Hacker

Outside professional flying just requires chief pilot permission at my airline -- and numerous guys have that permission. Most that I know of do airshow flying or instructing.

Punctuation Nazi sez: inappropriate apostrophe use, remain in AETC one more tour.

Attached below. Hacker's Blank Logbook(1).xls

Personally, I'm looking forward to the storyline next season of him getting his clearance revoked, and his Article 15 with General Discharge, or maybe an FEB. An acceptable alternative would be the story of him getting kidnapped by ISIS and starring in his own special internet murder video.

Those guys didn't sacrifice anything, other than a bit of dignity in having to brief their bros on the ins and outs of sky-dicks.

Definitely a homophobic, anti-LGBT term.

It is also a BUFF base with LA tail codes somewhere in the Virginia or DC area. Also one that can be easily serviced by the USCG station at Elizabeth City. That's not even mentioning the path he took to work on his bike.

Well, that's gay.

I guess I'm just a dinosaur, but I am just now starting to look at this stuff for GA flying. Well timed thread, thanks for the inputs. I use Jepp FD Pro for work, but several guys I've flown with have put ForeFlight on their iPads as a supplement, so I am going to try that out, too.

Don't worry about that, it won't likely be an issue.

Did his sword get a DFC too?

If you look at what kinds of ordnance they were shooting (a lot of forward-firing stuff like rockets) and what kind of deliveries they were doing (high angle dive bombs, which have substantially less sight depression from the flight path than the 10s, 20s, and 30s that jets routinely do), then it makes sense why the long nose wasn't a problem then but it would be now. Regarding the location of the exhaust, the Enforcer engineering team did a lot of testing about the design, location, and placement of that stack, and left side vs right side, how far forward, how far back, etc, and the way it is on the PA-48 was the best of the three designs (between the Turbo Mustang, the PE-1/2 Enforcer, and the PA-48 Enforcer). A lot was initially learned about it from the YAT-28E program which used the same engine and gearbox setup, but was apparently a huge IR target. When they flew the PA-48 Enforcer against the threat laydown at Tolicha Peak and Pahute Mesa up on the Nellis range, it did very well in terms of avoiding detection and tracking...so ops check good. I don't have it in front of me, but the "production" Enforcer design (which was going to have the shorter nose and stacked cockpit look like the A-29) had some changes to the design and location of the stack, but it was still basically there at the left wing root. YAT-28E: PA-48:

The purpose of the exhaust location here, just like on the Piper Enforcer, is to hide it from any low-aspect IR-SAM or MANPAD with the wing. There is also a secondary "blown wing" effect by putting the exhaust over the top and increasing lift. On a different subject, the reason this thing is a non-starter is that long-assed nose. It is the same problem the Piper Enforcer had, lookdown angle needed for dropping gravity ordnance. Most fighters have a lookdown angle of about 15 degrees...and this pig doesn't. The PA-48 Enforcer had a lookdown over the nose of about 5 degrees. So, you can't see the target through a HUD at the moment of pickle. Kind of a bummer for a dedicated ground attack airplane. That's one of the main reasons the PA-48 was a bust in the 70s and 80s (it was tested out by the AF twice, and rejected twice). And it is the big reason for the short nose and jacked-up cockpit angle on the A-29.

The T-46 was not a JPATS competitor.

Guys that flew the A-37 that I've spoken to are quite honest that they felt very under-gunned and vulnerable in it. Lots of power, very maneuverable, but not the steed they wanted to be riding when iron was in the air. One I spoke to who had been both a Raven FAC and later flew the A-37 said he felt safer in the O-1!

Or two or three decades....

Let's remember that the T-38 was designed as the first supersonic trainer back when the century series fighters were out. Not everything about designing aircraft for trans-sonic and high-Q flight was well understood, but one of those issues was flutter of flight control surfaces. The common answer was to only have surfaces actuated (and thus held rigidly in position during flight) by hydraulics. We didn't have the electronics technology that we do today to have self-isolated hydraulic servos to move flight controls that can be actuated hydraulically, electrically, or mechanically.

This immediately stuck out to me reading the AIB. With a dual engine failure is when the "windmilling hydraulics" discussion is relevant. With a dual gearbox (and thus dual hydraulic) failure, there is no longer a connection between the stick and the flight controls. Those engines can be pumping out as much RPM as you please, but you're along for the ride at that point. And just that much error in analysis is what causes delays to eject and fatalities.

Pin removal, just like in the T-6.

To be fair, this was the case with the aileron bellcrank failure, too. Leadership said, "this is a fly-to-fail item that does not get inspected as part of any of our normal maintenance. We have one-time inspected the fleet and they are all currently good to go. Do your pre-flight flight control checks and knock on the bottom of the wing during your walk-around. Now get back out there and fly." So, all still par for the course.

Stark would be best served if he remains anonymous rather than revealing himself. There is nothing to be gained by Stark becoming part of the solution: he made his points in his articles, an even offered proposed solutions. His job is done. And now leadership can get on with doing their f'n jobs with the issues identified. They shouldn't have needed an anonymous public input "from the trenches", but since they did, the least they could do is actually display some of that leadership skill and take action to fix the identified issues...like they should have been doing all this time anyway without proving Stark's hypotheses true. My favorite part of the article: If you look at the three (or is it four, now?) "Dear Boss" letters that have been made public in the last 40-ish years since Capt Keys' famous letter, you'll note that they ALL cover essentially the same territory and have the same types of complaint. So, how is it that Goldfein thinks that "we got better as a service" as a result of that letter? Is that what it means when people keep bringing up the same problems year after year, decade after decade? Good call, Fingers. Keep your skull down, Col Stark, and keep fighting the good fight.

Words mean stuff.

How far back have you been paying attention to the expansion of the powers of the Executive Branch? Clearly not more than, say, 10 years, if you think this is something even remotely "new".

But, muh right to having a security clearance!