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Obviously Contact Time……

We could waste billions on resurrecting a 50s era aircraft like the WB-57 for C2... or we could use... space..

November/December '79 we were flying gunships out of Guam to replicate time and distance for our mission to rescue the hostages in Iran. Take off from Guam, fly up to Korea, hang out for awhile, and back. Average flight time 18 hours at 10,000 feet unpressurized, max continuous power, doing about 215 IAS, two ARs. That part of the mission got scrubbed.

It's been a few years but I recall hearing reports of the Israeli AF doing large strike package exercises in the Med. They would have strikers, escort, jammers, and tankers flying west a long way then turn around and fly home. If you measured the distance, flipped it on a map going east, you end up in Iran. Things that make you go, hhmmmm.

Two thoughts, equally important: What the Air Force is doing to you and, by extension, to the country, is a travesty, and the generals responsible should be fired publicly and shamed as examples of pathetic and impotent hubris for the remaining days of our nation's existence. Also Suck it up. You don't get to pick the path, only the destination, and sometimes not even that. If this mockery is how you become an Air Force pilot, so be it.