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Pretty close :) Actually you're partially correct! The photographer on the beach (just happened to be in the right place/right time) used to work on base and was familiar with the U-2. When she saw us fly over she had to grab another lens to get the shot and wasn't able to time it perfectly with the jets over the bridge so what you're seeing is a "layered" imaged of two photos that are a few seconds apart. Still...we had great luck that day. Here's some teasers...Once all the official photos come out I'll work on getting the cockpit video edited. The 2 seater also had a 360 camera in the front seat (where you can watch it on your phone and tilt around to see all angles).

"Pretty darn good."

Just spoke to one of the two pilots that flew the photo op. Great story... great support by Beale PA (again)... and hopefully they will release some great photos in the near future. I'm officially the Doubting Jackass of the Week. Foot inserted into mouth, and humble pie has been eaten.

This is one of those time I'm ecstatic that I've been told I'm wrong. Had it been shot with wet film instead of digital, I'd have been more likely to believe it... something any U-2 pilot or Intel officer can appreciate. I'll gladly buy drinks to all involved on my next visit to the squadron,...probably this week. I'll drop a bunch of $2 bills in the kitty. Kudos to the leadership there for approving it. Despite the institutional issues in the AF, Beale and the U-2 Program is a great place to be, and a great place to fly.

Congrats! It is a tough road ahead and UPT is just the beginning. My advice is to get plugged in wherever you all live, doesn't have to be at the base with base wives, just somewhere you feel comfortable and people you trust. The real work starts now, deployments, TDYs, missing birthdays, holidays and anniversaries. Be understanding and realize that this too will end one day. His Air Force career will be over and it's really up to both of you to decide if you are gonna stick it out together or just be another AF statistic of a broken marriage. Tell him I said to always make sure he puts his family above the Air Force (there is a line for the stuff you have to do versus chasing the carrot). Trust him that he has your best interests at heart and be there for him and support him on those tough days. Bottom line, be honest with each other and keep the communication open.

Ummm what?You realize we have E's sitting in something with as much Firepower as an MLRS accepting fire missions, verifying coordinates, and releasing what is a metric butt load of Angry explosives right? Your CCTs on the ground control and coordinate the release of everything from a 20mm gun run to a fully loaded B-1 bomber... Do they not have rank and pay enough for that level of responsibility? Because the ALO they work for sure gets paid more without the responsibility. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Yeah saying Officers should be responsible for effects sounds rational, but only in a vacuum when you don't look at the dozens of other readily available examples of high responsibility jobs done by enlisted personnel where a guy with stripes and no bars has the yes/no on whether something happens. Great example: Jump Master Didn't see any reasons stated as to why an E should be in charge of and final authority for an airframe dropping ordinance without any non E oversight. In all of those examples you have O's making the final decision. Ummm... No you don't. You know how many officers are in a Tank Company? 4 (3 LTs and a CPT)... You know how many tanks are in a tank company? A lot F'ing more than 4. Do you think those tank company and platoon commanders are stopping to verify the release of ordnance off their sections tanks? Or pimping directly what targets they are and aren't permitted to engage? Hell the first Sgts got his own tank he sure as he'll isn't asking a PL what to do with it. Same with an artillery Battery. Same with engineers who conduct virtually all their combat ops without direct oversight of engineering officers because they are tasked to support a ground commander who knows nothing about the how of the system and just provides his intent for the mission. I'd like to introduce you to a system called AFATIDS... Where an FSO (enlisted guy on an observation point) can literally sent a digital text message fire mission via a computer to a gun battery or MLRS/HIMARs also operated by enlisted personnel who can then dependent upon position relative to the fire support coordination line of that mission accept and fire on that target. Without ever talking to a captain... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Would love to hear your thoughts on why "E's" can't employ weapons properly? I bet it's great.

Was it as hard to land as the 135R?

Only A1 would call paying a certain class of people 1/4 the money to do the same job "elegant."

Don't post drunk.

False. I called AFPC and informed them of rule 16, note 1b, and within 5 minutes it was confirmed that I didn't have to sign the ADSC nor was I 7-day opting. J model here I come. Xaarman, you are requaling in a MWS, which is advanced flying training. Call the Total Force Service Center and inform them of note 1b. You'll still get the PCS ADSC, but that's it.

Gen McDew is a highly-respected senior General at the highest levels of the Pentagon. We should be so lucky for President Obama/ Secretary Carter to nominate him.

Yup To fly a mission in OIR with a Scorpion Jet assuming a 6 hour mission, assuming $3K per flight hour, is $18K where that same mission performed by a F-16 (keeping it single ship apples to apples comparison) and assuming a $10K per hour cost (very conservative) and then assuming it would need two ARs for ingress-patrol-recovery and a 5 hour tanker mission to cover that at $15K (again conservative) that comes to $135K to fly that mission in a mostly permissive AOR but both by the capabilities of the aircraft, sensors, weapons and their ROE would deliver a weapon or conduct ISR outside the WEZ of most realistic threats so using the high end system to deliver the same effect is of little operational benefit and significant cost. To quote Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC, "Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics." It is the logistics & costs of these sustained long term operations consisting of not just kinetic military effects but persistent ISR (and the huge PED tail to make any use of what is collected) that should drive the unimaginative AF to adapt and change when the model of how it did things in the past in operations that were quite different is just too damn expensive for what we actually do now and are likely to do a lot more of in the future. Going back to the bar napkin math I dreamed up, you save $117k per mission, assume you fly 25 missions a day with 2 FOLs and you save daily over $2.9 million. That's not even considering the huge savings in logistical footprint by reduction from flying/supporting fewer types, aircraft not needing AR, etc... $2.9 mil a day at one year comes to $1 billion per year, that pays for 50 Scorpion Jets in a year. Not even figuring in the extra costs of the reduced footprint, service life extended by saving hours on fighters by not using them for these types of operations, etc... You save a billion here and a billion there and eventually you save real money in Pentagon terms... then you can buy nice toys. By all accounts the Iraqi AF just lost a Caravan conducting a Hellfire strike to ISIS AAA. Outside of Afghanistan where the biggest gun is probably a And while yes Scorpion and other type airplane's absolutely win the cost to use argument they are virtually useless until after the major fighting is over. That means that while they are extremely well suited to rearming an Iraqi or other type Air Force they shouldn't be looked at as a good idea for us to go launching offensives with. Which is exactly why I fully support money to the AVFID program that does exactly that, get their crappy Air Force to perform its own ISR and CAS under our direction to help them find their ass with an extra hand. The much larger overall unaccounted for cost of putting a small turboprop/jet at airports within the AOR is them requiring a much larger and more expensive security cost. And it's an exponential curve. You need patrols outside the wire to maintain your logistics. You need a QRF that can do something about the 122mm rockets and mortars that keep coming on daily repetition (anybody been to Shank?). The second you start taking casualties on the ground the dollars saved argument dries up much less the loss of an aircraft. When you are talking about half million dollar vehicles lost full of ground bubbas to an IED and the beating to morale that a unit losing guys to ambushes and IDF has to endure the dollars for a couple weeks of having Viper and a Tanker on the ATO look cheap.