Lord Ratner
-
Posts
1,923 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
113
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Gallery
Blogs
Downloads
Wiki
Posts posted by Lord Ratner
-
-
I have to (gasp) agree with Toro here. That's just ######ing stupid. In a crew plane, that's what I call being too lazy to brief up the ILS. Here we are too lazy to cross check anything...it's amazing these people don't stall, crash, burn, and die more often.
If one is going to fly a visual into an airfield, tune up a navigational aid or load the FMS and be sure it's at least the right airport, if not for the actual approach.
I fly visuals into airfields at night, and sometimes it's because I'm too lazy to brief the ILS.
Not quibbling, I'm actually agreeing with your main point. You don't have to go through all the 202/217/11-2X-XXXv3 procedures to throw an ILS in as a sanity check. Hell, most planes let you program a visual approach into the FMS in about 10 seconds, no briefing required. I hate ILS approaches, the long vectors, controllers in training, looking at mini TVs instead of outside the magical flying machines we operate... They represent everything I find awful and boring about flying. I'll confess to laziness and get-home-itis motivating me to request a visual to the opposite direction runway, all in the name of landing sooner and saying less, but even I'm not too lazy to glance down at the MFD when I turn onto what I think is final approach.
But I'm not the brightest bulb, so it could just be me.
-
Asian Date? Gotta say, they seem to have figured out this demographic pretty quick...Paid version of the Android app is available now. If you have the free version, you will start seeing ads soon (nothing massive, just a small banner at the bottom, gotta pay the bills).
Posted from the NEW Baseops.net App!
-
1
-
-
You have reached the rank and position where all but your brashest subordinates will give you honest feedback about your policies and leadership. It is not as simple as asking; most will apply the safest translation (for their career) to anything you say. The only way you can convince them (assuming you are being honest with your intentions) is through action, over and over. Each time you don't act in accordance with your word will have 10 times the effect of each time you do.
-
2
-
-
I was also living overseas and am not 100% sure how cola, etc affects AGI.
It's an allowance, so it should have no effect.
-
Did you Gucci guys have a POC at Breitling you used to get a custom order started? I'd like to email them and find out if they have any C-130 designs.
I bet if you have $60K+ to send their way, they have a .25"x.25" silhouette of a herk.
-
Yeah, we have a few named people at EGUN. On the less surprising side, when our copilot exec let us know we were having a "roll call" on Friday afternoon, a boom sarcastically asked if someone would be taking actual roll... Because no one would be dumb enough to think you actually call out roll at the start of a roll call...Confirm tanker dude?
Oh how they laughed and laughed.
-
I'd definitely talk to the Security Manager first before bringing in a watch into a SCIF that has the capability to receive a GPS signal.
What about watches that get the time signal from one of the atomic clocks? I bet there are a fair number of those.
-
Oh geez, isn't liquid from herbie? I bet the inappropriate relationship was with rusty...
-
I'm guessing General Order 1 in Europe will be his legacy.
I met him a couple months ago. Awesome guy, definitely someone you'd enjoy having a beer with.
-
I don't offer those examples to stir up a pissing contest, but as a point of reference. Even if the T-6 were more complicated to fly than the those other aircraft, 8-10 rides seems high.
I am also not trying to start a pissing contest, and I will caveat this by saying I am a heavy pilot now, but the people who needed 8-10 rides before the IQ check in a T-6 were not the guys/gals coming from fighters. It was the people who had spent the last 3-10 years in planes that don't require trimming, or making radio calls while flying, or spinning your own bugs, or keeping your hands on the controls for the entire flight.
I racked up 600ish hours in one year in the T-6, but after a year off for the MC-12 gig, It took me a couple rides to get my hands back. I imagine a break of 6+ years without 600 hours of previous experience to fall back on would have required more than a couple rides.
I fully intend to go back to the T-6 one day, and I suspect by the time I do, I will have a new appreciation for the heavy pilots who spent all of PIT on CAP. Especially if they upgrade the tanker to a modern autopilot while I'm in it.
-
I think we all agree that from a qualitative point of view, PIT adds nothing. I'm sure people currently loving the hell out of a San Antonio duty station would scream bloody murder and fight that notion, but if you ask the rank and file at UPT, nobody has anything positive to say about the place. That's not a dig against the dudes, but let's face it. The program is pretty mickey mouse.
I disagree. It was probably a bit much for a FAIP, only because we had just finished flying the plane, but the MWS guys in my class for the most part wanted more, not fewer rides. The FAIPS who did T-38s seemed to need even fewer rides than the FAIPs like myself who had done T-1s.
My fear, as someone who worked on the line and in check flight (where we do a good percentage of the TI/Fam/MQT/whatever-they're-called-now rides) is that moving it to UPT will sideline the instructor candidates. At PIT you are the only priority, and at least in my class you got all the instruction you needed/wanted. It was a lot harder to dedicate that much time to the TI guys when you had student rides, snapshots, additional duties, and all the other BS everyone in the AF has to deal with when they aren't TDY. I'm not saying it's impossible, I just think it will be very easy to put the new guys on the back burner.
But I suppose money is the only consideration these days, and probably should be for the next few years.
Edit to add: PIT in no way prepared me for the types of crazy mistakes students would make. Most (not all) of the IPs there were too afraid of something happening, some carryover from tweets, some who didn't even think we should do low levels because of the single engine. So in that aspect, I thought PIT failed. But the many rides repeating the maneuvers over and over while being forced to verbally instruct were highly valuable. Since they're keeping that at PIT, maybe it'll work out just fine.
-
My experience tells me that part of the problem isn't stall recovery, it's "approach to the stall" recognition.
[...]
Recognition is the key, not recovery!
I agree with everything you said, minus which is key. I don't think either is key, really, though obviously I would rather recognize it before and avoid having to recover at all.
The Castle example is why I think knowing how to recover is so important, still. Sure, they should have seen it coming, but as someone who has never been in a major EP scenario yet, I won't armchair quarterback it. You are correct though, feeling the impending stall would have saved them. Proficiency in TP stalls would have too.
I think we're nit-picking at this point. Stall recognition and recovery should be taught together.
And agree 110% on UPT studs flying stalls like they fly loops. I hooked a kid on his check ride for TP stalls because after recovering the aircraft, he continued to pull up to around 30 degrees nose high, let the airspeed drop off about 40 knots, then right before entering an unintentional power-on stall, called "maneuver complete" and dumped the nose out of the shaker. I asked him to reaccomplish the stall, and he pulled the nose even higher on round two. I started teaching stalls very differently after that.
-
That's odd because there are two aero sims and associated academics in the PTX syllabi.
You've been in AETC long enough to know that putting something in the syllabus does not ensure it is taught, let alone sufficiently.
I'm not trying to make a point about tankers, just using them as an example of a larger issue. Stall recoveries are mindless, as long as you have more than a thousand feet below you. But looking at some of the recent aviation mishaps, clearly people aren't working on the basics enough. Colgan 3407, Air France 447, the MC-12 crash. We can all get defensive about how our communities are doing just fine with training stalls once a year, or twice in PTX, or fill-in-the-blank, but clearly something is wrong. And this mishap wasn't a one-off either, it was just the first one to cost lives.
-
Why are we pining on this? I'm not talking about the breakdown in everyone's Safety shops. But, Couldn't fly instruments or understand the automation presented. Or totally disregard the fact they couldn't recognize the stall or apply stall recovery mechanics. Yet, we harp on the fact that the info hasn't been disseminated. Telling everyone that you should fly instruments or apply stall recovery procedures doesn't sound like a ground breaking or earth shattering issue.
Background: FAIP, MC-12 deployment, tankers now.
The training for the MC-12 was terrible, probably because it was new, had few permanent pilots, and many of the people flowing through didn't give a . For me, that masked a lot of the issues that are perhaps more AF-wide.
I haven't been in the tanker long at all, but other than a very brief demo in the sim, I have not seen, heard, or discussed stalls, spins, vertical S's, cross checks, etc. I know as a prior FAIP my whole world was stalls and falls for years, and I didn't expect anything close to the same level of emphasis in the MWS world, but zero emphasis is lower than I expected.
I can't speak for all the other airframes out there, since I haven't flown them, but the basics seem to be left at the UPT bases. EPs are another weak area.
-
Anyone working for Avenge or any other MC-12ish gig? Got a call for a PIC position at 476$ a day, only to have them swap it to a SIC for 310$ a day.60 on 60 off. Seemed like an extreme lowball offer.
Is that an average? Guys we talked to out there were getting 750 a day deployed, and half that back in the states if they had a job, 0 if they only did the deployed part.
-
I know it's against popular opinion, but I really appreciate hearing Liquid's thoughts on these items. It's already been quoted, but saying you ordered the removal of that specific nose art will make it a lot easier for an internet detective with a grudge to vet you out - FYI.
Actually, that didn't help much at all. Other stuff has. But I have no intention of scaring away one of the best things to happen to BODN in a while by "outing" him. Suffice it to say he's the real deal.
Either that, or its a very elaborate ruse by someone who researched his past and has way more troll skills than the rest of us will ever understand. Doubt it though.
-
Has anyone else done the cyber awareness challenge formerly known as information assurance? I think it changed in October-new FY and all. Who dreams this shit up? And fire extinguisher training for all my friends?
I know I should have gotten over CBTs long ago, but wtf is up with the latest iterations? How do we find money to keep changing them?
Cake compared to the (new?) Risk Management Fundamentals. Took over an hour, and that was while max performing the left mouse button.
-
Will I be hanging out with good friends from work after duty hours? Sure, but not at the Club, not in the squadron. The new USAF that is afraid to let people interact as the flawed humans they are are simply going to create a culture of clicks and small groups…all being politely professional at work, but with no actual substance to their relationships, no true desire to see their community as a whole succeed, just to survive the work day…make sure to keep those feelings in…don't want to show your true self, if for no other reason that someone may take a minor offense to it.
That "culture" already exists within certain bases/squadrons. It's tragic.
-
1
-
-
My opinion on all of this has changed over the past 3 years as I've watched my wife struggle with the environment in her flying squadron and the blatant hostility that peers and leadership have directed towards her. I used to think the AF was fine with women and there were no problems. At least in her Sq I was wrong. Both words and actions have pushed half the females in her squadron to seek opportunities outside of the squadron and/or AF. This is in spite of the praise lauded on her by the people that have actually worked with her. It's doubly sad because she loves the flying job, but dreads the office. Like most of you all she wants to do is fly.
What aircraft? Not trying to identify her, just trying to get a better sense of which community this story relates to. Not all flying squadrons are even remotely alike.
-
I don't know about that these days. Seems like a lot of crap comes out at the bottom of the T-1 barrel.
Was anyone in AETC when the T-1 came online? Seems like a way for the AF to save money by lowering the standard for passing UPT and thus wasting less money on wash-outs. What was the party-line back then? Disclaimer: I went through T-1s.
-
The initial version of our C-130J TOLD calculator (preTOLD) is designed to run on Windows-based laptops and tablets, but we are also working on an iPad version. I've been reading a lot lately about the adoption of iPads within USAF and am curious about the user experience so far. How are they being utilized so far and what is the state of the configuration/app distribution infrastructure? What sort of flight planning applications are available? Are other services also planning to adopt iPads for flight planning?
Poorly, poor, bare bones, none, don't know.
In the tanker, you have one app for looking at pubs, and one for looking at approach plates. The pubs app is tolerable (pretty sure its a commercial app), and the FLIP app is garbage (made specifically for the govt). Everything else is completely locked down. The iPad itself is terrible for FLIP in my opinion. Too big, too heavy, and too bright. A kindle with the integrated light (or any e-ink type display) would be cheaper, lighter, and easier to read on final.
-
As a FAIP who just moved into the AMC (really USAFE, but same difference) heavy world: go to and enjoy every single one of those squadron events. If you ever find yourself thinking about sitting one out, slap your self and tell the POC you'll be there. It does not exist in any way, shape or form out here, and like you, I got the same feedback from the MWS guys.Just a FAIP, but what are some of the enduring traditions the Air Force can have/has? We have roll calls, bro calls, squadron events and outings where we cut loose and drink. MWS guys I've talked to say that this squadron is a lot more tight knit than any AMC unit they've been apart of because of these things.
If your UPT squadron was anything like mine (or is the same one), you aren't going to find that anywhere else. Enjoy the hell out of it.
-
The MSG and MXG don't need to release MFRs that say don't use sexual innuendo, inappropriate call signs, explicit lyrics and early afternoon drinking. Their enlisted and officer leadership does not tolerate it.
Everything you said, which I mostly disagreed with but still respected as valid, was undone right here. When's the last time you were around a group of maintainers? I've heard more horribly inappropriate shit come from maintainers, some even female, than any other group in the AF (except perhaps EOD). Whatever metric is being used to measure the problem, it's ######ed if someone actually believes the OGs have a bigger (rather than more visible) problem with SA/SH.
Here's the other side to the coin: Never in human history has the military operated this way. That doesn't mean it won't work, hell, I'd bet it will. But to me it's like the uniform battle. Every time an E-9 goes on a rant about pilots with their zippers down or maintainers with dirty boots or personnelists with jackets on indoors, they fall back on the "history" that the uniform represents and the "heritage" we are shitting on by wearing it "disrespectfully." Yet every picture I see of WWI and WWII looks like a competition for who can wear their hat funnier, or not at all. Vietnam vets could be seen wearing more than the required pieces of flair, if any uniform items at all. It's made up. They're using a fictional history to justify the new direction. Just like our current battle with SA/SH in the workplace.
There's no historical precedent for a non-sexualized military, so instead of attacking how fighter pilots (or whoever) have been doing it wrong all this time and we just "finally have a senior leader with the balls to confront it," be honest about it. Times have changed, and we have to change with them. The Captains and Majors complaining about having to change aren't to blame any more than the Colonels and Generals (now the ones telling them how stupid and offensive they are) are for doing it when they were captains and majors. But if you think our culture is worse than others, I challenge you to spend some time with an army unit living next door in Bagram. It may calibrate your expectations.
Sir.
-
1
-
-
There is so much wrong with your attitude as an instructor it's hard to find a starting point. Yelling at a student for no other reason than to try to knock them off the rails is self serving at best, and directly detrimental to their learning at worst. We spend a lot of time in phase 3 trying to un-###### these kids' heads because they're so wound up from downright poor instruction in phase 2 that they are incapable of constructive learning.
Honestly, what does yelling at a student accomplish? This tactic seems to be invariably used by bitter FAIPs who have nothing to offer other than to try to pass on their own self-imposed misery of being FAIPed and try to make UPT as miserable as they can for students.
Bitter? I loved every second of that job. I'd go back without hesitation. Save your crap FAIP generalizations.
Why do you have such a hard time conceptualizing it? Or are you unable to see past the caricature of an angry FAIP you've built in your mind? Do you imagine it to be a non-stop parade of profanity? A 1.3 where I simply imitate a car alarm?
I yelled at the students who needed to be yelled at. Students like me, and others not like me. Others I simply took the aircraft and redemo'd the maneuver. I didn't do it because it was fun (even though it was), I did it because the ones I yelled at told me the same thing I told my "bitter FAIP" after phase two: Thanks for getting me to pull my head out of my ass and be better. Believe it or not, pilot training attracts some rather over-confident assertive personalities that occasionally need to be taken down a notch. C4103 was my first of several come-to-jesus moments. Or maybe you're right, and all students are the same and just need to be gently reminded of their downgrades. As I said before, UPT needs all types of IPs.
Un###### their heads? It's stand-up, not the trenches of WWI. Anyways, I'm done pissing all over this kid's thread. My advice stands. Learn those three things before the dollar ride, and you won't have to worry about your IP being concerned about your emotional growth opportunities. The horror.
FY 14 Force Management Program (RIF, VSP, TERA)
in General Discussion
Posted
Posted from the NEW Baseops.net App!