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True in any airframe. And here on the interwebs too! Famous last words. If you look at the vast majority of aircrew involved in incidents you will find very serious people who expect excellence from themselves and others. Nothing scares me more than someone who doesn't think that they could be next.

We don't know what we don't know, they may have screwed up, they may have had something going on we don't know about. I originally wanted to fry them with a post, but I'm getting old or something. Thankfully they are alive, that hasn't been the trend lately.

Buddy of mine made this video tribute for Shell 77.

That's where Rainman's been the last few months...

What the hell!!? My imaginary girlfriend is way hotter than Manti Teo's and Maxim didn't list her on their 'Hot 100' list... http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2013/05/10/Manti-Teos-Imaginary-Girlfriend-Makes-Maxims-Hot-100-List

As an exercise in time management I ask the audience to type your MWS into Google and then hit the 'space' bar and see where Google thinks you might be going with your search next, aside from giving you something to do, it may be cathartic if you try searching other folks MWS's. The reasons you're citing when you bring these examples to the table are valid in that they are endemic to a culture of careerism during a decade long war (they are true things), but they do not establish the conclusion that they are causal. I share your sentiments to some degree, but only in the way that some AFA or A&M grads are arseholes, and others are really good dudes. I've seen cross-flow, FAIPs, C-21 dudes join my community and become experts rapidly much the same way that a young FP can be upgraded ahead of peers. Additionally, at least three of the major incidents, wrong field, t-storms, c-5 crashes short had nothing to do with ACIQ MWS newness. The entire crew force is less experienced due to having been 'gut' in 2005-6, and again in 2011. Careerism is a problem, but early upgrades are just symptoms, driven from the top down. Get rid of AAD (UPT WAS my friggin advanced study) and add an unmasked 942 (yep, lift up your skirt boys and girls), then separate pilots from the rest for major's board promotion, two simple ideas to help fight ops cancer. As a side note, and for the love of all things Marlboro, please mother Air Force stop putting the word 'Innovation' in front of me. Innovation--the word in and of itself--is not the solution to our problems even if it provides a little serotonin kick when said by those past 0-4. This, let's do less with less spiced up by the innovation mantra is putting the entire AF on final below glide path--no one quite knows whether to speak up because no one really knows if the dudes driving have SA on what they mean by that word (do they know WE are going well below glidepath?). Hey bosses, a sustainable future is NOT in sight, f#6K!ng go-around. How about some professional common sense as a solution to our problems on short final. We're gonna go to Tampa, we're gonna go to Dover, we're gonna go to Bagram, we're gonna go to Alaska and then we're gonna wash up, we're gonna wash up and then we're gonna go to Scott, walk up in that office and chop that motha f#6K!n desk in HALLFFF....BYAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! Safety checks, getcha' sum!!!

What does this have to do with anything? Something wrong with being proud of what you do? Something else wrong with a pilot wearing a breitling? Stop trolling.

I flew the next day...and I was fine. I've spoken to a few people about it. I wasn't the only one who witnessed it. They also flew. Sad fact is that plane crashes are a part of the business. I was hoping to never witness one myself, and I hope to never witness one again. Hearing about it on the news is one thing, seeing/hearing/feeling the impact is quite another. I've since watched it a dozen times or so on youtube. Believe it or not, that helps to desensitize. Still makes my stomach turn, but what are you gonna do? BL, I'm good. My rotation ended shortly after that incident, and provided the opportunity to reconnect with my family and think about "life". That said, aviation is, and always has been, the passion of my life. Can't wait to get back in the air next month.

:grabs popcorn for G2 FOUO discussion:

A thousands times this. Arrogance and hubris have been the cause of MANY mishaps. Show my a guy who has never screwed up in an airplane and I will show you someone who has never flown one. Part of being a good pilot is recognizing your own vulnerability to making mistakes and be vigilant to identify them before mistakes grow into mishaps. QC your own work just like you would with a student pilot, ESPECIALLY if you are an AC, and DOUBLE ESPECIALLY if you are an IP. The higher your position, the more likely the rest of your crew will be to accept what you have done as the "correct" way to do things, and not speak up due to your experience and seniority. If you think you can/will never make a mistake in an airplane, you need to find a new line of work, because you are destined to kill yourself and others with your arrogance.

And dragging the gear two miles short on approach at bastion....nvgs are hard!

Or the Air & Space Sexual Harassment Obliteration Liaison Executive?

As a long time reader, I am in the same position as izzlenizzle... 20 years old next month, 3 years of school left, had a briefing with the cross town ROTC unit today but am also looking into enlisting as a load at my local reserve unit. There were no real definitive answers so far and I was hoping to get some opinions in weighing the two routes. The benefits of the direct route to officer and (possibly) more available pilot slot in ROTC vs. the money and awesome job in school in addition to avoiding active duty politics, which a lucrative thought from what I understand. I appreciate any thoughts and apologize for the bump.

Smokin', that's what I read as well. If Franklin does get screwed because of this, he will be remembered as being a man of integrity and that should mean more than a fourth star! And if that does happen, he still should remain as a case study in how real leadership works. I don't know the man but I have great respect for him after reading that letter. I don't care what rank he is, it showed a dedication to values that many just pay lip service to. It has restored my faith a little as well, but I also expect to see him pay a price for doing the right thing...

I'm just a lowly Flt/CC, but in my little kingdom, your worthless Masters degree has 0 bearing on my Flight rankings. Unless you are shirking other responsibilities to do that Masters, at which point you can find yourself in the bottom third. If you are doing it and still the best FP in the flight, good on you. At my level though, with ~15 Lts and Jr Capts in the flight, I haven't ever seen a need to use a Bac+ or Masters as a "tie breaker."

I agree with you that many people don't understand how hard flyers work. However, in a similar way that you educated your physiologist, do you ever ask somebody in support offices about their problems? From a CE perspective, I would LOVE to eliminate training days, staff a night shift, or get all of your work orders done, but I don't have the resources to make that happen. Here is why: - Training Days: The Air Force has elected to implement a dumbass deployment process in which my CE troops will probably never deploy to support the homestation unit that they are assigned to. The homestation wing commander has no buy in on what his combat support capabilities are. Of course, if this gets fixed, it means your homestation base doesn't get maintained when the entire wing deploys. Additionally, more than half of CE taskings are outside the wire...and no, these guys aren't EOD...just your average plumber. What that means is I have to have all of my airmen proficient enough in combat skills to show up at an Army Power Projection Platform and succeed. This requires an entire syllabus of training in order to meet the combat and engineering training tasks...this is before any taskings are issued. So you spend somewhere between a full day per week, or maybe one day every other week to train these guys up, and then you find out they are deploying to the Deid. Fantastic, we just lost thousands of man hours that could have gone to supporting a homestation unit. All because the Air Force can't figure out how to manage deployments. But, I have to train each engineer like he is going to get shot at, or I have failed. - Normal Duty Hours: I simply don't have the manning to implement a night shift. With somewhere between 1/3 and 2/3 of each shop deployed at any given time, I can't effectively cover 24 hours a day with enough trained, experienced guys. So, we run a standby team for airfield and infrastructure emergencies. That is in addition to normal duty hours, so if you worked an emergency on standby all night, you are going to work all day in the shop, too. For this reason, I'm not going to run a guy out at night to fix a leaky faucet or an electrical plug that doesn't work. But, you can be assured that an airfield lighting problem or water main break is going to be worked all night until it is fixed. - Work Orders: The bottom line is, a big facility complex like a base requires that you spend 97% of the forecasted maintenance every year, only deferring 3% per year. The Air Force is funding sub-50% right now. Additionally, the more you defer maintenance, the more money is required the next year. The fact is, Big Blue has rightfully decided to invest in other places, such as very expensive airframes. It's time to pay the price, it's as simple as that. CE is also one of the largest unfenced pots of money around, so it gets taxed at HAF, MAJCOM, and the wing. Much of your squadron O&M money that gets used to buy flatscreens at end of year was pulled from money that was originally budgeted to CE O&M work. This is INCREDIBLY frustrating when the flying squadrons are up your ass about work not getting done. Now, one area that we need to improve is communicating with you guys. If work isn't going to get done, you need to know that and the underlying reason. This business of work orders going into the black hole to never be heard of again needs to stop. I worked directly with three fighter squadrons in my last assignment...great bunch of dudes, most of who treated me very well. However, there were a few that really knew how to burn bridges with a number of organizations on-base. Are there some really terrible support organizations out there? Absolutely. However, at the end of the day, I feel like I've done my job if I put 100% of my resources against the top priorities in the wing, which is a pretty tough thing to figure out.. That may have only covered about 25% of the overall requests, but there isn't anything else that I can do. Sorry, this wasn't supposed to turn into a CE specific post, but that is what I know best. Maybe finance has a similar story, maybe not. I'm going to drop the rant here, because we are getting way off topic from the thread topic of CGOC buffoonery. Have a good one!

Yeah, she should volunteer to help with the worthless self-licking queep in an ops squadron instead of doing community service. Great idea.