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I’m surprised you’re confused— judges did this numerous times to overturn various POTUS policies during the previous administration. The reason it took so long in this case is psycho democrats enabled by an aligned media and risk-averse doctors did all they could to stop it. Make no mistake: masks were always ineffective and the science never said otherwise. This was political all along. Some of us are taking a bit longer to figure that out.

Pretty simple…somebody sued the federal govt and/or cDc and/or TSA and/or Dot and won.

The fact that the Biden admin isn’t appealing the judge’s decision to stop the mask mandate means they know they would lose, the masks don’t work, and/or it’s not popular to do so. Sad that it’s taken so long for a majority of the American public to get to this point.

That sure as shit took about 69 seconds to drop, haha. My in-laws were flying home today. OMA-ATL- mask. ATL-JAN- no mask!

I know you like a good bet…over/under on the increase of pre-departure altercations caused by the Branch Covidians trying to deliver street-mask-justice for the non-believers of the recycled Hanes skid mark underwear mask?

And for the love of God, we better fight like hell to keep it that way.

It irks me to no end about the “just normal ops” line when looking at awarding medals to folks. By that logic, there should never be a medal awarded for any action short of self-sacrifice. Sal Giunta was just doing his job as an infantry NCO. Leo Thorsness just supported a rescue (that was unsuccessful and got an A-1 shot down). Tom Norris helped rescue some downed aircrew in a riverine environment well within a SEALs “normal ops”. Thomas Payne helped the core activity of Delta by doing a hostage rescue…pretty “normal ops”. See how monumentally stupid that sounds? I’m not saying the actions from various aircrew at HKIA are MOH worthy. What I am saying is that there was some serious gallantry, skill, bravery, and perseverance to make things happen. That deserves to be honored officially in the form of medal awards. I’ve got no connection to the C-17 community beyond riding as a pax a few times, but seeing what those guys did made me incredibly proud to be in the Air Force. Same goes for the Army helo guys, the Marines at the gates, etc. Massively proud of all these folks and their execution of “normal ops”.

Thanks, haven’t heard from the 121st either.

I’ll buy 90% of what you said above. But I do not ascribe to your earlier viewpoint that primary responsibility for an act so blatantly bad rests with entities other than the person who did it. You and jazzdude mention multiple contributing factors that should all be examined and rectified. Concur. But causal on this accident is pretty obvious: dude flew it straight into the ground. It’s necessary to state it so bluntly (because I’m not a fan of throwing spears at fellow aviators who made mistakes) to reinforce the importance of holding standards. Thank goodness so many flight evaluators had documented his behavior and poor performance; had HR caught it he may not have been allowed at the controls. I will also mention a thank you to the original poster. These are great discussions for a bunch of professionals to have, and much more useful than Covid and political discussions to me personally. Cheers🥃

If we take out all of the other failures and only leave the one where he "sucked" then obviously there are no other reasons? I'm not saying he wasn't a bad pilot or that he has NO blame. I'm saying that there are many other entities and people at fault for letting the sucky pilot through. The mindset of "pilot error" being the main cause is a slippery slope and even when it is a contributing factor, we as an industry cannot accept that as a widely accepted scapegoat. I believe we're all on the same page with the fact that what he did by withholding information was wrong. However, where is this disdain toward whoever was in charge of putting him on the pilot watch program? Why didn't they have him go through the training again if there was a two week hiatus in his training before the exam and he had all of his home issues and the hurricane stress? His obvious lack of quality airmanship would have been caught then and there. These are all questions that I feel have answers that would be much more indicative to why this happened than focusing on the fact the pilot was sub-par.

I’ve heard the same thing from several sources. I was hesitant to bring that up because I’ve not seen it substantiated, but it certainly adds another element if true. I’m generally for airlines increasing diversity. I understand the means to that end are controversial & I don’t intend to start that particular argument. The one thing we should all agree on though is that there must be a minimum level of acceptable performance for everyone. Maybe this accident will move the needle a bit in convincing airlines, judges, and maybe even lawyers that, regardless of minority status, airlines need the ability to weed out people who can’t meet the standards.

Bro, the CP flew the aircraft into the ground because he sucked. Despite any other culture/system failures, what can you add to the incident which contravenes my first sentence? Copy every accident has a chain, but this level of incompetence was a crash waiting to happen. I don’t like being a dick, but we shouldn’t be afraid to call a spade a spade. That dude was terrible, and stories like this help reinforce the importance of IPs & EPs holding the standard. That’s the single change which could have prevented this.

This feels like a Berlin Wall moment. Way too much momentum to change it back and if they try, by the time they do, data will probably show no difference. Someone will probably show the executive branch, "look, the people are happy," change it back and you will lose elections.

I think if your complete lack of skill and aptitude kills a couple of people who depend on you to operate with an assumed level of competence (with the potential for many, many more deaths.....imagine if the aircraft had gone down in a neighborhood or crowded city), you deserve a good chunk of the blame. Multiple failures at several operators should be a clue that maybe this isn't the job for you. At the end he seemed only too content to place his fate in the hands of his god. I wonder if the other two people on the airplane shared his sentiments? Sure, the FAA and Atlas are also complicit, but this dude deserves the criticism IMO.

I don't think anyone is arguing that. It's rarely down to a single pilot error. In this case, the pilot error was pretty significant though. Over and over again.

Yes, you can fly it single pilot if the other pilot isn't horrendously incompetent and keeps touching switches. Self induced problems were apparently a trend item with this guy.

That’s an interesting historical background I’d never heard about, thanks for sharing. I’ve had many a discussion with great FCCs scratching our heads about why they were ineligible for things like AMs/AAMs. It’s a double whammy because by missing out they’re leaving major promotion points on the table in a perpetually undermanned career field. Also the reason the FCC was on stage is because the AC made it a point during his speech to bring him up there to highlight his contribution. In fact he said if he had a game ball he’d give it to the FCC. IMHO it was a genius way to make the whole chain of decision makers look inept, which I think was probably at least 50% of his intent.

From what I remember from the initial investigation, the shear pin connecting the yokes was broken when the Captain attempted to take control of the aircraft. To answer your question, yes, either seat can fly the aircraft & reach pretty much everything required to get yourself safely on the ground. But the designers didn’t account for fighting a large, adrenaline fueled adult male for control of the aircraft. Shitty situation for all involved & despite the conclusions of the well written article that was posted earlier, I believe the Atlas HR and training departments are being let off easy here.

This has been going on for years. The article is a good sumarry of stripes other coverage but it's ridiculous it's taking so long to get traction. Blinken, unaware of Germany’s tax penalties on US military personnel, says he will get involved US Air Force employee handed over couple’s purchase records, leading to $300,000 tax bill from Germans Harassed’ by German tax offices, more US military families face financial threats I think it's a crime that the military hasn't been providing service members with legal support to fight this. Definitely something folks impacted should continue to be writing to their senator and ambassador about.

Deadair Wolfman. I’m incredibly impressed with it; amazing on 300 BLK and 9mm. Haven’t shot it yet on .223, but it’ll work on any .30 cal or smaller round, full auto with subs, semi with supers. I used silencer co for purchase and NFA Trust (not all states accept their single shot trust version, so I went with old tried and true). Find a store with one of their kiosks for digital prints, and they have them for life when you buy more NFA items. They’re doing the e-forms now - 78 days for a guy here. Highly recommend silencer co for a one stop shop (and great customer service).

By the way, I'm at 13 months and counting, so hopefully the e-file speeds things up considerably. Or even better, just allow you to buy it without the paperwork.

the FAs can always wear N95 masks if they’re really worried and believe that masks work. Or they can just refuse to fly.

Appears airlines are running with this ruling. Will be very difficult for the Biden admin to put the genie back in the bottle at this point.

Masks on planes are done.

Possible, but I doubt it. If you look close at the end there’s about 6-9 Russian pigs with Russian uniforms/weapons getting snuffed out. Seems lately like the Russians are barely trying to justify their actions; I don’t think the “de-Nazify” horseshit is getting traction with anyone.

Possible some people started spamming comments about him and they removed it for the family. I get the accusations are very serious but I also believe to his family he was someone very important and I'm sad for their loss. Noone raises their little boy to be a sex predator. Whole situation is just tragic. Like I said. I knew him as a different dude. A little arrogant but overall decent. If the accusations are true, I'm truly sorry he didn't choose a different path because he had potential to be a decent human.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110216/

I can think of at least two DFCs that were laughable, but were absolutely ramrodded through for PA reasons. That said, neither are on the individual, they didn’t do anything poorly or wrong, just were used as a pawn in some politicized PA game. Also loved seeing command chiefs get bronze stars (who did nothing besides push queep inside the wire), meanwhile JTAC bros in the shit weren’t given squat because “well they weren’t here for a year like chief X”…go fuck yourself awards system.

I don't want to sound jaded by my guess is a good deal of these medals go out when there is significant media spotlight on these events.

Hell that sounds like a GI calling home from Kandahar.

Ammoseek.com is a website that does internet searches.

My rule of thumb: if I cannot drink the tap water in a country, I won't fly on their national airline.

A divorce lawyer revealed the top 5 professions a woman should avoid marrying in a now-viral TikTok Meanwhile, pilots, including those who work in the military, have a lot of responsibility as they are "in control of like 150, 200 people's lives at a time," she added. "And they tend to be very narcissistic and very controlling." What is your point bitch, go make me a sandwich...

Yup! It was like the very first ils clearance in pilot training. You knew exactly what was coming, prepared for it, rehearsed it, then: ATC: Iron 73 fly heading 150, maintain 3000 feet until established, cleared the ILS runway 13 right. Me: Iron board 737, cleared to land 3000 feet, heading 13, good OBOGS. The other mind fuck is your first experience with ramp. Imagine trying to drive a 737 through a six-lane roundabout in Kabul during rush hour. That's pretty close to CLT ramp.

So apparently certain members of the Armed Forces stationed in Germany are being taxed by various local German authorities. They say if your job is not essential to the defense of NATO you are there voluntarily and not only are they taxing you on you base pay but also consider the on-base gym, commissary, BX, shoppet, clothing sales, etc. an additional benefit to your tax liability! https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2022-04-12/tax-germany-us-troops-eucom-pentagon-5661053.html

So minor side bar but I don’t mind airing this bad laundry… A year ago a CW5 from 160th was awarded the highest military honor from the Norwegian military. First time it’s happened since WWII. It was only that award being given, that forced regiment to pony up some medals like ARCOMs for the rest of the guys on that event. Before his award went up on the radar ARCOMs weren’t even given to the crews. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk