or austere conditions,” said the letter, signed by a bipartisan group, including Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista. In other medal news, the Pentagon announced recently that it has expanded its online valor database to include Medals of Honor bestowed before Sept. 11, 2001. Previously, the online listing only included medals awarded since Sept. 11. The database, at valor.defense.gov, provides the name of service members awarded the Medal of Honor, service crosses or the Silver Star. The Pentagon said it intends by March 31 to add pre-Sept. 11 recipients of the Navy Cross, Air Force Cross and the Distinguished Service Cross. That leaves the Silver Star, which ranks below the others but above the Bronze Star. Adding pre-Sept. 11 recipients of the Silver Star will be more difficult, the Pentagon said. Many more Silver Stars have been awarded, and historians have done less research on recipients. Also, the authority to award the medal was delegated below a service’s headquarters, and award documents didn’t always reach the higher headquarters or make it into a service member’s personnel record.

So what medal do you award for playing Tic-Tac-Toe with a 80's supercomputer hell bent on launching a world ending nuke attack? Cheers ATIS

http://www.boston.com/business/news/2013/02/13/pentagon-creates-new-medal-for-cyber-drone-wars/D265C91RrHasLVzjFNdz6J/story.html

Great watch. Anyone know where that 100 mission plaque ended up (around 3:15)? ATIS

http://www.amazon.com/Maisto-Fresh-Metal-Tailwinds-Endurance/product-reviews/B004JFMOGK/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_btm?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending Here is a sample: "Listen, I get that us humans are meant to be imaginative beings, but my daughter, Cheryl, was so upset that this toy had no sound affects, no victims included in the packaging, and no burnt and wounded bits of bodies to add authenticity to the product. I suppose I was setting my sights too high, but Cheryl has literally devoured the news about drone attacks since she was about 3 years old. Yep, I know - a prodigy. Whereas other kids are obsessed with sharks, guns and Barbies, all Cheryl wanted to know about was US military Imperial policy, in particular how many brown people our government butchers with drones. It was her hobby. And so I was excited to buy her this, but devastated by her disappointed reaction. This isn't just a toy to her - it's a killing machine. The makers need to step up their game and think of all the disappointed Americans out there who expect something more from their products. This was just a shiny, plastic, innocuous looking plane type thing. It really doesn't look like it can kill so many people so quickly and so brutally, but it really can! Poor Cheryl. I guess it's back to the internet for her." Cheers Collin

http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/9097/ga128.jpg http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/1197/ga130.jpg http://i.imgur.com/HeCgb.jpg Single seaters getting some JDAM work. Root file of links: http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?220168-Today-s-PIX-Monday-November-19-2012 ATIS

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/11/gunships-daytime/ Since I saw "AC" mentioned in the above LockMart release thought this might be of interest...I ran across this during my morning news gathering/coffee sipping/letting my work inbox fill up period. Cheers Collin

Looks like DC has our own Bigfoot now. I was just in NW last night having dinner and drinks with the wife and friends...I better watch out with that mad-horseman on the loose.

Wind picking up here on Capitol Hill DC. Been raining/windy but nothing super bad all day, next 3-5 hours should be interesting with landfall of Sandy up there in NJ. Been working in the basement hobby room all day when I heard a big crash around 1600hrs local... tree turned a 4 door hatchback Subaru into a 2 door mini. No idea where the owner is, so I zip-tied a large tarp on the crushed back half of his/her car...and then back to the hobby hideout. Cheers Collin

He is POPEYE... hell of a way to fly...or fall in this case. This guy doesn't a drink for the rest of his life. Good Chute.

Those GIANT balls and loads of guts he has will drag him back down to Earth.... great watching. God Speed. ATIS

NSPlayer...he does have a point there, and I'm not one to throw stones at a fellow, lean forward U-28 type. Cheers Collin

Experienced two of those incidents during my carrier days. First one they found trying to make a swim for Hong Kong (with some Snickers bars for survival), the other they never found. Both cases, Man Overboard wasn't sounded for hours after going over the side and someone finally noticed. The ocean is a big F-ing place to get lost in. Collin Collin