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Needs more jazz hands. 2/10 Would not twerk to.

I had knee surgery when I was stationed in COS by an orthopedic surgeon at USAFA that specialized in sports injury/surgery. He went into great detail on my options and what the consequences of each of those options would be. He advised me to go with a surgery with a lower likelihood of success but a much better long-term result. Others told me not to take the chance with a military doctor. I ignored those people, and the doctor did a fantastic job. On top of that, everything was paid for by the government, including months of rehab at a civilian PT office right next to my house. Oddly enough, the surgeon had been a KC-135 pilot prior to going into the medical field. I guarantee you Dr. James Andrews himself wouldn't have done a better job. ETA: Lest we forget the numerous service members that are alive today because of the skill and bravery of medical professionals willing to take on the challenges of combat medical care in deployed locations.

I support this, epic.

Pearl Harbor...73 years ago today. To the fallen. Article from Reuters.

Pretty broad brush to apply to a large and diverse group of docs. Some people actually do serve because they feel obligated or called to serve in the US military, even if that means personal or professional sacrifice. This doesn't mean these individuals are incompetent or inferior to their civilian counterparts. This makes up at least one category of the higher ranking physicians in the DoD. There are also a large number of senior (and high-ranking) docs who were HIGHLY successful in the civilian sector, but either became unsatisfied or bored in the civilian sector and signed on the dotted line. Anyone that wants to criticize someone who joined the military in their later years and took a pay cut of 50-70% in a medical subspecialty that has a critical need in the military ought to try it themselves. I'm curious what wife's uncle would have to say about AF lawyers?

Sporty's and ASA I think are the best for ground school. They've both developed mobile apps for test prep as well as having good instructional videos. Jeppessen syllabus is probably the best. I have one I made up specifically for my students that is based on the Jepp syllabus. Make sure you know the DPE you'll have your student use. A good CFI-DPE relationship is key. Finally....I want to punch John and Martha King in the throat. Their bad jokes remind me of a never-ending AFN commercial.

If they said the Air Force Band was coming, they needed volunteers to set up, tear down, and watch the show. I'd actually go.

Why do some flight docs feel the need to wow me with their list of "aircraft flown"? Really?

I think there is a problem, in some corners of the Air Force, that everyone has become so busy supporting the bureaucracy that the proper time can't be given to brainstorming sessions and idea development. Guys are treading water in the office while min-running mission knowledge. The only active idea soliciting going on is the "anybody got anything for me" part of the weekly CC call. Guys may have good ideas or bad ones, but they'll never be asked in the first place. Fixing tactical problems is priority #22 in a lot of places. Leading an open, honest, and non-retributional "bitches/gripes/complaints" session once every couple of weeks might help open things up a bit.

I get it, in fact that is perfect setup for most of the military... It's effective and efficient. However aviation has changed, dramatically, over the past few decades. When we "gen" back up and lose a few airmen and planes in the process, we are no longer talking $100,000 and 5 months training; it is beyond exponentially higher than it was. Nor are we talking the same percentage, we lose one p51 and pilot that is nothing compared to losing one f22 and pilot... Not that I'm belittling the value of a life, I certainly am not, but the effect on our militaries ability to wage war is dramatically decreased with respect to the loss of the latter. They are truly irreplaceable. If we were really serious about reducing mishaps, pilot training would be completely different. From UPT, to initial, to continuation, we would have triple the number of sims, they would all be connected, scenarios would be random, difficult, challenging, you would fly it until you could recognize and react flawlessly. You would train, continually. Exercises would be tough, failures would be common. Flying hours would be abundant. We keep saying that we can never eliminate the human element, but we really haven't scratched the surface with respect to training aviators as best we can. What if we lost a missile crew, missile, and war head 5-6 times of year, do you think we would nonchalantly sit back and say, "that's the cost of having missiles." I will just never understand why losses are so acceptable in aviation... I'll go out on a limb and say, with a few exceptions (fatigue, depression, altered mental state, impromptu air show, etc...), anytime we use a human factor code or label it "pilot error" we are masking the problem and therefore the solution. It is so much easier and cheaper to blame an individual rather than fix the system that produced him.

We fly helos?

Please don't associate special needs folks with navs.

Might want to stand by there Heathcliff. "I remember a time" we were headed into LPLA (that still Lajes?) at night when the approach control radios failed and we were on heading to a big dark patch on the radar.........anyway the whole night had been sporting SO to get a jump on depAture in two dayz I stomped upstairs to Navy Wx shop and ordered weather.."any wx of note between here and the East Coast? says I....."Nope" says he......."thank's bye" "thanks see ya" and off we go to billeting and the next day off to KGB central (George the Crook's) for hours of merriment with the crew chiefs. Next day badly hungover..back up to Wx shop....Navy guy (who I could of sworn I saw at the Crook's..it wasn't that big a plaCE") drops the wx in front of me including a satellite photo of a full blown hurricane blocking our route home. Well what can you say? Anyway, got a nice boot in the ass going back so that was good. .....................................................we promptly named it "Hurricane Numbnuts".........