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The gov just announced the new conforming loan limit for 2026 will be 832,750 up from 806,500 currently. This is where a loan goes from a conforming loan to a high balance/jumbo loan as far as mortgage rates go. In short better rates now up to 832,750 for anyone buying or refinancing. Have a great Thanksgiving! Jon

You're not missing anything; Hegseth is a dipshit.

@SuperWSO Whats the benefit of a WSO - lower production cost and they can’t run to the airlines every hiring boom? Serious question, because financial reasons are the only thing I can think of. And this is not a who’s a more capable human argument, just saying instead of sending Bob to UNT, you send him to UPT. Aircraft like the B-1 and F-15E were clearly designed with WSO in mind and thus require them, no argument there. New aircraft have no need to be designed to “require” a WSO. With AI and other advancements, I’d actually say just make the 21 single seat. Why do you even need two pilots? Assumption being AI flies the transit, can refuel, etc. while pilot naps, takes a dump, etc.

I think we’ve mostly beat the stupid out of ACC on the emitter front. I’ve been relatively happy the last 1.5 years or so on that subject. Lots of improvement to be had, but at least we’ve stopped buying useless garbage and are finally procuring the decent 80% solution instead of holding out for the incredibly expensive and marginally useful 85% solution. Now if we could just give every JTE to WSEP for a CAF-wide A-G turkey shoot, that’d be great.

Where are they out of order or reversed? Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, DFC, Air Medal, Navy Commendation in order. Something further down? What am I missing?

For sure. At the time, the local range folks at ACC seemed more interested in re-arranging obsolete emitter deck chairs or buying a few new crappy ones. I retired in '22, so I'm well out of the loop at this point.

Nice try Bros...if it were me it would have been non-violent and St Barts but you do you. Airman indicted in scheme to overthrow Haitian island, take sex slaves

Concur with actual flying for low time crew platform aviators being the primary focus of ACE 2, I just think that with the capability to link to ground stations now for LVC, it could be incorporated into a program for additional training opportunities ACE 2 in my perfect little world would have regular flying mission sets but also regular participation in exercises, LVC capabilities to be linked with other platforms (real or virtual) could open the minds of leadership who might dismiss this idea as just a flying club (I have no problem with that or other good deals but you have to answer naysayers)

Why did you enlist?

No. ACE should be focused on low time co-pilots of crew aircraft... and they should be flying a real aircraft All of the other training options like LVC need to continue to be pursued and aimed toward their specific goals. Completely agree with y'all. But ACE was/would be very effective when aimed at the correct audience.

@Boomer6 Got a cell, but no response yet. I’ll take anything you got.

"After meeting for about an hour with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Mr. Trump said he believes Ukraine can win back all of its territory from Russia "in its original form." https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-united-nations-general-assembly-speech-unga/ guess a lot has changed in the last 2 months 🤷

"Over victor, Two's blind."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-russia-war-peace-deal-trump-driscoll-abu-dhabi-talks-latest/ conveniently buried in the last two paragraphs of the article: "A U.S. official told CBS News that Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to believe that he will take the Donetsk region of Ukraine one way or the other — either through a negotiated settlement or on the battlefield. The Trump administration's negotiations in Geneva began from the premise that Putin is correct. While that same U.S. official declined to provide a U.S. assessment of whether Ukraine is losing the war in the East, the U.S. official said that the trajectory of the fighting points to Russia taking Donetsk. The official indicated that the Russian progress in the eastern frontline city of Pokrovsk, which is a logistics hub for Ukraine, was not a positive sign for Kyiv's defensive prospects. Russian media often refers to Pokrovsk as the "gateway" to Ukraine's industrial Donbas region."

@brabus Anyone get you contact info yet?

And then there was one. "Hal stop turning into the sun!"

Had no problem getting rid of tail gunners, Flight engineers, and Navigators, soon it will be all humans eliminated

For years, pilots have been saying they don’t need a WSO, that function can be automated. If the AF can automate an F-22s wingman, then AI can also fly the enroute leg, hold a steady platform for the boom operator, and yes, land the airplane if required. CCA program makes the case that the B-21 could operate just fine with a pilot and WSO. Standing by for the hate.

Of course it’s money, still pretty sad how nearly 20 years have passed since I was first intro’d to the concept and all we have to show for it is what you see today.

LVC as a useful addition to backyard ranges and MOAs is much more difficult (expensive) than many realized. AFRL was playing with / experimenting with some stuff under the REDFLAG umbrella. I don't know what happened with it (was 6 or 7 years ago), but one of the problems was incentives. AFRL looks to figure out how to technically solve the problem, they don't much care about how to implement it at scale. Someone else has to pay for that. It always comes down to money.

They are both giant tools. We're in good hands

Yep, LVC is another great-in-theory thing that is way behind where it should be. Doesn’t mean it’s not something worthwhile to continue pursuing, just very disappointing how slow it has developed.

That’s a good point (high capability sims) An ACE aircraft program could have a ground based training element with the aircraft and ideally link them for LVC training

Probably but I hope AMC could make the argument to not have to get into a problem and just lead the turn with a replacement before we get to fatigue life issues My druthers would be to separate out how much lift really needs to be capable of expeditionary / austere delivery and how much just needs to be conventional (air land to at least modest length / width / load bearing prepared runways) Buy commercial freighters for probably half the lift and half having military airlift capability