ClearedHot

As the previous theme of the thread was from left to right and as person who speaks Anglo-Saxon English (designed to work from left to right), I decided to keep with the theme and continue from left to right. I know your pea-brain is overloaded trying to remember your only four approved responses, "2" "Joker/Bingo" "Lead you're on fire". "ITTFO", so I will remember that in the future when composing threads I think you might read.

Pilot is 4th from left, Co-Pilot is 3rd from left.

by Capt. Eric Badger 379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs 12/5/2005 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFPN) -- Families normally get together for holidays -- but at 25,000 feet? Not hardly. But two pilots from the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing found a way to accomplish a mission and have a family reunion at the same time. Capts. Greg Matthew Amig reunited in the skies over Southwest Asia, where Greg refueled his brother’s aircraft on Thanksgiving Day. The brothers are stationed together at this forward-deployed base. Greg is 340th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron KC-135 Stratotanker pilot. He is deployed from Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D. Matthew is a 16th Expeditionary Airborne Command and Control Squadron E-8 JSTARS pilot, deployed from Robins AFB, Ga. The brothers said their commanders worked to match their flying schedules so they could complete a mission together. “Our commanders got the ball rolling,” Greg said. “From there it was up to his (brother's) squadron’s planners and my squadron’s planners. Coordination then had to be done with the combined air operations center to get it lined up. “After about a month of planning, we finally made it happen,” he said. Holy crap! A month?

Geeky, perhaps...Effective, Yes!

Alpha Mike Foxtrot.

Ben Doverbich [ 04. December 2005, 21:21: Message edited by: Clearedhot ]

High Speed low altitude pass...well medium speed.

I looked at them several times and decided to invest in a Ruger Red Lable instead. Best Quail-Dove shotgun I've ever shot, and it looks and works the same today as it did six years ago. [ 02. December 2005, 12:49: Message edited by: Clearedhot ]

USAA for 16 years with zero problems. I also use them for Auto-Home insurance and have filed two major claims in the last five years for hurricane damage. In both cases they were more than fair.

Alright guys I will be the pinhead that tries to break you out of the USAF mold. If you read one book not related to flying, but will make you a better officer/person, I would vote for "General George Washington: A Military Life", by Edward G. Lengel. I was forced to read it last year by the Marines and it turned out to be one of the best books I have ever read. I will mention in passing that after reading this book, I came to the conclusion that there was never a finer American then George Washington. Give it a shot and you won’t be disappointed

Who has been higher in an aircraft without an engine? FL 190

Not to discourage you, but the "trend" at the WIC in the past few years has been to go younger. The expressed reason for this policy is to get more payback after graduation. By Reg, grads are required to be in a WIC billet for at least three years and they prefer five, which can be tough once folks make O-4 and start rolling off to school. As an example one WIC squadron had six instructors picked up for IDE next summer. Someone will get Ops Deferred, which is not always a bad deal, but it does show how tough the timing can be. That being said, there are always a few sharp "older" guys/girls in each class. Bottom line, do your best and it may well work out. Good Luck!

Ok, I decided to settle this once and for all. I had a few beers last night and I went to the airport and jumped on the moving walkway going the opposite direction. No matter how fast I ran and how hard I flapped my arms, I did not take off, case closed.

Even "stove-pipe" careers can entail a lot of moves over time. I did seven years at Hurlburt but have moved three times in the last two years, (and it looks like I will move again next summer), which will be my eighth assignment in 16 years. Once you leave for school or a broadening opportunity you may find yourself moving several times in a short time period.

As I recall there was a Damons Sports bar just across the street from McGuires. [ 06. November 2005, 09:39: Message edited by: Clearedhot ]

Who gives a rats arse where you got your commision. I only care about two things. 1. Can you fly the jet and kill the bad guys? 2. Can you lead other dudes/dudettes to do the same.

Yeah we won't want any pictures of the mighty T-3 to leak out...

As a spare CP I go to Pope for a week of dropping the grunts. It was August and part of the deal was we got a low-level on each lift. We are flying old E-model C-130's (who isn't), and the grunts are packed in like sardines. I am standing during the low-level, and it is typical hot and bumpy on a summer day in North Carolina. The loadmaster calls up and says “it looks like they are gonna blow”, I wonder over to the ladder and take a look at the most miserable group of dudes I have ever seen. They are packed in so tight they can't move and one near the ladder is looking very green. The poor dude is sweating profusely and trying to figure out how he can gracefully puke. With all the gear there is just no way the guy can maneuver. All of a sudden he looks up and projectile vomits onto the face of the guy across from him. Everything after that moment was surreal, as it set off a chain reaction and the back of the plane looked like a vomitorium. Dudes were puking in every direction like dominoes falling in a long chain. The stench was overwhelming and I had to park my face next to the AC vent upfront to keep from puking myself. When we landed and opened the ramp, the vomit was literally dripping off the back end. It was the funniest and most disgusting thing I have ever seen.

How about.... "I have decided to reduce the F/A-22 buy to THIS many".

Just to give another view. The last two BGen selects from the gunpig both had funny wings (1- Nav, 1- EWO). Take the job that will make YOU happy, do the best you can in the job, and the rest will take care of itself.

I don't think anyone does CAS for money. There is no better feeling in the world (professionally), than helping the guys on the ground. I know some guys like A2A and it takes a lot of brain power to do that properly, but for me, hitting crap on the ground is the way to go.

I don't think we will ever see the Four Horsemen again, but it might look something like this...

What is interesting is most of the Marines I was with on my exchange tour were very "un-excited", about having Pace as the first Devil-Dawg CJCS. To quote one of them..."there was never a finer yes man in the corps". Look for another talking puppet to regergitate Rummy's musings.

No, but tomorrow is closer than you think. So what do you do with the money that has already been spent? If you stop production the people with the skills to make those planes will go away. Everytime you push something to the right, you add to the cost. The eye-opener is how much money it will take to keep the Eagles flying (Last one delivered to the USAF was in 1989-1990) or to purchase more F-15E’s, if you push F-22 to the right, it may cost you more. The F-15 initial operational requirement was for a service life of 4,000 hours. Testing completed in 1973 demonstrated that the F-15 could sustain 16,000 hours of flight. Subsequently operational use was more severely stressful than the original design specification. With an average usage of 270 aircraft flight hours per year, by the early 1990s the F-15C fleet was approaching its service-design-life limit of 4,000 flight hours. Following successful airframe structural testing, the F-15C was extended to an 8,000-hour service life limit. An 8,000-hour service limit provides current levels of F-15Cs through 2010. The F-22 program was initially justified on the basis of an 8,000 flight hour life projection for the F-15. This was consistent with the projected lifespan of the most severely stressed F-15Cs, which have averaged 85% of flight hours in stressful air-to-air missions, versus the 48% in the original design specification. Full-scale fatigue testing between 1988 and 1994 ended with a demonstration of over 7,600 flight hours for the most severely used aircraft, and in excess of 12,000 hours on the remainder of the fleet. A 10,000-hour service limit would provide F-15Cs to 2020, while a 12,000-hour service life extends the F-15Cs to the year 2030. The APG-63 radar, F100-PW-100 engines, and structure upgrades are mandatory. The USAF cannot expect to fly the F-15C to 2014, or beyond, without replacing these subsystems. The total cost of the three retrofits would be under $3 billion. The upgrades would dramatically reduce the 18 percent breakrate prevalent in the mid-1990s, and extend the F-15C service life well beyond 2014.

I almost got an Article-15 from the Army K2 base commander because I would not take the parachute down from our make-shift porch. We flew at night and slept during the day. It was in the 100's and the power kept going out so we would wake up and go sit under the parachute to get some shade. "Sorry Col SIR, I was busy flying ocmbat missions and killing bad guys down range. I will cancel my CAS missions tonight so I can take down the parachute and make it look like a perfect little Army base." Freaking tools.