ClearedHot

Tell me you don't do CAS without telling me you don't do CAS. "Hammering away"...I don't even have words other than thanks "SEAL of the Sky" for your input. Removing the 105MM is nothing more than moronic payback from two herbivore AFSOC/CC's that hate the gunship community. There is a story about how this all started and it had NOTHING to do with anything related to combat, rather Slife wanting to harvest manpower for a pet project and being told no because they had to keep X number of gunners on the AC-130J to man the 105MM. As a dude who has shot bad guys 27 meters form the friendlies, advocating for BVR CAS is one of the dumber things I have ever read on this forum. Slinging a Small Cruise Missile (SCM), at GPS coordinates is not CAS, doing it in a dynamic fight is Fing stupid and dangerous. As for "accuracy not being as good as folks think"...the advertised unclassified accuracy of the AC-130 is two mils. Again as a person who flew it once or twice, techniques like two-shot bring that much lower. The hammering away and they keep running scenario mentioned above is a function of poor employment or training, not the damn gun. Come on over some time, I'll pour you a glass of brown liquor and show you a couple hours of video 33 pound projectiles filled with 6 pounds of Comp B pissing-off all the virgins in Jannah because thanks to me "hammering away" with the 105MM, they are about to be overrun with business. Rather than guard core capabilities AFSOC leadership is grasping at straws trying to remain relevant in this pivot to peer/near-peer, the Air Force is feeding that mantra as we slowly walk away from what should be a fierce dedication to those on the ground, reference insert A-10 retirement as further proof. I am not opposed to adding SCM to the gunship arsenal, it would add a great stand-off capability to suppress semi-permissive threats in CORE SOCOM mission sets, but if having 30 gunships with SCM is the key to the fight against China, we've already lost.

I've worked in the same circle several times. Having 50,000 positions that require Senate confirmation is ludicrous and obviously part of the problem. Judges represent many of the vacancies and that needs to be addressed because of the impact it has on our judicial system (particularly with regard to immigration cases). The Air Force nominate 20-25 Colonels to become Generals each year...the other services have about the same number. The Senate has a DUTY to review those nominations and 100 a year is not asking too much. There should be a a heavy review when making O-7 and another look for O-9 and above.

It is feasible and THIS is part of the problem. If you have to be confirmed by the Senate why just accept the blanket approval of each service. This practice only reinforces the broken process and continues to promote some of most acidic leaders we have ever seen.

The fight in Gaza is going to be a slog...

Fat Amy gets a kill!

What is unacceptable behavior? Taking down hostage posters - yes, blocking traffic - yes or attacking people - yes...but simply expressing another view point no way. I was driving home two days ago and flipping through CNN and Fox on Sirius. Fox had a retired Army Lt Gen I have never heard before and he was upset with the kids expressing their view of what was happening in Gaza...his commented that if a University allows this type of commenting they should lose their federal funding....uh...NO Fing Way. I find what is being said by these far left groups absolutely appalling, but minus violence it is simply free speech. Free speech is not only free speech you agree with and the government should not try to stifle those expressions. It is one thing for a private citizen to hold them accountable by denying jobs, doxxing, yelling back...that is part of the game, but minus violence and the law, the government should never cross that line.

It is and has been absolutely stunning to me that the country that invented the 24 hour news cycle and has so many talking heads lets terror organizations and ignorant political movements run circles around them. It takes me back to Baghdad Bob, everything is fine, nothing to worry about. I've personally been a victim of it twice during my non-glorious career. Cell phones have changed everything including our attention span...who actually reads the newspaper anymore, everyone gets their news from Facebook, X and Insta. Networks like Fox, CNN and MSNBC limit all segments to three minutes with the hosts cutting an expert off before they even make a salient point. Agree, but tough to control in our society where freedom of the press it literally the very first amendment in our Constitution. I can tell you we do NOT put the government in charge like uncle Joe tried to do with the crazy show tunes singing bitch. It would be great if the press would actually act like the fourth estate and did their job...too much to ask I know.

New #2 Comm Priority. 1. Lead's on Fire 2. Bingo 3. Great tits AND she works for you Boss!

Stopped shipping kits...that's a big deal.

While the world burn in Ukraine and Gaza China wants to F around and find out.

Dozens of FBI sources gave ‘criminal information’ on Bidens that DOJ tried to discredit as ‘foreign disinformation’: Nothing to see here...the liberals are "mostly happy with Biden."

She is not. Salt of the earth and a wonderful pilot/instructor. True, luckily no one was hurt. I doubt the FAA comes after her, especially with her contrition and this being a first offense.

Epic!

I don't have Tik Tok, you can watch without an account. Poor young lady is upset that a 9-5 job is impacting her social life. https://www.tiktok.com/@brielleybelly123/video/7291443944347405614

I do wonder if for the sake of training more people faster we have given up some of the basic skills. While I didn't train with Orville like Huggy did, I am an old school T-38 dude who did the pencil method, dialed up pie in the sky for my working area and hand flew SIDs using my brain not the autopilot. Unfortunately my skills have atrophied thanks to automation, GPS and giant displays with a god's eye view of the world. A few weeks ago I was flying my airplane up north and was given a SID departing the DC SFRA. I do all my mission planning on foreflight and my plane allows me to squirt (sts), the flight plan directly to the panel from foreflight, an immense time saver. I cranked, got my clearance which was to climb via the SID to a point then expect radar vectors. Foreflight took the plan and I thought all was well until I tried to shoot it to the panel. The airplane did not like it and wanted a transition point from the published SID. The clearance I had did not match and every time I tried to enter an exit point it messed up the flight plan (I was dropping into a private field outside the SFRA for a business meeting). After "fighting" the system for a few minutes I finally said F it, I am a pilot and I will just hand fly the damn SID, which I did with no issues. All the new automation is great and likely prevents many mistakes. My airplane can fly fully coupled approaches and has everything except auto throttles so I don't take the Clint Eastwood Gran Torino approach yelling get off my porch. Instead, I use the automation but am putting more effort into keeping my basic skills sharp by hand flying approaches and such should the gonkulator fail or have a hiccup. I am sure the airline guys have thoughts, isn't most of your flying done through the gonk?

Looks like we were all on about the same time.

Off-duty pilot charged with 83 counts of attempted murder for allegedly trying to shut off engines on Alaska Airlines flight Now you gotta look over your shoulder and watch the jumpseater...

Great article summarizing what I posted the other day. Russian Statistics Service forecasts extinction of Russian population at speed of up to 700,000 people a year Another data point on the impact of the war draining the population of men. Russian Defense Ministry starts to recruit women for war in Ukraine