Leaderboard

http://ksn.com/2016/07/15/ksn-to-carry-live-stream-of-doc-first-flight-sunday-morning/

Thinking long term here, if we lose Incirlik our next move is to fully support the Peshmerga Kurds militarily and economically. The only reason this has not happened is because we want to keep using Incirlik. I also think that is the least of Erdogon worries is us or the Kurds. Putin will not be happy having his Black Sea fleet and oil tankers not being able to use the Bosphorus Strait. The next question after that, does NATO honor it's treaty obligations if Turkey and Russia lock horns.

Incirlik was my second home in the 90's, I wonder if the Turks will make a play and confiscate our equipment there. Just getting parts to fix aircraft and dealing with Turkish customs takes days. They have a nasty habit of when you turn in a vehicle to the motor pool for inspection they condemn it , repaint it, then put Turkish AF reg numbers on it. Had to endure 2 strikes by the on base Turkish workers which closed down all base services. I imagine they are going through that now. I hope Erdogon remembers the majority of his Air Force has to have USAF logistics to keep flying.

If we walk away from Article 5 than NATO is unofficially over. Better we kick Turkey out of NATO preemptive to them dragging us into the shit storm rather than avoid keeping our word. Seriously the only thing keeping Russia from pulling a Crimea out in Latvia, Estonia, etc is them wanting to avoid an actual shooting war where the possibility of escalation exists.

MQ-9s weren't on your list, but if you're graduating UPT soon there is a non-zero chance you'll be stuck flying them in a few years. 1. Ops tempo: awful, I routinely worked 70+ hours a week. Deployments: not enough, I only got 1 that lasted 5 months. It was a nice break from the misery of home station. 2. Lifestyle/Family Stability: You'll sleep in your own bed, but 1/3 of the time you'll be sleeping in the middle of the day. If your absolute number one goal is to avoid deployments and TDYs, MQ-9s have got you covered. It seemed like someone was getting divorced every couple of months, but you never know what's really driving those. 3. Community Morale: Zero to very low. I'm shocked no-one at my last squadron killed themself. Things were/are that bad. We have a retention crisis that will not be abating any time in the foreseeable future. 4. Advancements & Future of the Airframe: There are two tracks in MQ-9s: one for the shiny pennies who parachute in to be SQ/CCs and DOs and one for the unfortunate bastards flying the line. If you're looking for any kind of career broadening (staff/instruct at UPT/white jets) you can forget it. These things aren't going away so you'll have job security. 5. PCS locations: Ugh. Two undesirable locations in New Mexico. Vegas is your most likely option. There is also Ellsworth AFB, SD which is a lovely location with a terrible wing if you're in the MQ-9 squadron. After my time there, I wouldn't shit on the 28th BW if it was on fire. YMMV. On the plus side there are Guard & Reserve locations all over, which is nice.

I'm in the B-1. OPSTEMPO wasn't too oppressive when I was in an ops squadron...6 months deployed, a year at home. I'm still waiting to see what it will be like under Global Strike. There's a lot of options on the table regarding 3 month deployments, deploying one squadron to two geographically separated areas, rainbowing squadrons in various theaters, etc...so honestly, no one actually knows what the OPSTEMPO will look like for the next year or so. At home, the work load is significant, but not crushing. I've been at the schoolhouse for a while, and honestly the biggest adjustment is the constant thrash that the schedule becomes when you're dealing with student lines instead of normal continuation training lines. But still, it's rare to stay much past 1800 if you're not on the night shift, and working weekends is very rare for most of us. The family life is relatively stable. There are only two bases with B-1s, so there isn't much PCSing in the early part of your career (unless you draw the ALO or UPT card). Because the community is so small, you'll quickly find people that you knew at your last assignment when you go to your next one. Almost half the people I'm at the schoolhouse with are people I deployed with from Ellsworth. The B-1 is currently undergoing the largest upgrade since the fleet was introduced. We're replacing all the green-screen CRTs with full-color LCD displays, we're opening a lot of the software to the pilots (who used to have to just trust the WSOs that things were set correctly), we're finally on Link-16, and we got some really nice upgrades to the targeting capabilities. I see the B-1 as being in service for at least the next 20 years or so, depending on how long it will take to get the B-21 online and what capabilities it eventually brings to the table. Community morale is actually pretty high in the B-1 from what I've seen, although like every other platform we are hemorraging our fair share of pilots. Finally, if you go to the B-1, you want to go to Ellsworth. You'll end up back at Dyess eventually, but Ellsworth is a hidden gem tucked away in the Black Hills. There's something new to see or do almost every weekend, and the winters aren't as brutal as people like to pretend.

Some of the conventional wisdom out there is that Erdogan staged this "coup" in order to consolidate power and purge the military and judiciary. In the modern era, under constitutional mandate given it from Ataturk, the Turkish military has executed multiple coups when the government moved away from its secular roots. In those, the military held the PM, took over media and was successful. None of that happened here. Time will tell. This was either a wag the dog moment or a vast departure from previous successful military coups.

Oh, he's definitely f***ed.

What if he wants a backseat F-15E ride?

Or an O-6, who hasn't flown in years, and sucked when he retired anyway. Lets be honest, most O-6's are lucky to find the gear handle.