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I'm offended that copilots are working on their masters at work and not studying the T.O.s.

I think Mr Hagel needs to ask Hollywood and the entertainment industry to stop what they are doing. He should then visit the household of each kid that might potentially enter the military and take away their mags/posters/DVDs of Transformers/Porkys I, II, & III/cable TV and the internet. That should take care of the issue. Meanwhile, I'm offended that I they think that I can't control myself and that a picture of a bikini lady will turn me into a monster the moment I see it. I guess I can't go to the beach anymore. What's next, thought police?! Out

I count 19 ellipses...good work.

SSgt Dickson's wife has given the River Rats / Air Warrior Courage Foundation approval to open a 529 account for their daughter. Once the account is officially open, I will post donation info, hopefully in the next 1-2 days. Cheers, Cap-10

I'm glad the Secretary decided to this for the entire military...because in the Air Force, we just had ours a few months ago and everything has been smooth sailing since then, no problems at all...nope, not a single one.

You mean the thing we've been discussing for the last 2 pages?

Apparently you missed the point Hacker, M2 and others including myself were trying to make above... This guy should be innocent until proven guilty. Command and Congress, to include the POTUS, should condemn the crime, but when specifically referring to this case they shouldn't comment until justice has run it's course. Maybe he is a DB. But he hasn't been proven to be a DB. I'm hoping you'd want the same standard to apply to you if you were ever accused of something.

Everyone please shut the fuck up about parachutes and other non-sense. We are in this thread to remember three friends and crew mates who have lost their lives. This has been floating around the facebook. Does anyone know it's origins? I’ve got troops in contact Pinned down by the Tali Made one more pass, way low on gas “I need vectors for the tanker.” Tonight my wounded warriors Need medevac to Landstuhl. A double A/R out of Kandahar “I need vectors for the tanker.” The Kims and their kin are at it again, In far away Korea We are looking tough, with my cell of Buffs “I need vectors to the tanker.” Earthquake, flood or famine The world needs US aid The air bridge is faster, to any disaster “I need vectors to the tanker.” NKA…WTG! We take pride in this expression. Day or night, we fuel the fight. “I need vectors to the tanker.” A CSAR helo has been launched A grim hunt for 3 survivors. A burned patch is found, now hallowed ground. “I need vectors to the tanker.” Today a crew is coming home. Boom stowed and bound for heaven. They passed their gas, now haulin’ ass. “I need vectors for the tanker.” All SAC aircrews please stand by This is GOD on “Guard.” Lemay and I from up on high “Are giving vectors to the tanker.”

"US Air Force (USAF) veteran Julie Frein said she is willing to give up her burial plot at Arlington National Cemetery to Tamerlan Tsarnaev - the deceased Boston bombing suspect. ..... "I feel sympathy for [his family] in that as long as this issue is open, they can't have closure," AARGHH! What is wrong with this woman. I could give a rat's ass about his family and closure for them. That family will never feel enough pain to match what "speed bump" and "Joker" did to other families at the Boston Marathon. I think they should tie his corpse to buoy in Boston harbor and let the gulls finish him off. https://foxbaltimore.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/usaf-vet-willing-offer-national-cemetery-burial-plot-bombing-suspect-19476.shtml#.UYlv3LA6UzR

I will start with this... the fact that adultery is a prosecutable crime under the UCMJ is absolutely stupid! You want to talk about budget savings... how much does the DoD spend prosecuting this "crime" every year? I get it, cheating is bad and I don't condone it... but as far as I'm concerned, if his wife knew about it and also knew he signed away parental rights then it isn't any of my or your business and it isn't a "secret child". As far as him not supporting the child, you have no idea what the agreement was between him and the woman. I guess I either have a bad memory or got a different questionnaire than you did, but I've had a TS or higher clearance for my whole career... I don't remember the part where they asked anything about having an affair or having a "secret child". I don't care that Slick Willey and JFK were using the Oval Office like the Jungle Room at Graceland and I don't care that Gen Patreaus and Eisenhower were letting some "advisor" polish their Stars in the AOR... and I certainly don't want to spend money for some JAG to prosecute the 21 year old SrA for "adultery" because his soon to be ex-wife was pissed when she found out he is dating his old high school girlfriend while they are separated just waiting on some State timeline requirement for a divorce decree to be signed! Before we start convicting guys of crimes because of something they did 10 years ago (that isn't a crime to any other American) and isn't remotely related to the facts of this case, maybe we should go back 10-20 years on those in Congress and talk about glass houses. And before you start chiming in with blackmail/extortion over cheating and security clearances... I get it. But how much of that goes away if you remove the UCMJ violation part? Rant complete...

Why only look for pictures of women? Can men not be degraded? Remember, this is the "new" military....you never know what you'll find in the workplace these days.

I'm not sure what has happened since I retired, but if shit is really going on, it needs to be stop or at least reduced. However, I can see a huge number of second- and third-order effects from the course they have chosen, and a lot of unintended consequences.

That's what pisses me off and what I was trying to convey, though poorly, in my previous post. Assuming he is found guilty, and probably even if he isn't, the effects of this incident will be far-reaching. All of us are cast into the fire simply for wearing the same uniform. I am betting there won't be many options for anyone accused of sexual harassment/assault/battery in the future after the last two years of very public black eyes. I don't foresee many Generals putting their necks on the line from this point on, regardless of the evidence. I have seen a number of cases where people have been falsely accused, and that sucks, this case (based upon little evidence, biased news articles, and my gut feeling) seems like the dude is guilty. If he wasn't beaten up and still at the scene when the cops arrived...maybe it's a different story.

Felt like I was right there. Fuckin' awesome.

Move over, master's degrees. Castration: A1's new "highly desired" trait for IDE-selects.

At least we didnt waste a lot of time and effort on the whole captain promotion thing. Bang-bang guidance, never fails to come up short...

I have personally endured something similar. Was married to a woman who got diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder...it was nuts, she would make stuff up and accuse me of cheating, stealing from her mom, keeping tabs on her (yes, she heard an airplane fly over the Walmart she was in and when I got home later that day, I was accused of following her) and much more. 8 months later, I was filing for divorce...but before that was finished, she went through my phone and saw I had texted my female cousin where I had congratulated her on getting a scholarship...and my ex proceeded to punch me in the face 3-4 times. I had the cuts and bruises, but later she threatened to call the police and claim I had abused HER. After talking to a friend in the legal business, he told me at best, I'd be sent to jail, tried and hopefully all that would come out in the trial and I'd be set free...or not. Luckily, she must've taken her meds later and acted like she never threatened that at all. But I shudder to think if she had said "he sexually assaulted me and grabbed me...his face is bruised because I gave him what he deserved". She tried to get my CC involved during the divorce, but after I showed him stuff that proved she was lying about things, he refused to take her calls. I guess because of that episode in my life, I'm a lot more careful about throwing around the "guilty!" phrase. Also, keep in mind, any "evidence" that you have seen up to this point is stuff that the prosecution is putting out there. It's at trial where the evidence will be examined and be found to be true or not...plus I'm sure the defense will have evidence of their own. After dealing with divorces, and discussing the situation I was in and reading about our justice system in general, I'm pretty convinced that many prosecutions are less worried about justice and more worried about "winning" and scoring another win for their record. That's how many criminal attorneys are graded these days...simply on their win-loss record. If they drop the charges, it's often seen as a loss for them. We have a lot of guilty people in jail, but don't kid yourself: we have a significant number of not-guilty people in jail as well.

I wonder if the POTUS is familiar with the term "Unlawful Command Influence"?

I don't, it's out of order and I am not sure if that's intentional or not...

I'm noticing more and more that when it comes to sex assault/harassment crimes, where it is mostly his word against hers, the general consensus is leaning towards "guilty until proven innocent", particularly among our government leaders and in the press. They should say that they don't tolerate sexual assault, but they aren't going to comment on a specific case until the legal system has worked it's way to a conclusion. Maybe he did do those things, maybe not.

BQZip's mom uses something similar to suppress her gag reflex.

Well, at least he wasn't on Okinawa...

Please stop making this about parachutes. If you fly heavies you know for a fact, if the aircraft can be controlled well enough to put the chute on and get out, it is controllable enough to land it.

That's two weeks I can't get back...this smacks of office space.

God speed crew, beers on me when we meet at the ARCP, ARCT TBD. :beer:

Long post, but actually worth the read. Greasy, you should give lessons.

No books yet, that requires work I'm sure. I haven't even gotten to the good stuff - my time as a Special Ops Fighter pilot. That stuff won't be unclass for a long time. Cheers to our fallen bros lately. Him Him. These are starting to get out of order as I finish unfinished stories up. This was a long long time ago. Enjoy. Combat Archer Pickle. Wait. Wait. WTF is wrong with this…. Wooooossshhhhhh. The AIM 9/M screams off the rail of my Viper with a thunderous roar. I wasn’t expecting to actually be able to hear the missile above the growl of my Pratt screeching along at 9/10ths the speed of sound, but off it went in a flurry of hate, drowning out the wind blast on my bubble canopy. Walking into the 53rd WEG, I knew this was going to be an excellent TDY. Parked right at the front door was a shiny new Porsche in the commander’s spot. I detoured slightly from the sidewalk and put a squadron sticker in the middle of the back window. Surely he wouldn’t mind. The Weapons Evaluation Group was established to test the Air to Air and Air to Ground weapons systems of the USAF and Navy. Specifically, WSEP, the Weapons System Evaluation Program, runs Combat Archer out of Tyndall AFB, Florida. This 2 week TDY evaluates the ability of a unit to deploy troops, aircraft and weapons to a forward location and then fire those weapons at aerial targets. It is staffed with some of the smartest 10 pound brains in the service and they evaluate every part of the process, from the way the airmen attach the fins of the missile, to the parameters the pilot fires the missile, the way the jet sends information to it and ultimately how it performs. It is also a way to get the pilot to experience actually firing, so when it happens in combat there is no first time anxiety. I don’t know what psychiatrist came up with that idea, but I’ll buy him a round for it. That is, quite possibly the most brilliant idea ever! It would be better to unload an entire jet on 5 different targets but beggars can’t be choosers. And yes I did say shrink, most fighter pilots are certifiably insane. Just take one out of the cockpit for a few weeks and see how he acts. We started out with extremely in depth technical briefings with experts in each weapon we carry, how they work, how they have improved over the years and limitations we have to using them. Over the years, the missiles, aircraft and operators have continued to improve. They have found things like chafed wires in the jets all the way to bad chips in the missiles. Without testing, this would cause a failure in combat when we needed it the most. It has also led to remarkable advances in missile technology. Early versions of the AIM 9 were susceptible to countermeasures. The first missiles were tail only heat seekers. Infra red Counter Measures, IRCM, in the form of flares were used to decoy the missiles. With testing and the advancement of computer chip technology, Raytheon developed IRCCM, or Infra Red Counter Counter Measures which can differentiate between a flare and the aircraft dispensing them. This is now fielded in the AIM 9 Mike – an all aspect missile that scoffs at flares. At our lunch break, the zap had been removed from the window of the Porsche. No matter, I’ve got a stack and it deserves another. It is one of the many unsung duties of the LPA. The squadron was going to fire several missiles over the next few weeks and when we weren’t shooting, we were flying LFE’s and dissimilar with the Eagle squadron who was also in town. It was an awesome opportunity to see several of my UPT bros who were now flying the light Grey and pick their nuggets about that world. I had several outstanding sorties with the F-15’s from that trip but those are stories for another time. On Tuesday afternoon, my commander pulled me aside in the bar. “LT. Get over here. Have you been putting Zaps on the commanders car?” Enable the standard Lieutenant defense. It kicks in without delay, a staple learned in basic, refined in UPT and honed to a razors edge in the goulags of survival school. Act Surprised. “Whhaaattt?” By this time, my count was 5. Deny. “I have no idea what you are talking about sir.” Deny. “ What car is that?” “It is the Porsche parked by the front door.” Deny. “I haven’t even noticed it sir.” “The Porsche. You haven’t noticed the nicest effing Porsche in the Pan Handle parked in the spot that says Squadron Commander right by the front door of this fine establishment?” Counter accuse. “Maybe it is the other squadron.” “Don’t give me that S. The other squadron is putting our stickers on the CC’s car? Explain that to me LT.” Reaffirm Counter Accusation “I have no idea why they would sir. Sounds like a pretty complicated prank to me.” “Cut it out. It is a Porsche. And make some popcorn.” That is certainly no rationale. Dollar value certainly isn’t a limiting factor to zapping something. Almost every Eagle out there has one of our squadron stickers tucked neatly away and those jets are easily worth a few mil. The key is putting one obvious sticker on the nose and then hiding the other in an inspection panel that rarely gets opened. We have found Zaps on our birds that were put there years earlier, behind an ejection seat or on the motor. Just because it is a Porsche offers no reprieve but since the boss asked, I’ll consider it. The next morning I walked in with our Squadron Commander and the Porsche had another sticker placed by a different pilot. Someone had my back. And my boss saw that there was no winning to be had. The day after that, a minivan was parked in the Commanders spot. With a sticker on the back that stayed for the remainder of the TDY. Long live the LPA. After a few glorious flights with the Eagles, it was finally time for my shoot. The plan was to take a simultaneous shot with another Viper while in formation and evaluate the missile performance. We had an instructor from the WEG who was briefing our flight and several others. We had two drones to share between 8 aircraft. The briefing was different from a standard fighter briefing, in fact after the shoot with the extra gas, we were slated to fly BFM, Basic Fighter Maneuvers or dogfighting. This normally is an hour long brief in itself, but today it was briefed as “Standard. Any Questions?” “No Sir.” “On to the shoot.” What followed was an extremely technical and procedural briefing on how we were going to shoot these missiles. As fun as it would be to go out and wail away whenever we felt like it, it would be a waste of money to do so. The idea with these shoots is to expand, tighten or validate the firing envelope of the missile. They want us to fire it at extremes, towards the edge of what we think the missile can do. The Engineers come up with boundaries of the firing envelope they want to explore and then run test shots with several missiles to see how they perform. This could be a high off boresight shot from a very slow speed to see if the missile can hack the turn, or a look down shot against a maneuvering bandit. Today, we were going to fire in formation at the edge of the known max range to see how the missile hacked it. The brief continued with the exact parameters of the shoot. The speed and angles of our jets, the drone and the chase ship. The formation we would shoot from and the range, offset and aspect they wanted us to fire. They wanted us on the numbers. Not 20 knots fast, or 50 feet low, but on the numbers. This is easier said than done when running an intercept. It would be a front quartering shot from a slightly lower altitude today. Next we covered all the airspace and the contingencies if the primary airspace was blocked by boats. Each morning, one of two specialized DeHavilland E-9A “Widget” Aircraft sweep the range. The Widget is a high wing, twin turboprop with a side looking radar that can sweep the area for surface vessels. Rumor has it that this is one of the best “Old Guy” jobs in the Air Force. Flying in the morning and fishing in the afternoon off the Florida Panhandle. Not for me yet, but I’ll keep it in mind after my inevitable spinal surgery from flying fighters. Since there will be actual metal falling from the sky today, the area has to be clear. I could just imagine a vacation charter with a 900lb tuna on the line being speared and sunk by a Phantom in flames. “Yeah right man, you had a record setting fish on the line and a Vietnam era jet smashed through your boat setting the tuna free.” Fish story of the century. Lastly, we spent a large segment talking about the comm for the flight. There is a very precise litany of things to say during the shoot. This was given to us on a card of exactly what to say and when to say it. Written out. Exactly. Word for word. Exactly what to say. This assures the area is clear and you are cleared to fire. It also cues in the engineers and telemetry guys to make sure the missile is set and that they are watching for the data to pour in. “ “What ever you do and whatever you screw up – just sound good on the radio! There are a lot of people listening.” Walking out to the jet today was different. I had fired the gun and dropped literally tons of bombs but this was a live missile that would not be there when I landed. It was expensive. Very expensive. There were a lot of people watching and it is the kind of thing that you have to answer for if you screw it up. The AIM-9M is a bad ass missile. It is used by the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps and 27 other nations as the go to, short range weapon of choice. Developed in the 1950’s, the Sidewinder is the most successful Air to Air missile on the planet with an estimated 270 kills. That is two hundred and seventy kills. It is lethal, and many an enemy pilot loathed the day it was created. It was so successful initially that they even took the guns off the Phantoms. A disaster at the time, we are now repeating it with several versions of the F-35, but again, I digress. I love the missile, but I will slit your throat if you try to take away my gun. Even on a Viper, I still use it all the time. The heater has 8 fins, four for stability and four for steering. It is capable of right angle corners while at speed under incredible G. This is guided by an Infra Red seeker mounted to a gimbal which sends data to the computer. Preflighting the missile, the seeker droops down, requiring the gyro to spin up and stabilize it. It is cooled by 5000psi of Argon carried in a small bottle internally. The guidance unit is directly behind the seeker and works through black magic and voodoo. All I know is that it is smarter than me. It will take data from the jet’s radar to initially look in the proper direction or I can manually lock it on if my radar is down or being used for something else. Once it leaves the jet, the CPU takes over and all bets are off where it is going to go on it’s own. Behind the guidance unit is a target detector. This will sense when it is close to another aircraft and set the fuse. On many AIM-9’s, this has been obsolete because the missile actually speared the target. In the late 50’s over the Taiwan Straits, a Taiwanese fighter speared a Chinese MiG -17 with an Aim 9 that failed to explode and lodged in it’s fuselage. The MiG and the missile landed safely back home, and in very short order the Rooskies had a nifty missile dubbed the AA-2 Atol. A carbon copy of our sidewinder down to the part numbers, this advanced the communist missile technology by decades. When the target aircraft is within the lethal range of the missile it fires the WDU-17B annular blast fragmentation warhead. This nasty device is made up of spirally wound spring steel encasing 8 pounds of PBXN-3 high explosives and will shred flesh and aluminum and set fuel on fire. Poor souls to be on the receiving end, should have been born American. Today this warhead is replaced by a telemetry package that beams data from the missile back to antenna along the Florida coast broadcasting exactly what the missile is thinking and what it is doing. If the target passes within the lethal radius of the missile, it is as good as a kill and considered as such. This 9 foot long, 188 pound, harbinger of death is propelled by a reduced smoke Mk36 solid propellant rocket capable of hurling this missile several times the speed of sound. Outstanding. Just before we launch, they launch the drone. While they have full scale F-4’s, today we are going after one of the littler fellas. The purpose built BQM-34 Firebee Sub Scale Aerial Target. This is good. I don’t think I would have the heart to shoot at an F-4 – unless it wears the flag of some of our, ¿Cómo se dice, “old friends” who are still flying it. In that case, paint five of them on my jet and I’ll use the fallen pieces as spares to keep ours flying. The Phantom is my favorite plane on the planet and the first jet I ever saw at an airshow at 5 years old. I remember that day like it was yesterday and I attribute my military career entirely to that encounter with those two smoky General Electric J79’s spewing fire and noise over the Florida pan handle. I would eventually get a ride in one but that also, is a story for another time. As sad as it would be to down an F-4, they are soon to be replaced with F-16’s. This is borderline criminal and certainly against the Geneva Convention. Can’t we put the old girls in Arizona to retire like all the other great fighters? Even though unmanned, I know the Viper Drones will still wax the floor with the Eagles that try to shoot them down, sticking them in lag with the operator a hundred miles away snickering at the joystick and computer monitor in front of him. Eventually it will happen though. An Eagle will paint a Viper on the fuselage and Viper pilots across the world will sip a bottle of Weed and toss a nickel in the grass in mourning. Him Him. The Firebee is a little bad ass as well. There are many stories of pilots trying to shoot them down, bleeding off too much energy entering the turn circle and getting stuck looking out the side of the canopy with no firing solution. Worse, there are stories of the little orange BQM actually making angles on them. Only F-15’s of course. When we do manage to shoot them down, the wing owns a couple of ships to fish them out of the ocean, patch them up and send them out again. The “Tyndall Navy.” Now there’s a retirement job. Once airborne, things start to happen fast. The BQM doesn’t have a ton of gas, so we have to move quickly. It could not be a nicer day. Clear blue skies with a patch of cirrus clouds up high to highlight the contrast. A clear blue ocean below with virtually no waves. A great day to go shooting. I triple check the procedures on the lineup card on my knee. Even though I do these arming procedures every time I train, this time it is for real so I check them again. Our lead chase ship starts his litany over the radio to start the drone on it’s run. Turn in, Fights on! Radar Contact. “Viper 3 targeted Bullseye 269/25, 17000 feet.” Our two ship starts to run the intercept from 25 miles out. Aspect starts to break. Looks good. The key is timing the aspect break to arrive at our parameters at the correct distance. We are right on cue. The chase ship gives the clearance to arm the missiles. Arm Hot. I double check the missile is cooled. Good to go. I’m really going to shoot this thing. Adrenaline starts to flow and time slows down. “Chase, Viper Three.” “Go Three.” “Viper three has a problem with the missile” Damn. I look off my right wing at Viper Three. He is abeam me at about 3000 feet and I can see he is nugget down in the cockpit looking at his displays. I look left at the chase ship and he is now looking through me at number three. There is nothing these guys haven’t seen so hopefully he can talk him through it. 15 miles to the drone. We better solve this soon. “Go with your problem.” “I’m not sure. It. It…” “What faults are you showing?” “None. No Faults, I’ve got no symbology for the missile.” Looking through the HUD, there should be a ton of data provided to the pilot. The main thing is a diamond of where the seeker is looking. This diamond, when slaved to the Radar should be squarely over the target. His is missing. Mine is spot on. 10 miles to the drone. “3, download and upload your missile. Quickly.” The Viper reset. Not good. For some reason, every now and then there is a glitch in the Viper matrix and downloading and then uploading fixes the problem 90% of the time 60% of the time. 7 miles. I should have started my comm litany a while ago but they are working the problem. There is no room to interrupt. “2, hold your shot unless 3 starts working.” “2.” Eff. “3, what luck?” “3, no luck.” “Viper flight off dry, switches safe.” “2.” “3.” We are going to have one more shot at this if the drones don’t get shot down first. There are two drones out here and 6 other aircraft shooting at them with all different shots. We enter the bullpen again and try to sort 3’s problem. Orbiting about 20 miles away from the flight, one of the drones is splashed. We learned later that it was an enormous fireball with the missile puncturing the tank. Good on him, bad for us. Somewhere around 20 minutes elapse and I can’t stand it. All geared up, ready to go, and waiting. Tim Tebow on the Jets. So much talent…. I still digress. The good news is that three sorts his missile so we are both good to go. I know he is stoked. Back in the lineup we go. Turn in, fights on! Again. Radar Contact. “Viper 3 targeted Bullseye 273/27, 17000 feet.” Our two ship again starts to run the intercept. Aspect starts to break. Looks like this is going to work out great. “Vipers, Arm Hot.” “2” “3” My missile is cooled and called up as my primary weapon. It has a low growl. Normal for this range. “Hey Buddy, I’m just looking around right now.” the missile is telling me. If it could speak sentences, I imagine it sounds like Towelie from South Park for some reason. “Don’t shoot just yet, patience buddy.” The great thing about the heater is the way it talks to you. It has several different tones to let you know exactly how it is doing. From a low growl to a full on howl, I can tell how good of a solution the missile has just by listening. As we get closer, the missile starts to perk up and the growl gets meaner and louder. “Chase, 3 has the same problem.” You are kidding me! It was working a few minutes ago! “Copy 3. Let’s go through the same procedure we just did and get it working again.” My missile is starting to sound good. It has a good heat signature now and a solid growling tone. We are closing at 1.7 times the speed of sound. Lead and 3 begin to troubleshoot over the radio again but it is not looking good. I’m looking out the left and right side of my jet at each of their jets and say a silent prayer that the good Lord will let us both rain hate on this little Firebee drone. That and the standard Fighter Pilot prayer – Lord, Don’t let me F this up. For another solid minute the radio is packed with communications between the two, back and forth with troubleshooting. This is the time we should be running the standard comm litany on my kneeboard card. “What does the Fault page say?” “The Fault page is clear?” “Any MFL’s?” “3, Negative.” “And still no symbology? “Negative.” My missile is loud now. I uncage the seeker head and it stays firmly planted on the Firebee with no radar assistance. It will easily guide itself now. “Radar Lock?” “Afirm. Target, 272 for 7 miles.” His radar is locked but there is no missile symbol in the HUD. Not good. My missile is screaming. It is locked on and absolutely screaming in my headset above all the other comm. “Did you download and upload?” “Afirm, no change.” “Try a boresight.” This is where you target the missile without the radar cue. “Unable.” “Did you try…..” Woosssshhhhhhhh. Like a freight train, the sidewinder screams off my jet. My skinny wingman doing the Lord’s work. I hit the exact parameters and let it rip. Like a bottle rocket, it corkscrews off the jet violently until it picks up speed and stabilizes, then it makes a hard right turn a few thousand feet in front of 3’s jet to get some cutoff on the drone. I’m glad our formation was good. Awesome. That is freaking awesome. This shot completely took the IP of the chase ship by surprise. In the history of missile shoots, there is probably no one who has screwed up the comm that badly. I hadn’t said a word in 10 minutes. “Fox Fox!” He screams on the radio. This cues all the engineers back on the ground that a missile is in the air. There should have been a half dozen calls prior to this, leading up to a triumphant “Fox 2” when the missile left my jet. We were cleared on the range, cleared to arm and cleared to shoot so it wasn’t unsafe but it was non standard and we live by standards. It has never been done that way before and it probably will never again. I watch the missile make jagged, high G turns as the drone maneuvers and eventually I lose sight. At some point it runs out of steam and falls to the ocean below. To this point, the coolest thing I have seen in the Viper. 3 unfortunately had to bring his missile back home that day. The taxi of shame. The ground crews, Ammo, and everyone else are stoked to see ordinance expended. Bringing a missile home means that something went wrong. It was eventually traced to some corrosion or something on a cannon plug. Bummer, but that is exactly why we do this and that data and the fix will be incorporated fleet wide if it becomes a trend. In the debrief, nearly every pilot from every squadron gets together with beer and popcorn in the afternoon in a theater to watch the shots. The engineers gather all the data and show exactly what the missile is doing and recreate the flight on a slideshow that puts my powerpoint skills to shame. They pair that up with the Heads Up Display tape so you can hear the comm and see the shot from the jet. We watched several shots and cheered the great success of the missile. And then we got to mine. So there it was, for all to see. Massive troubleshooting, and out of nowhere, my missile firing off in the middle of it. “What ever you screw up, just sound good on the Radio. Isn’t that right LT?” Not today. The audience laughed their faces off at my expense. And rightfully so. It was an outstanding shoot and an even better TDY, and somewhere at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico is a spent AIM-9 with a squadron sticker proudly attached to the side. Chive on.

How would you like to figure applied restraint on those spaghetti balls of straps?

Smart move...a PRF & promotion board for LTs was complete BS. I'll give Welsh credit.

Word on the street through our wing (33FW) is that there's a package on the CSAF's desk to do just that. Hopefully he signs it. Thankfully sanity prevailed and the DPs from the Wing went forward blank except for a check mark.

Fini Flight. You either know it will be your fini flight or you don’t. I had mine planed out for months. “Viper 2, traffic eleven o’clock , 3 miles slightly high. Slow mover.” “2’s tally” That is the first thing he has said in the last 30 minutes. Right after taking the runway I checked him in on the departure frequency and he had not said another word since. Radio discipline is absolutely necessary in our job, something I did not realize fully until flying over the skies of Iraq. Working with JTAC’s, air controllers other flights, predators, helicopters and humvees all on the same frequency - there is no time for small talk. Every word needs to have a meaning. Brevity. There are no umms or aahhhs – nothing extraneous. Think about what you are going to say and find the 3-1 term to say it. A book a thousand pages long with a chapter specifically written on how to say things. Every flight in the last five years we have debriefed to it and so far this flight is going well. An HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter passes motionless a thousand feet above our flight, the workhorse taxi of Iraq. The doors are open and a few dudes are sitting on the edge with their boots hanging into the air. One gives a hang loose sign as we rocket past at 500 knots. Our flight is at 500 feet and 500 knots, hugging the trees, weaving and bobbing in and out of the valleys. Nap of the earth flying using the terrain to hide from the SAM threats that abound around us. The General Electric I am strapped to is not even sweating. It will still give me 300 more knots with a 2 inch flick of the throttle. I am covering a mile every 6 seconds but it is comfortable now. I have time to check out houses and notice fisherman in the lakes. What was a blur a few years ago has slowed down immensely and given me time to think well ahead of the jet. I have a map in my left hand and a photo of the target along with the attack we will be using strapped to my knee. A quick study of the terrain we will see will pay huge dividends in about 5 minutes. I have my pen handy to jot down any notes the ground controller will give me when we check in. All this with a 2 second time to impact the earth with any wrong moves. The laws about texting and driving always crack me up – we are on a different level. I was 3 seconds late on my last turn point and need to push it up a little to get there on time. I have a two minute window to deliver, but bombs on target on time to the second is the goal. This will be the lat time I drop bombs for a long time and I want to shack the SA-6 site on the first run attack. The next plane I fly won’t do low levels and I know I am going to miss the Viper. I have had an outstanding time with my squadron the last few years and have been mentored by some of the finest pilots in the Air force. My final flight won’t be without some tears, I’ll be leaving some great friends and my first love – the F-16. The plan is a 10 LAT, Rip 6, 1 pass and haul ass. 1 shot with no re-attacks. Nothing worse than stirring up the hornets nest with the sound of a NASCAR race and going through dry. A re-attack with an aware enemy is much more risky. The element of surprise is a tactic that worked for Ghengas Kaahn and a flight of fighters alike. The initial point looks exactly as briefed, a small bridge over the creek at a low point in the valley. We are going to egress back over the mountains and be gone and out of sight just as quick as we arrived. Ghosts of destruction. 5 miles out, we still cannot see the target at these low altitudes. Viper 2 checks 45 degrees to the right. I immediately check 30 and climb 15 degrees nose high. Things are starting to happen fast. Off the left is an opening in the road and as I climb, an SA-6 is just becoming visible through the trees. His radar just woke up to the fact that I was there, the operator woken up by an alarm and the computer asking for consent to fire. Off my right, Viper 2 squares up to the target on a simultaneous attack. He needs to pickle before my bombs impact so he can see where to drop. I roll inverted and point. 10 degrees low, target just below the nose. Track. Small adjustment left. Wait. I am only 1000 feet above the ground with the target rapidly approaching. These are dumb bombs. Old school. They go where you pickle and if you miss you miss. No fancy lasers or GPS to put them back on track. The sport of kings and a skill the CAF is rapidly losing with less flying and the adaptation of high tech guided weapons. I have less than 5 seconds to figure all this out. 520 knots, heading down hill. Watch the throttle. Aim. Put the thing on the thing. Let the green stuff do its magic, the hamsters working overtime to calculate it out. Warheads on foreheads. Whatever. The pipper tracks right over the center. Pickle. Hold. Track. The death dot passes squarely across the target and is moving rapidly. In milliseconds, 6 bombs ripple off the jet in quick succession. 2 lofts his bombs in from a mile out so he doesn’t get nailed by the frag of mine. We both pull 5 g’s in an aggressive left hand turn, back to formation, back down low and back out of sight. Gone. Blue Death. 12 BDU bombs leaving a pile of hair, teeth and eyeballs in our wake…. A perfect training mission and a perfect way to end my career in the plane I have come to love. The end of the Fini Flight is usually met with the same enthusiasm on the ramp. It is traditional for friends and family along with the entire squadron to meet the jet as it taxis in. Long over are the days of multiple burner low approaches inches over the squadron building but there still is some unique style to ending ones career in a particular fighter. I have seen guys taxi back with gorilla masks on, blow up dolls fully inflated and my personal favorite – helmet removed and replaced with one of those beer caps, 2 Bud Lights strapped to the sides of a yellow plastic ball cap with a straw going to both. The canopy opened on his jet and he tossed a dozen empties over the side. “Thank God he didn’t crash” is all the commander could say. “Could you imagine the accident report on that one with a case of beer in the wreckage.” It is not over with the landing, as the pilot takes his last step off the ladder it begins. Some try to run but most know to stay put. My squadron gets one of the cops to handcuff pilots to the tie down rings on the ramp just to make sure they don’t go anywhere. Kids get the small fire extinguishers, and mom gets the hose from the fire truck to soak the pilot down. This is a fantastic exercise when snow is on the ground – as it turns out, the rubber, watertight dry suit we wear during the winter months is also fantastic at holding water on the inside. Often times, someone will unzip the dry suit, shove the fire hose in, sts, fill it up with water and zip it back closed. Probably 50 gallons or so get trapped and freezing temperatures offer no reprieve. This much water weight will pin the pilot to the ground until the water drains out of his sleeves. A bottle of champagne is shared by the bros, we call the pilot a quitter and generally throw a big party in the bar that evening. Tradition, and something every fighter pilot should have. I had flown that same flight a hundred times but my planned fini flight in the Viper did not happen that way. None of it. Not even close. Back in November of 2009, my buddy Monty had his fini flight as well but he didn’t know it. A few days after his last flight, on an off day, he was out in his front yard doing a little lawn maintenance when a Pontiac GTO went out of control and jumped the curb up into his yard killing him instantly. He died trimming his trees on a day off. Unbelievable. Fighter pilots know exactly how they will part the surly bonds of earth. It happens one of two ways. You die telling stories of your past glory at a relatively young old age from liver complications from the whiskey you drank to help make those stories entertaining – OR – you plow in at tremendous speed, out of control and on fire, completely content in the fact that you just took 5 flankers with you. A national frickin hero. A decorated combat veteran and one of the finest fighter pilots this world has ever known did not go down in a blaze of glory with his hair on fire. He was not slain by AAA even though it had been aimed at him. He was not damaged by SAM’s even though they were trained on his jet. He has had countless emergencies and brushes with death over his decade and a half flying fighters and he came out unscathed. He was a phenomenal fighter pilot, well respected in the community, and unfortunately he did not go out on his own terms. Monty was the kind of pilot that everyone wanted to follow into battle. As one of my early F-16 instructors, he was unanimously voted as one of the best. He had an easy going personality combined with an unbelievable knowledge of tactics and golden hands that made him an extremely talented aviator. He was also a good friend and mentor and played a tremendous part in my follow on assignment. I had dinner with he and his wife just a week earlier. 3 years later and I still have trouble making sense of the way he parted this earth. Tragic. Monty grew up in Ohio and Ohio is where he wanted to be buried. We flew jets out to Selfridge Michigan the next weekend to honor him with a missing man fly over of his funeral. Unfortunately, just after we landed, the storm of the year started to pass through. Detroit and Chicago O’Hare shut down and the entire country was being crippled by a massive front. Snow had just started falling when we landed, the forecast was getting worse and it looked as if there would be absolutely no way to get airborne the next day. We chatted with the crew at base ops regarding the next day’s flight and they were determined to do whatever it took to make it happen. They knew of the accident and knew what it would mean to Monty to get us airborne. We passed 2 dozen accidents on the way to the hotel that night, the snow had turned to freezing rain. Hell really had frozen over, there was no chance the flyover would happen. We met Monty’s family that evening and they were just as good of people as he was. I had been on a fishing trip with Monty and his dad down in Florida a few months prior and his old man was devastated. They were true friends. His wife was also a good friend of the squadron. A fantastic woman, also an Air Force pilot, who lost her husband far to early in their marriage. There was nothing to say so we talked about all the good times. They had all thanked us for bringing the jets out and understood that we wouldn’t be able to fly. The next morning we pressed out to the airport anyways. The storm had been devastating, cars had been in the ditch all night from sliding on the black ice and power outages were widespread from iced over trees falling on power lines. It dumped another 1.5 feet of snow on top of the ice over the night. The weather was still a few hundred feet overcast with freezing fog and mist. 45mph is all we dared to go but we had to at least try and make it happen. When we pulled up to the airport we were amazed at the sight of several snowplows already hard at work. The base ops manager said they called in extra employees and came in early. If the weather cleared, the runway would be ready. I have never seen an F-16 iced up as badly as these jets were. They looked pathetic and crippled with hundreds of ice sickles jetting off every point that water ran off. The wings were covered in snow and under that was a layer of frozen ice. The manager said the de-ice truck was ready when we were. We made the call to fire the jets up. There was no chance the weather would clear, but we felt we owed it to Monty to try. The truck de-iced us and we hobbled our way out to the runway single file. The cleared area was barely wide enough for an F-16 to sneak through. At the end of the runway we waited. And waited. We were all watching our watches, waiting for the no later time knowing the funeral had already started. We had about a half hour to go until it would be too late. None of us said a word. At the 29 minute point, tower called and said we had the absolute minimum weather we needed to lift off. “1’s Ready.” “2’s Ready.” “3’s Ready.” “Tower, Viper flight ready” “Good luck boys, cleared for takeoff.” The tower controllers knew the importance of this flight as well. It was dark, gray and dreary. Absolutely miserable out. Off we went a minute later and immediately into the weather. A few minutes into the climb, lead broke the silence. “Well fellas, here we go.” We were in the weather forever. If the ceiling was the same over the cemetery, there was no way we would be able to do the flyover. We pressed on anyways. Passing through 25,000 feet we finally broke through the clouds. The misery and dreariness of the weather below was left behind and we broke out into a crystal clear blue sky above. It was a beautiful sight to see the sun, but a white blanket of thick clouds stretched out as far as we could see. The satellite image showed it stretched for a thousand miles. 100 miles to go and there was no hole in site. There was no chance this was going to happen but we owed it to Monty to press on anyways. A check of the weather with the center controller said the clouds in the area were overcast from 400-800 feet with 1-2 miles of visibility. “Viper flight, cleared to descend to 1500’. Good luck fellas.” The center controller knew how important this flight was as well. Down we went, back into the black abyss. The blue sky disappeared and the gentle white clouds quickly turned grey and then black. The weather sucked but we pressed down anyways. “Viper flight, cleared to 1000’” On the AUX radio, lead called our buddy with a handheld on the ground. “It doesn’t look good fellas, I’d estimate a few hundred feet at best.” 1000’ was the minimum vectoring altitude in the area and as low as we are legally allowed to go. If the clouds were at 800’ we would have to call it a day. Miraculously, and against all odds, we broke out of the weather at 1500’. We were in a radar trail formation with 2 miles between each jet. One by one we popped out of the weather and slowly joined up. We had 5 minutes of loiter time and we were holding about 20 miles away. There was still a wall of weather between us and where we were going. We were in a sucker hole, just wide enough for us to fumble around and wait. It was still a long shot even though we were so close. At the 4th minute, the weather parted and a rainbow appeared right above the cemetery. “You see that Rainbow?” “Yep. This is meant to happen” The rainbow, no kidding ended right on the mark point for the cemetery. Viper 2 was on the left wing, I was on the right. In between lead and myself was an empty space for another Viper. Where Monty’s jet belonged. The missing man. We flew slowly over his funeral during taps. His broken wings put back together and placed on his chest in the coffin. His body was on the ground but there is absolutely no doubt that we were actually flying on his wing that chilly morning. There is no way that flyover should have happened, but somehow it did. Monty was watching over us and he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. After we flew over, the clouds closed up and we were again swallowed by the weather. Our good buddy was laid to rest with a proper send off. He dedicated his life to the service of our country, it is the least we could do to pay him back. We had a few more beers that night and reminisced more about our friend. Old Monty stories turned up from other squadrons that we had never heard. Different time, different place, but same old Monty. What a great guy. The next afternoon the weather finally broke. I led the lonely flight home and landed at night. A handful of pilots met me at the jet, the rest were still in transit from Ohio. There was no ceremony, no fire hose, no pictures, or Champaign. A simple handshake to a few of my good friends to commemorate my fini flight in the F-16 was all I needed. That long flight home was my last in the mighty Viper. “Here’s To Monty” we all said in unison. I rubbed my hand down the nose of the jet for the last time and took my gear inside. I cut my teeth on the Viper, and Monty was a big part of that. Not by any means what I planned for a fini, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I miss that bird, but I miss my friend more. I’ll see him again the next time I fly. Here’s To Monty.