GW

That being said, and to bring this email back on point, yes I fly with a guy who has a single event AM. Reading the citation almost makes you think he brought down the Taliban all by himself (a true work of Awards and Dec's "art" if I do say so my self). But, like Rainman and the dude in question would say: it speaks nothing of his abilities as a aviator, he was just there and he did his job well. The same as any other qualified and competent aircrew member would do. GW

The A code. Or depending on requirements, the decision could be made by the mission. GW edit:grammer

To add to Ftroopr91's info: https://airlinepilotcentral.com/resources/j...0060604112.html GW

Some of the favorite questions we like to ask: I see your from XXXX State, why do you want to live in the North East? Do you have any idea how much it costs to live here? If so, what's your plan to pay for it? (Hint: "Guard Bum" is not the best answer you can to this question) Does your wife/husband know that it gets cold and snows here during the winter? (Note: Are you seeing a trend here with the first few questions?) Why us and the C-130, and not the A-10/C-5/F-15/KC-135 Wing down the street? What do you think UPT is going to be like? Have you done any research? So we see here on your college transcript that you got an D- in XXXX 101, what happened? And for god sake, proof read your shite. We had a guy who handed in a resume with an objective line that read: "Objective: To secure a flying position with the Road Island Air National Guard" Now I am not an English professor, and I can hardly spell my own name, which is why I take the time to have a second set of eyeballs scan everything for gross spelling buffoonery. GW

Actually don't be too quick to slam the coffee grinder. Yeah it's a pain in the ass when you're trying to tune it while you're shooting an actual approach, but it is much easier to find radio stations with the coffee grinder as your droning up and down the East Coast, as apposed to manually typing in each freq, wait a second to see if anything is there, and then moving on the the next freq. They gave us a digital tuning ADF in the J, and just about everyone says "I wish we had the coffee grinder back" No SELCAL would be my guess for one simple reason, it's cheaper to have the CP just listen to the HF for 8 hours than to install SELCAL in an airframe that crosses the ocean no more than 4 or 5 times a year. GW

The AF decided not to AMP the E models (which from what I understand forced to Marines to come to the same decision) and instead focus time and money on the H models. https://www.flyingsquadron.com/forums/index...ic=4255&hl= My prediction: in 10 years most, if not all, of the E's will be in the bone yard. GW

Well crap. How do I follow up after Toro's pic? I suck. Anyway it's not an A2A pic, but I was standing on top of my trusty C-130 when I took these pics, that's close enought right? 3 Ship of Flying Yankees KACK I've said it before and I'll say it again: Hawgs & Hercs; that's where the real flying is at kids. But don't listen to me I'm biased. GW

When I was at VT-35 a few years ago they weren't letting Studs take leave (stupid military screwing up the simplest of things). Has that changed? For everyone's sake I hope so. GW

dtfl- RedDog was correct in his assessment. No problems with the LM instructors, my complaint is with the civilian pilot instructors in the CAE school house who have never flown the J model, but have years of E/H experience that does not necessarily translate. As far as I know there is only one (that not a typo folks that's the number 1) civilian instructor with any J time. GW Clarification: in my last post I said you get a conditional Form 8 for landings, that is not a true statement. You get a conditional form 8, but not for landings, it's just conditional that you fly with an IP in the plane for the first time because you've never been in the damn thing before so they wisely require an IP in the other seat. Edit: typing buffoonery & clarification [ 14. May 2006, 22:12: Message edited by: GW ]

J model school, I'll answer your question with a question. Which course are you going to? Will you be here for both qual and mission phases? Your sign in name leads me to believe you're from KMDT, in which case you should be here for the Qual phase only. The qual phase lasts about 3 months, and is run 100% by civilian contractors (I'll save my comments on that fact for a different post) in the two simulators here at Little Rock. You never actually fly in the plane it self, but you get a check ride from the 48th IPs in the simulator who sign a conditional form 8 (for landings if I'm not mistaken) and then you're done. The mission phase lasts about 3 months as well, but one actually flies a plane in this one, mostly formation/assault work. So there is the potential to be down here for 6 months (longer if the Wx sucks and they get behind) or you could be down here for 3 months, or even worse you could be down here for 3 months go home for a while, and then back for another 3 months to complete the mission stuff. It all depends on what your mission is and what your training officer has available, not surprisingly my advice is to call your training officer back home and ask the same questions. GW Edit: I just reread your post and I realized you are asking about FY07 class dates, I'm pretty sure the NGB has not handed those down yet, so your training officer might in the dark as well. Call and find out. [ 07. May 2006, 10:04: Message edited by: GW ]

Maintaining SA, hands down in my book. Having good hands helps, and can sometimes cover up lapses in SA, but nothing replaces it. I know plenty of just average "hands" guys (everything is relative of course) who had few problems negotiated the intricacies of a combat mission simply because they knew what was going on around them. The scariest crew I saw had a complete dufus for an AC and it showed. GW

I'm with Chuck and Steve on this one. It's impossible to tell how close two aircraft are from each other without some frame of reference. That's why everyone gets so excited when the T-chickens, the Blues and the Snow Birds (we had them in Quonset last summer, they rock) do opposing passes. It looks cool, but just about everyone knows they're a good distance away from each other. GW edit: kant spel [ 30. January 2006, 12:39: Message edited by: GW ]

Well, that's what I thought at first, but Vol 1 is a year old (as of today as a mater of fact) and how long does it take the AF to release "supplemental information"? I think I just answered my own question. Thanks LJD. GW

Warning Rambling Story Switch: On Ok so I'm flying my check ride the other day and I'm in the middle of circling to land and the Evaluator asks me, as I'm maneuvering, "what's the obstruction clearance limit for this type aircraft?" I'll make no excuses, I blurted out 1.5 miles, unfortunately I was flying a Cat C aircraft that day (and every other day I fly for that matter) so I f'ed that one up. D'oh! Anyway, I get home and decide to look up the values for the review I obviously need, I pull out my trusty 11-217 Vol 1 dated 3 January 2005, turn to page 348 and low and behold it tells me to "see AFMAN 11-217 Vol 3 Supplemental Information for radii of circling approaches". So I say to my self: "Self, that's funny I didn't know there was a Vol 3 for the 217, hmm, lets check out e-publishing.af.mil, they'll have it, they've got everything." Short story long I can't for the life of me find any mention of an 217 Vol 3 anywhere (note, I’m not talking about 217 Vol 2, I checked there too) except inside the 217 Vol 1. WTF? Now I'm just a lowly tradition guard guy but I'm pretty sure they're not handing out Vol 3 in secret, does anybody know anything about it? Or is this just a gross typo designed to confuse the slowest kid in class (read: me)? Thanks. GW Edit: I kant spell [ 29. December 2005, 11:46: Message edited by: GW ]

Speaking from the slick Herk side of the house, CH has it pretty much covered. The one thing I would add is that sometimes tail end charlie (and by extension the rest of his element) is offset relative to lead for a reason, X-winds can create quite the "whip effect"** on a 10 mile long formation. I haven't had to fire up the old SKE scope lately but if I recall, 3 to 4 degrees X-track isn't all that uncommon, for a SKE run-in. Of course he could just be out of possition. "Come on Seventeen, tighen it up now!" All that being said, SKE sucks and should be avoided at all cost, even if it means going non-current. GW ** Before you make the joke, this is not some sort of perverted formation S&M manuver, so shut it. [ 21. December 2005, 21:59: Message edited by: GW ]

I'll toss in my two cents here, as I was an alternate with two different Units at one time. Just goes to show it can be done. Nothing ever developed with my first alternate slot, but things just fell into place at the 2nd unit. They had actually selected two Primaries ahead of me, so while I was the first Alternate, I was still third in line. (D’oh!) Short story long, about a month later it ended up that both of them had to turn down the offer for the same reason: they had to take care of their family first. So there I was in the right place at the right time, sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. Obviously you’re looking for that "congrats you're our primary guy/girl" letter, but you just never know how things are going to breakdown. So keep in touch with your contacts and let them know: “that alternate is still looking for a job” and that will go a long way towards keeping your name in the mix this year and next. Keep at it dude, and good luck. GW