MKopack

I can see where those who thought that supporting the revolution in Libya might think that the same would be true in Syria, and I can see where the fall of the Syrian regime might be even more in the world's best interest than the one in Libya. Libya was relatively straight forward though - bad guys vs. potentially somewhat less bad guys. Syria has the same, but in a different neighborhood and throw in Hamas, Hezballah and any number of other Palestinian extremist groups (who would be more than happy to take a shot at anyone who set foot in the country) and are overtly supported by Syria and Iran. I could see Lebanon, and possibly Jordan drawn in (probably not nationally, but in a revolutionary sense) and if (when) things begin to implode, who is to say that Assad and his military don't "go Saddam" and launch everything they have against Israel right next door (they've got a pile of surface-to-surface missiles). If that were to happen, all bets are off. Too many moving pieces to guess where they might fall together. What do I know though, I'm just an old mechanic...

"The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" OK, different sport and sixty years later, but what a game... Steelers fan, so I was just hoping for a good game - hard to complain about that one. If that last ball had been tipped in just a little bit different direction, it would have been another Doug Flutie moment - but in the Super Bowl.

Sorry, I see that pic and can only think of rocket launchers full of beer cans. Salute!

Best aviation news that I've heard in a long time. May be if not the first, one of the first times the USAF has been forced to "blink" during their current "UAV revolution". Airplanes without pilots on board are in vogue right now, they're "cool" to those in industry and the Pentagon, but "cool" doesn't mean better. Especially with higher costs and less capability - no matter how many buckets of money they've thrown at it. There may be a day when a UAV is ready to take over this role and the U-2 will fly off into the sunset, but it's not today. ...and tomorrow ain't looking good either.

I did a "walk through" at a Japanese Animation Festival in Raleigh last summer where my wife was working at the convention center. Might have been the strangest thing I'd ever seen. The red haired chick in your pic was probably wearing more than a lot of the people there. Should have brought the camera...

Odd choice you'd think. Next perhaps an add of historical photos of Nazi leaders riding in Mercedes? "You can be the fuhrer of your own driveway! - Mercedes Benz"

Pictured on the page is Ed Rasimus - flew a tour in F-105's in SEA, and liked it so much he went back again to do another in Phantoms. Ed is the cowriter with Christina Olds, of Robin Olds memoir, "Fighter Pilot". He's also got a pair of great books of his own.

Wish I did, I'd "grabbed" the photo from a blog at http://warandgame.co...lds/oldsseated/ some time ago. I'll drop him a line and see if we can find out where the photo came from. Edit - Getting closer. The photo was used in "American military aviation: the indispensable arm" By Charles Joseph Gross, where it is credited to "U.S. Air Force photo".

"The happiest part was that they had chosen to tangle with us. That is what we wanted. We outflew, outshot, and outfought them. Col. Robin Olds" Can't beat a next day news report either.

In late 1966, a new threat was appearing to our Airmen serving in Vietnam with the North's introduction of the then state-of-the-art Soviet MiG-21 Fishbed. The MiG's had used slash and run attacks to which they were well suited, to avoid the air-to-air armed Phantom fighters and to press their attacks against the heavily bomb-laden F-105's. They scored their first kill in October of 1966 and in December had shot down two attacking F-105 Thunderchiefs. More importantly though, the small number of MiG's, being able to carefully pick their battles, and operating from the safety of airfields that the US military was not allowed to attack, caused 20% of all strike sorties to jettison their weapons prior to attacking their targets. But what if a plan could be put into place to fool the North Vietnamese into attacking a strike force of Thunderchiefs, that turned out not to be heavy strike aircraft, but air-to-air armed Phantoms - ready and waiting?

Not sure where to put this, but this thread's title was my first thought. Wonder where they were going - and where they were coming from...

Good call, Spike. Harduvel was my first thought when I read the report a couple of days ago. As a young troop back in 1987, I was on the flightline at MacDill assisting our electricians chasing down sparks related to the same issue - at the exact same time Diane Sawyer and her 60 Minutes crew were taping our PA spokesman saying, "No, everything is fine. Must have just been bad luck..." only two or three parking spots away.

380 foot wingspan (would probably kind of limit your divert possibilities) with six 747 engines? If anyone could pull this off, it's those two.

Not really religious myself, but I'd rather see what Tebow is doing than to see so many other players who seem to worship - and want nothing more than to convert others to - the "First International Church of Themselves".

Betting that the majority will be depot/factory modified creaky old jets/helos. The Russians haven't taken delivery of very much actually 'new build' in a decade (or two).

If we send people to Nigeria perhaps that would be good enough to look up a barrister that has been attempting to contact me. It seems that a long lost distant relative of mine (who'd have thought I had relatives in Nigeria?) has recently passed away leaving me a large amount of money.

My copy appeared in the mailbox a couple of hours ago. The book looks extraordinary, packed full of excellent photos, most of which I've never seen before and the entire printed package is first rate. The last flying book I read was about O-2's in Vietnam, it was well done, although pretty slow in pacing and I read it over a couple of weeks. It took a really general look at a full year long tour, while Rolling Thunder really goes into detail, minute by minute, looking at just a few days. While I'm only a few pages into reading (after skimming through while looking at the pics) this book won't sit anywhere between chapters because it really does a good job of drawing you in, as if you're actually there, rather than just reading. Would write more, but I'm going back to the book.

My "career" was short, but fun. Who knows, must have been all the booze. Our First Shirt used to roll a keg over to the dorms for holiday weekends and our building made Animal House look like Sesame Street. Most of us flightline guys had a weekly appointment with our flying squadron's IP's at a local establishment on Wednesday nights as well. Nickle wings and nickle beer, built up more than morale. Serviced a lot of LOX on Thursdays. I have noticed that over the years I remember the good times a lot more than the bad ones. No doubt. It must have been one of the first nights on the flightline that our OIC pulled everyone aside that was wearing their disco belts and said, "What are you thinking, this isn't an exercise..." It wasn't just that though either, basically the entire book was opened up to allow us to do what "made sense". A couple of us thought we had a better way to Phase jets, approached the Colonel about it and he said grab the QA guy, plus our commanders and he'd be back in an hour. We laid it out for them, they bought it, and an hour later the plan was in place. Most everything was allowed unless something official actually prohibited it - and most of that was negotiable... Steve, I was taking a cab in Dover from the train station down into town as a hovercraft headed out. First thought was "What the hell is that?" and secondly, "I'm going to ride that thing". It was loud, it was fast, and it left a trail of spray a half a mile long, 70+mph on an awful windy, rainy day, blasting across the channel bouncing from wavetop to wavetop shaking like a C-130 missing a blade on each prop. Even better was sitting in the pub the night before as an old timer told me about early-wartime life in Dover and his later experiences maintaining Spitfires in the UK and on the continent as the war progressed.

I read that the Air Force officially retired the BDU uniform that I wore during my time on the flightline, and I started thinking what else has changed since then... My recruiter's office has closed and moved as has the MEPS station in Syracuse. My basic training squadron from Lackland AFB, the 3707th, is gone. My tech school squadron, the 3778th is gone as well. In Basic we were amongst the last flights to be issued the old green fatigues. Hated them and switched to BDU's as soon as we could. They've retired the then current dress uniform a couple of times, so that's out as well. I was assigned to the now disestablished Tactical Air Command, at MacDill AFB, which was "realigned" after our 56th TTW was moved to Luke AFB. Within the 56th though I was assigned to the 63rd TFTS which was deactivated. I worked on the flightline on our now retired F-16A/B aircraft that were built by General Dynamics who sold their aircraft division to Lockheed (which was renamed to Lockheed Martin). On my one TDY for a hurricane, we deployed to the now closed Dobbins AFB on a now retired (and scrapped) C-141 Starlifter. We shared the ramp with the Georgia ANG's F-15A Eagles and a Navy squadron, also evacuated, made up of A-4's, A-7's and A-3's, all of which have been retired... After I left Florida, I flew to my new assignment in Spain on Trans World Airlines, which no longer exists, to my new assignment at the now closed Torrejon AB where I was assigned to the now disestablished 401st TFW and the 613th and 614th TFS's that are also gone. The 401st, by the way, was the sole flying wing in the 16th Air Force which is gone as well. I deployed with the 401st TFW(P) to a provisional airbase at the Doha International Airport in Qatar where our address was APO New York 09869. The unit and the APO address shut down when we left, and I believe the airbase and the airport have since. During my time there I carried my trusty M16A1 (triangle handguard, full auto, no three round burst, 1968 build date) and steel helmet while wearing my "chocolate chip" pattern BDU's and black jungle boots. Was happy to get back from the Gulf, so I took some leave. Flew to the UK on British Caledonian Airlines, which like TWA, no longer exists and watched the Concorde launch each day out over London. Traveled to France on the now retired Hoverspeed hovercraft (cool ride) and spent a lot of Francs (along with all of the Lira in Italy and the Pesetas in Spain). The Paris Air Show was the European debut of the "new" F-117 Stealth fighter... Although I enjoyed my time in the Air Force along with my job as an AFSC 431X1 (which they got rid of) and then a 452X4 (which went soon after the 431...), I made the decision to move on, and I left the USAF as an E-4 Non Commissioned Officer (which now requires E-5). Yes, I was a "Buck" Sergeant, a rank which, you guessed it, no longer exists. Any wonder I feel old sometimes?

Great find! Guess that didn't really work out. Wish they'd stored the production line...

Saw Yeager at an airshow about fifteen years ago. The Mustang he was flying was parked up near the crowd line and he came over to greet some of the people standing by the fence. Being a longtime aviation fan I walked over and shook his hand, and then stepped back and listened to him answer questions from some others, just average aviation fans who wanted to meet someone that they obviously looked up to. A little surprising to say the least, a lot of the answers that weren't "Read my book" were just insulting - including his comments to a guy and his son from his hometown in West Virginia who asked if he ever got back to WV, basically saying 'I'd never set foot in that state again if I didn't have to...' A lot of surprised people who after he turned and walked back to his P-51 looked at each other asking, "What the hell was that?" For better or for worse you're an ambassador whenever you talk to people, and he didn't sell a lot of books that day. Have had a couple of chances to meet him since then, but I figured, why bother?

Must be the "What a shoe does after the Air Force" thread. What was she thinking? (I know rhetorical question...) Did she think the publicity might actually help her cause? No matter what she believes, just agreeing to do the article has to be kind of like filling out an asshat self-nomination form. Happy to say that here in NC, at my third-grader's school, every day starts with the Pledge, and all of the kids compete for the opportunity to lead the school over the closed-circuit TV feed from the office, and to raise the flag in front of the school. And from what I've seen that especially includes the large minority of immigrant kids, many (most?) of whose legality in the country is probably somewhat in doubt. A lot of the "local" kids could take the hint.

Quote from several Marines in news reports I've seen is "We might as well just be in the Army." This new rule was released at the same time that the Commandant allowed the wear of KIA bracelets - seems that Marine regulations have always allowed "POW/MIA bracelets", so some in supervision decided that "Prisoner" and "Missing" was fine, but "Killed" was a no go. Afterall, if the Reg doesn't say "Yes", it must mean "No". I think they almost had a riot on their hands. So now on deployed bases we've got Airmen with their sleeves up and Army and Marines with theirs down and buttoned. How long before Big Blue in the spirit of jointness... No, I'm not even going to go there.....

I guess they do have the right to allow/not allow their employees to wear what they want, but I've got the right to let them know how I feel about it and that on my next trip to Florida I'll take my business elsewhere.