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Today, a good friend and I flew formation. It was the first time in 34 years that two A-37's flew in formation in North America. Took them from Boise to St George VFR. And yes... it was a blast.

Addressing the OP: If you thought the USAF screwed you over, just wait until you experience an airline during contract negotiations. It sounds like outside influences have been crafted your outlook for you. It may be completely true that you were actively screwed by the system, but getting bitter only means you're letting the system win. The airlines will happily assume the role of screwing you over if you let them. I can show you a large collection of 30-year widebody captains making millions of dollars who are thoroughly convinced they've been screwed by the system. They are no fun to be around. It's all perspective. Pick your's with care. Choose gratitude instead of trying to pinpoint who's screwing you over. The answer to that question will always be "someone and/or everyone". Conversely, if you focus on what you're grateful for, you'll find a lot of good things in life. Pick one, you can't focus on both. I punched at 17 years and joined the reserves for 3 years. Now I'm at a major airline. In all three of those locations it is VERY easy to look around and wonder why the grass isn't as green as advertised. Reality is that the grass on the other side is just a different kind of grass. Once you get into a new organization, you'll see all the warts. You get to decide if it's good or bad, but if you let the system decide, it'll definitely suck. Truths: The system (usaf or corporate) doesn't owe you anything. Your hard work will be overlooked, but it will craft your reputation among your peers. Once you're gone, the system won't care. Maximize your personal gain without screwing others over, ignore the BS, do your work will, keep your integrity in tact, find a niche you can enjoy. Focus on good things, and your next career will be great. Focus on the hate, and you'll hate it. It's a DAILY choice.

Miles was an awesome dude, mentor, and aviator. We lost contact over the years but I happened to see him at a fellow crewdog's wedding and it was great to catch up with him for a few hours that night. While I kept wanting to know about all the cool test stuff he got to do, he would mostly talk about what his family was doing and how proud he was of his kids. Tragic loss for his family, the Air Force, and the world in general.

So let me get this straight, 20 million illegal immigrants coming into the country is better than a small number of constitutional violations that are being resolved in the courts? That's the math. I don't work in the Congress, so I don't get to pick a made-up third option where the border is closed and there are no violations of constitutional rights. I have a choice between a candidate that made everything worse, dramatically, and a candidate who single-handedly reduced illegal immigration to near zero, while fucking up in some edge cases. That's pretty easy math to me. No one is denying the constitutional violations, though I suspect you would view far more of the deportation activity as a violation than I would. But even if I agreed with you on every single case, the alternative was a slow rolling catastrophe for my country and the country my children will inherit. Caveats are part of living in the real world. I will be very black and white in this point. If this is a literal statement, then you are a hack. And while I could put together a rather extensive list of individual things he has done that are quite easy for me or any other conservative-minded person to support, and I can even make a smaller list of things that any fair-minded liberal would support, if you can't do that on your own, then you are simply beyond any position that is worth engaging with. In that case, TDS is a fair label.

The event should start with an early morning PT test.

They booed the U.S. National Anthem, and we took the gold. #Suck it!

All is well, thank you so much! 2 year old granddaughter had open heart surgery on a Thursday morning. She was skipping out of the hospital by noon Sunday. Modern medicine is a miracle!

I know, I know, it's your username, if you weren't miserable about literally everything in the world, what else would you do? But it's pretty amazing to see people defending the *generals* against the first secdef in my lifetime that is telling them they have to live by the same standards they enforce.

And, not so incredibly, Pancho Villa knew Huggy.

I was in New Zealand recently and on a whim, I managed to go out and fly a Pacific Aerospace CT/4 trainer. Fairly unknown in the US... I don't believe any are airworthy here. This one was the first of two prototypes, before it went into production in NZ. It was built in 1972. The pilot I flew with was one of the handful of former NZAF A-4K pilots (only 168 total), and is a pretty accomplished warbird pilot. We did some sightseeing, AHC, and light aerobatics. It was "different". Really enjoyed getting to fly a piece of NZ aviation history.

missed an incredible opportunity to call it the HAWK-TUA (transport, unmanned aircraft)

Agree LR. So many here don’t know (too young) to understand about “Going Downtown”. Lost a few friends flying Thuds on Route Pack 6. Finally, LineBacker 2 brought NV to talking after they had exhausted their SAMs. Unfortunately, many Buff crews suffered. But ended it at a cost. And Desert Storm we lost 75 aircraft. As for the MIA crew member. Hopefully, the best outcome, like the rescue of Roger Locker after 23 days evading. Good friend, Dale Stovall, flew the furthest mission into NV to rescue him. Chased down by 2 MiGs that fired Atolls at him. Time will tell. Check 6, SHFP

So he was a Loadmaster? Now I'm confused.

The kid is going to lose his shit if the 35's, Hornets and Vipers get the kills and he left holding a balloon (marking).

Hard to believe this was 12 years ago. For all of you out there deployed or remote standing watch...you are not alone, you are NOT forgotten. I am grateful for each and everyone of you. God Bless

Glad to see my airline/union assisting UPS/IPA in their time of mourning and assist bringing Captain Diamond home to rest.

Some aircrews may remember MARS primarily for morale phone patches, but today's MARSRADIO provides considerably more. MARSRADIO is an Air Force MARS operation authorized under DoDI 4650.02, providing HF communications support to DoD aircraft and units worldwide as an additional backup to HFGCS. Air Force aircraft are consistent users of the service, but we also routinely support Navy, Marine Corps, and Army aviation. Most of the traffic we handle is real-world operational support, not exercises or training. So far this year, MARSRADIO operators have provided nearly 14,000 man-hours guarding our calling frequencies and supporting DoD aircrews. That has included more than 330 official phone patches, 80 METAR/TAF weather requests, and nearly 2,300 radio and SELCAL checks, in addition to morale patches and other operational support. The official traffic can be as routine as passing an ETA or arranging customs, fuel, parking, maintenance, or ground transportation. At other times, crews have used us for diversions, aircraft system problems, severe weather, medical situations, command post coordination, and troubleshooting SATCOM or digital communications. The real value is having another communications path when the expected one isn't working. We have had many situations where an aircraft could not establish its normal SATCOM or data link, but an HF phone patch through MARSRADIO allowed the crew and ground personnel to troubleshoot the problem, coordinate what was needed, and continue the mission. That is where MARSRADIO fits into P.A.C.E. planning—not as a replacement for existing systems, but as another path available when needed. The net operates nearly 24/7, and there is no need to coordinate ahead of time. Crews don't need to wait until something goes wrong to use us. A routine radio check, SELCAL check, weather request, phone patch, or pre-arrival call gives the crew familiarity with MARSRADIO before the day comes when the primary communications path isn't available. For aircrews unfamiliar with MARSRADIO, information on frequencies, calling procedures, and available services is available at MARSRADIO Global.

Supporting this quagmire feels like peak sports team style support for your preferred political side. I voted for Trump all three times and I am still thankful to this day that Kamala Harris is not the president. But there has been plenty to criticize the Trump admin about this term as well, the Iran shit show being chief among them.

The Naval Aviators responsible for the low beach flyby have been identified.

Would love to hear what takes of mine pertaining to this war are “laughably incorrect” Is it, in no particular order: -That Israel roped us into this -Our own DNI said Iran wasn’t making a nuke prior to the start of the war -Our destruction of a non-factor navy and Air Force doesn’t amount to a strategic win -Iran was never in a weak negotiating position which is why we signed a deal favorable to them -Iran’s TBM stockpile is mostly intact and the primary tool for their power projection -The blockade of their blockade didn’t do shit -Bombing cave entrances in a country of 90 million people the size of the entire eastern US didn’t (and won't currently) accomplish shit -We did not effect regime change and in fact ended up with a more hardline one -The people did not rise up -We have depleted our interceptor and SOW munitions to an alarming level that will take years to replace -We are objectively on the back foot in other AORs that had their resources poached for this boondoggle -Trump’s apocalyptic and incoherent messaging was strategically damaging and galvanized the Iranian public against us -We fell into an escalation trap that we now cannot get out of -Still don’t have the nuke dust -Constant admin goalpost shifting about the objectives where now just getting the strait back open and un-tolled would be considered a win There ya go. Feel free to address any of them specifically and I’ll respond with well sourced arguments. But this hiding behind “you don’t know what you’re talking about” or “you’d know the real story if you were in the strat division vault” is just pathetic BS. We can all see the shitshow unfolding with our own eyes.

I know the EA-18 Growler demo team isn't going.

Not to say that they thought of everything... but they kinda thought of everything. Helps to have a Hog Driver running the design and implementation. There was "NO" way they were going to block the gunsight.

😂

The got him 🇺🇸 To the CSAR community 🍻 TOML!

Glad to hear we have a strong OPSEC program.

Picked up my dream pistol, 1943 Remington Rand M1911A1, all parts are correct. This pistol was never overhauled or passed through the CMP. The holster is from 1918, has an unlegable name and service number written in pencil on it. I purchased that separately years back.

It was a horrendous post. So the guy compared you to Hitler....people say crappy things all the time, act like a freaking human and have some decency. Both sides are stupid...look at the things the left said about Charlie Kirk when he was assassinated. Maybe a lesson for all of us to take a step back and act like adults.

Glad you didn't get caught! 😄

a bit generous referring to them as people 😁

1. Russians are definitely the bad guys, but they’re on the other side of the world and have zero impact on my life; whereas progressives are banning free speech and trying to trans my kids. It’s not even close which of those two are my opponents. 2. Everyone criminally associated with Epstein and pedophilia in general should be beaten to death with hammers. If you have proof Trump is guilty of something let’s hear it, but the man had every possible avenue of prosecution against him explored and the D controlled DOJ didn’t link him to Epstein so…. Shenanigans.

Hegseth, Noam, and Gabbard have not impressed me, although hegseth would be the highest rating of the three in my opinion. Patel is doing great. But I also don't think it's particularly relevant. I view this administration as chemotherapy. An ugly reality that does a great deal of damage to the host, but it's necessary to removal a fatal malignancy.

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” “Open the F***in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell. JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.” We’re better than this. These posts by a commander-in-chief, even during wartime, have reached a level of absurdity I never thought I’d see…even by Trump standards. Policy aside, how are these in our country’s best interests?

Something came out it

I'm sure he's great. It's not like we have a cadre of purely sociopathic generals. But the nature of the system is such that only "yes men" are going to make it to the top. There's no real metric for effectiveness or success when we aren't in a global war of existential magnitude, so ass-covering and knob-polishing are the prerequisites. How many shitty bosses with toxic leadership did this guy serve without quitting? How about the first time his commander in chief babbled nonsensically on the global stage from 2017-2021? No, because there was still runway ahead for his career. These are the same chumps that spent their youth in the O-Clubs with strippers, drove back to their dorms drunk, then 20 years later told us with a straight face that if you have more than 3 drinks in a night (0-0-1-3) you are a bad officer, while neglecting to mention they have a bottle of Scotch in their Wing King desk. There was never a cause-of-the-day they wouldn't support, whether it was the drunk-sex-is-rape crusade of 2003, the great heritage room massacre of 2012, the Covid firings, or the transification attempt only recently squashed. They love their country, and they served it more than most Americans could ever fathom. But they were not, are not, men of principal and backbone. They are the ones who could best morph into whatever the next boss wanted from them, and the idea that an All-Call would be the last straw is laughable.

You're getting pre-angry based on speculation from a yahoo article? You might be retarded.