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Hear me out here. Lets just give the tower or ground crews universal fuel shutoff switches to aircraft engines. Every guy on the line and in the tower has kill switch app on their phone. Problem solved.

Over the last 25 years I've been on this forum, I thought I'd already read the most inane and pointless chaff possible. (checks Baseops and reads this thread) Ope, I guess not. This is the low-water mark. Carry on.

Multiple decades, multiple platforms, communities, MAJCOMs, and GCCs. Have watched our support functions go down the drain across the board and the burden continue to be delegated to the ones on the pointy end that actually need the most support to do their jobs, take care of their families, and execute the Service’s core missions. But it wasn’t until leading hundreds of enlisted Airmen across scores of AFSCs that I truly felt the “what are we doing here” hit me in the deepest parts where I’d previously managed to keep alive that spark of pride of service. Showing up late, leaving early, doing the bare minimum and often not even that… some not even able to wear their uniforms, no interest in the actual mission (sometimes lip service and often complaining, but no motivation when given opportunities to participate)… an unhealthy focus on unearned awards, decs, inflated EPBs, and “good deals”… Get off the flight line for a tour or two into a job where enlisted outnumber officers by 100:1 and you’ll see. But at the same time I can’t blame “the enlisted”. It’s culture. It starts with accessions and boot camp, tech school, senior enlisted, and the officers that lead them. That is not to say a single officer can make the changes needed — despite higher leadership edicts and Dunning-Kruger-officer platitudinisms to the contrary. That may sound bitter, but I’m not passed over or at risk of not promoting again. It’s watching officer peers promote with half the motivation, half the understanding of the mission, half the time in service (when weekly input/output is considered), and embodying all of the same “enlisted” issues highlighted above, at senior grades, that is crushing… but they checked the boxes. It’s institutional, and maybe we should start there.

Wonder who he works for now. Drones, they got some pretty high speed ones nowadays.

Need one of you airliner guys to do some scientific work here. Need times from cutoff to non lethal fan speed. Only way this is getting solved.

Being retired enlisted in a huge maintenance squadron OMS, AGS, or AMXS, pilots do not get or very little exposure to enlisted unless they fly a heavy with loadmasters/boomers, Flight engineers or flight mechanics. But that is a small exposure just to get todays mission done. They don't deal with the personnel issues such as EPR's, training, or discipline. We have junior mx officers with a MSgt Pro Super tied to them to keep them out of trouble before a O5 SQCC makes their life a living hell. My neighbor is a retired Army Apache pilot who was the MX officer in his unit, he flew all the OCF/FCFs before a line pilot flew it, totally different culture. It's been a while since the USAF had rated Mx officers and awhile MX was assigned to Ops squadrons. In the early 90's many OPCC's flew their jets into the ground not managing acft hours telling the MX officer and Senior Es to shut up and color. Try being in those squadrons with a bunch of whiney ABM's.

I was obviously unclear in my point, which is my mistake. I was not arguing that Air Force pilots do not have exposure to Air Force enlisted. I was arguing that Air Force pilots do not have exposure to the enlisted in the army and the Marines, which are an entirely different animal than enlisted airmen. What is required to motivate, discipline, and control enlisted airmen is not the same as what is required to motivate, discipline, and control soldiers and grunts. That's not from personal experience, obviously, it's from the experience of friends and family who were in the army and Marines. And it's from observations made of the absolute daily shit show that was the Marine Recon unit in Moron. And the army/Marine units in Bagram. If you think the enlisted communities between the services are the same, then we just have to agree to disagree. Different jobs, different applicant pools, different acceptance standards, and different expectations. Maybe @Lawman or @VMFA187 could chime in with more first-hand experience than I have. I don't think in-ranks inspections are coming from an Air Force perspective. It's coming from the bigger services and the AF is going to be along for the ride.

Fair enough, allow me to amend my statement: Clearly he's not an airlift pilot. I know many tanker pilot that I like. I also know for a fact that airlift and tanker mentalities are distinctly different. They both go push hard to hack missions, but they hack very different missions with very different users. Airlift pilots (my perspective being as a 20 year C-130 guy) interface daily with all ages, all ranks, and most services. We get to taste the how and why of pretty much every corner of the military with few exceptions. That allows the opportunity to gain a broad perspective. Granted not all of us take that opportunity, but it's there nonetheless. From an airlifter's perspective, our community was screwed over by more than one tanker pilot commander trying to run airlift units like tanker units...(which incidentally was the only time I ever experienced an open ranks inspection after basic, thanks two tanker O-6's who's names I shall not repeat, but I digress)...which has left a long-standing scar tissue in the memory of many a herk driver. In the end I said what I said. Ratner sounds like he thinks his perspective as a pilot is one we all share, when in fact it is not. It's been a trend these past few days over several threads: The air India crash was caused by a bad FO, then pilots should shut down motors in response to events they can't even physically see, now pilots need to understand the importance of discipline because we live in a bubble and don't understand the rest of the military. Wrong on all fronts. Three times is a trend.

Definitely Little Rock area. ASP and Arkansas LE in general has some real gems and have for many years. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjEhKTnlMCOAxX04ckDHboYPR4QFnoECBoQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kark.com%2Fnews%2Fworking4you%2Farkansas-state-police-settle-pit-maneuver-lawsuit-which-injured-pregnant-woman%2F&usg=AOvVaw2WALwAbj99a9jKiqfbIYE4&opi=89978449 Arkansas trooper retires after PIT maneuver on wrong car | thv11.com Most agencies don't want to fund air units because of the cost but if you ask me to avoid one multi-million-dollar lawsuit its paid for itself. Not to mention realizing you're never going to outrun an aircraft you have a substantial deterrent effect.

Or a super drink off, bunch of amateurs around here! (Spoiler, the first round will be too close to call)

Obviously you're not a mobility pilot. You sound more like an eagle driver who's only interaction with E's was when you yelled at your crew chief. Another swing and a miss. Many AF pilots are intimately familiar with actively leading 18 year-old aircrew, maintainers, and support troops. Talk to any AC who's taking crewed aircraft on a 3 week trip or any major who's been a detco for weeks on end. Your experience is not everyone else's. Maybe come out of your echo chamber. I've worked indepth with many marines. They agree: Open ranks inspections are worthless outside of boot camp. They pursue discipline in far more functional and useful ways.

Ya, no way I'd see that guy. We can't even see our wingtips on the 717. Besides, dude would have to jump pretty high to get into our engines. One night in Afghanistan, I had a guy walk from the nose of the F-16, down the right side and go between the inlet and the wing tank. I was looking the other way and only caught him out of the corner of my eye when my crew chief started yelling WTF. He was already in a safe area before I could shut it down. Apparently a big lip Block 30 doesn't have as much suck (sts) as they say. As a former crew chief, I can't fathom what made this dude do that. We had a very one-sided conversation later.

Completely possible, and either way it's not the pilots' fault when some dipshit jumps into the engine. But there's been a couple of these incidents in the past year, and historically every few years. It's not always some psychopath trying to commit suicide, sometimes it's an IQ-80 ramper. And it could have just as easily been one of the people who was chasing that guy who didn't realize how powerful an engine is only to get sucked in while trying to stop that guy from killing himself. In any and all cases, if people are around the engines and they're not supposed to be, shutting them down risks very little and potentially saves a life.

I don't really have an opinion on Tim Kennedy because I don't really follow him or know the story. I didn't even know who he was until recently. I'm just truly skeptical when stories suddenly come out of the woodwork about people like this. He's become a political figure, and when you do that, hate will follow as your opposition tries their level best to discredit you. When it comes to military haters, the hate really flares up if your service is used to propel that gain, especially if it puts you in the spotlight. Then all the dick measurers come out to compare number, suck factor and duration of deployments, as if they charge the machine gun nests at Utah beach. Of course many have no problem using their service to get them a high paying civilian job, often one where they continue to suck off the government tit while collecting a pension and VA...100% of course because their sleep apnea and plantar fasciitis flared up at year 19. You must do all this quietly without any fanfare. I've never bought into the idea that the government gets to exploit you for all your worth, but you must not exploit your service to get ahead in the civilian world. Based on their actions, many who tout this don't really believe it either. As far as claiming medals, ya that ain't cool. I truly despise our medal system as it's become more of a check box or a system to help propel the shiny pennies. The ribbon rack on my blues collecting dust in the closet is still the ribbon rack from when I was a SSgt.