Kilgore Trout

You'll see the first Yokota slots doled out to UPT and FAIPs in the next few months. Expect these PIQ pilots to enter JMATS in the December-February timeframe to get to Yokota in Fall of '16 with the first tail. You're leaving out that Dyess has more tails assigned than Little Rock, Little Rock has 3 deployments to 3 different continents right now and the COCOMs are requesting this be increased, Little Rock has multiple tails in ISO due to all of the initial tails showing up at one time, they have several tails at the factory being modified to 6.6 and soon to be 8.1, and just last summer 5 turn 5 existed prior to the current deployment cycle. If you feel you need more Herk skills, Little Rock has participated in JFE, JRTC, and has JOAX on the books. Sign up. If everything is out the door then you have plenty of time to study 3-1 and 3-3 and come up with new methods and means for when the tails return home in the fall. The initiatives at Dyess were generated by Captains and approved by leadership. The same could happen at Little Rock, and there's no better time than now because all leadership is on board. The SQ/CC's, OSS, incoming OG, and new Wing Commander are "push it up, get the planes dirty" tac airlifters. You've got more top cover than ever so if you have ideas and proposals then there's never a better time than now. We like to blame "leadership" for our skills atrophying because few of us are brave enough to look in the mirror and decide we haven't made the most of our own training opportunities. Sign up for JOAX and JRTC this fall and lead a Red Flag Alaska like Little Rock did a few months ago. Don't just print a 280 and do what the guy's did last week, your training is your own. You should never rely on someone else to make you a better pilot. That's intrinsic. Roll up your sleeves and lead the young punks in the mission planning room and set the example of what a true tac airlifter is. Maximize that 3 turn 3 schedule to prevent guys dying on the vine. Don't just waste your time on a canned SKE-VIS-PRO. Don't blame the mythical "leadership", especially now that the current Wing Commander is a Herk guy through and through.

Sprint cars have a much larger right side tire than left side tire. When you jump in the gas it plants that tire in and bites hard and brings the car up the track. They also don't have a clutch just a t-handle that connects a cable directly to the rear end. So it's not easy to break momentum once you've planted the full 850 HP in to the track. All that to say that he may have just tried to throw some dirt up on the kid or he tried to jump in the gas and get away whenever dude came running down the track at him. When he jumped in the gas it planted that tire and sent him up the track, like a Sprint car does every time it comes off the corner. Stupid on both parties, especially since the initial incident was more of that kid running himself around the outside in to the fence. It was Stewart's position to hold. But he's a major sports star, there's no reason to get in tiffs with local racers. "IF" he saw the kid, he needed to get far away and just let the situation handle itself.

It's sad how far humanity has fallen in the past 20 years. RIP, Dimebag. I doubt those kids were even in kindergarten when he was shot.

The pass/fail at 90% doesn't bother me as much. I don't have a big problem with the 100% to pass as long as the questions/answers are legit. I've had students and other people I knew in missiles that said the tests would ask questions like "You answer the phone and do step 1 of the checklist, what is the next thing you do?" The logical answer would be to write what step 2 is but then you would be wrong because the answer they want is "put the phone down because you'll need both hands for step 2 of the checklist" or something like that. If the question was "What's step 2 of this memorized checklist" and the answer was writing out step 2, then I have a lot less heart burn about what their standards are. I was more impressed with the way she knocked down his 'Big Blue' answers. When he said that all 9,600 people on base are responsible for the successful launch and she replied "aren't the missileers (the only people taking the test) the only ones that matter?" He's including people that aren't even taking the tests and saying they're not cheating. Sounds like he believes people's OPRs/EPRs too much.

Or it's a symptom of the "everyone on base directly runs the mission" disease. He said "We have 9,600 people... less than 1%..." She had him say it was about 20% of missileers. She then asked "Aren't they the ones that matter?" The 3 star then said "The cheating only happened at 1 of 3 bases." She asked "Do you really believe that?" And he said "I do, that's what the investigation uncovered." The reporter then said "I interviewed an instructor missileer who worked at this base and separated 1 year ago who said every single person here cheated on those tests..." The 3 star did not want to believe that and said it's not what the investigation showed. And then she brought up the 100% standard for the tests. She said people said they had to cheat because they were told "90% in passing, but you have to get 100%". He said "Well now it's Pass/Fail. Everyone has to get a 90% or better or else they fail." She looked perplexed and said "Isn't that the same thing that led to cheating in the first place?" I love when the Air Force machine tries to apply its logic in the real world and people point out that it doesn't make sense. We can't affect change from the inside, but I always hope that things like this force people to change when they get embarrassed nationally.

Because programming requires logic. And there is no logic to the things Big Blue requires its aircrew to do outside of flying. It would get stuck in an infinite loop very quickly trying to integrate in to the self licking ice cream cone.

Can anyone talk to how this until will be manned? Are all the current and qualified Keesler guys moving with the jets? What about the guys from Pope who attended JMATS, are they moving that direction? Any 913th or former 403rd/440th guys that are moving know when hiring of active duty current and qualified J-model pilots will begin?

Hopefully dude did his SERE refresher before going. It would be terrible if he let them know if he fought against them for the Americans in the Korean War...

Maybe that will help Washington decide whether or not we need to be in Afghanistan until 2024 or not.

Isn't there some way we could just create a computer program that would monitor the world and all of our sensors and come up with launch decisions on its own? It seems like while it's waiting, it could play out every scenario that could ever happen, and be quicker to the launch sequence than actual people. It would almost be like a game to it and it would never get bored. Besides, with today's generation, you never know if someone will actually carry out a launch order or become a conscientious objector at the last second.

Holy crap! What the hell happened?! That wound was a little insane. I wonder why we don't get to see the slow motion version of that one to see how it fired back so hard.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/10/07/new-air-force-cargo-planes-fly-straight-into-mothballs/ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/u-s-air-force-shelving-brand-new-c-27j-spartans-article-1.1479580 The media has discovered the C-27J's are going straight to the boneyard from the assembly line. I'm glad some people will hear about this. Maybe it will make someone go 'hmmm...'. It's another great example of how things (don't) work these days.

Welp, checked that box. Wait, what? In English, please?

Well this is awkward. Head of Air Force Sexual Assault at Pentagon arrested for.... Sexual Assault. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/06/air-force-sexual-assault-watchdog-arrested-for-sexual-assault/2139325/

It's not as common as it should be. It's rare for students to wash out from T-38s or T-1s. Oftentimes when students face an elimination check or fail an elimination check they are reinstated with the mantra "He's just gonna be a copilot anyway". Or "He probably should have been washed out in T-6s, but he's made it this far... Spin up a training plan and let's get this guy back on track." And then for a while there was the "He's just going to a UAV anyway, there will be people there to keep an eye on him..."