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Locher & Stovall story is one of the great ones. Never met B/G Stovall but many years later found out he married a lady that was in my small high school senior class. Six degrees of separation. Stovall went on to fly for FedEx.

Buddy of mine was one of the last KC-135 Navs and was instructing at the WPS as a patch who he went to UPT as a Maj. He’s currently flying Raptors. YMMV.

Springer subtly slipped a name in there with a fascinating story, if you didn’t notice. I had the honor of hearing Dale Stovall (HH-53 pilot that flew the rescue) tell us about Locher’s rescue at a squadron function many moons ago. Glad he was able to get home and go to UPT with you. Here’s a quick synopsis. Legends! https://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/oyster-1-bravo-evasion-and-escape-in-vietnam/2/

Instead of limiting who can vote, a better solution would be a government that couldn't tax our productivity in an uneven manner, thereby redistributing my precious and limited time on this Earth to other people. In lieu of that, however, the next best solution is to limit voting to those who materially participate - and to strip it from those who are merely along for the ride. What that looks like specifically can be debated, but the philosophical point some have made on this board is pretty clear. I admit it's a re-imagining of our idea of "democracy," but then again, so is the fact that 40+% (nearly 50%) of my time is stolen from me in some form or another and "redistributed" to other people. That's not the system any of us signed up for either. Rather, it's the end result of a perpetual creep from our originally envisioned government instituted to help us secure our life, liberty, and happiness. For a long time, voting was the best means to guarantee everyone's collective, long-term goals. Now it's become a means by which certain groups use the government to disenfranchise other groups. Voting ain't it anymore. Voting is a nice-to-have. Voting is a mechanism, it's not fundamental to a good life. A good life is me being able to keep what I produce. As soon as voting has become the way whereby I'm made a slave to other members of society, it has ceased being a necessary part of our society. We're all familiar with the meme about two wolfs and a sheep voting on who's for dinner...that's where we are and where we've been for some time. You have millionaire SS recipients who take 12.4% of my wages and spend it on whatever, instead of selling their million-dollar homes. Instead, they're going to deed their estates to their heirs, and use my wages to bridge the gap to their end-of-life. 12.4% of my time enables old people to make choices they otherwise couldn't (or wouldn't) make. In a two-week period of Mondays through Fridays, that's (more than) one whole day of my time. My commute. My gas money. My wear and tear on my vehicle. My time I could spend doing whatever else I want to do. Instead, my time is spent going to work for the retired. 30% of my income to income taxes? Well, you can do the math on how many days that takes up. You have EBT recipients who use their benefits to purchase luxury goods. You have school lunch recipients who throw away literally 100% of the food they receive into the trash. Every. Single. Day. Again, that's my time being thrown into the (literal) garbage can. The examples go on and on and on. I don't lament people's shock and disbelief that people could advocate for something as seemingly undemocratic as taking away people's right to vote. I understand those beliefs rest upon a hopeful, childish, but ultimately naive view of how our government and society function. i.e. a view grounded in a high-school-civics-level conception of our society. It only seems gross when it's juxtaposed against the cartoonish view of what we're programmed to think. When it's held up to a holistic view that encompasses how money, time, and productivity are actually redistributed throughout our society, it's the obvious answer.

I used my entire GI Bill (back in the day) for FE and ATP ratings plus a Citation type. Used the remainder for a Master's degree. Like to think it helped as I was hired by two major airlines.

You're in the process of getting your PPL, as you stated in your first post. In your mind, how soon do you believe you will be competitive for an FO job at HA?

42 years later, and still in the conversation!

“Hey Vlad check out my Raptors… they don’t have drywall screws in their wings.” There was more 5th generation air power on that Ramp and in the Air over that exchange than in Putin’s entire Air Force and he knows it. This was a reminder that not every NATO entity is full of smoke, maybe rethink the way you looking at Latvia and Estonia. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

…and a tear came to my eye…..OBTW, IT WASN'T MY SQUADRON!

Two WSO's in my class finished #1 & #2. #1, Roger Locher, had 3 Mig kills as a WSO. Couple classes after me DeBellevue, the WSO MIG Ace after washing out of UPT initially, came back to UPT and ended up flying fighters. After flying LL missions with any extra fuel I usually gave the stick to the WSO. On a 10 hr deployment from TX to Germany my WSO flew at least a quarter of the flight.

VID_20250816_072939.mp4

Thanks gramps

That’s a video game recreation.

Absolutely bad ass, look at Putin flinch! Can you imagine Kamala attempting this? Power move.

Kamaka Air thankfully only requires up to CPL and a deal if you work at the front desk with them for at least 6 months, they will hire you. I am interested in flying for HA if I was a part-time raptor guy, but then again that's not my motive for all this. I do see where you're coming from though. I definitely dont want to go into a shitload of debt, but am willing to if it gives me a better chance at coming back. thanks for your 0.02 cents brabus. always appreciated sir!

Truth. I gave an I-ride to a crew chief, briefed him exactly what we were going to do and he was gung ho and normal as shit for the whole experience........ Riiiiiiiiiight up to about 5 seconds after brake release. Full AB and off the ground shortly after that, 5-bills at the end of the runway and into the vertical. He's hyperventilating for the acceleration which didn't seem that abnormal. At the start of the pull up he starts "ohhhhhhhhh" and then as we're vertical he says, "Sir, I want to go back." I level off at 10K and offered to just be an airliner and we could do some sight seeing and take it easy. He just kept repeating that he wanted to go back in a scary, panicked way. I started to get pretty concerned he was going to do something crazy, so I told him to put his hands under his thighs, don't touch anything and I'll have us back on the ground in 5 minutes. Should have done a straight-in but I wanted to get down fast. He almost lost it when it put some G on the aircraft in the pitch out. I figured out he no likey the Gs. Not an experience I'd care to repeat. Absolutely no fun having a panicked human trapped in your back seat with access to some fairly "reactive" handles and actuators. 0.1 KPAM-KPAM 🙃

Never in 19 years have I seen a fam/incentive/PA rider not get full seat/equip training/briefing. I’m sure this person got the full training/brief, they just fucked up.

LOL, wut?

I honestly don’t understand the implication here. “Power move?” How so? Trump: “Hey look, we have B-2’s and F-35s.” Putin: “yeah, I know. Cool.” Is the implication supposed to be “watch out, cause we just might use these against Russia?” Putin knows there’s zero chance of that happening. Besides, I think he’s probably much more worried about drone swarm attacks, like the kind that took out most of his bomber fleet, than he is about fat Amy. This is classic Trump. Using the military as a symbol of strength to try to mask his weakness and ineffectuality. Putin is going to get Ukrainian territory out of this, and Trump is pressuring Zelensky to surrender it to him asap. But yeah, cool air show. “Vlad, look at these static display F-22’s. Badass, huh? …..Now, go enjoy the Donbas.”