Whitman

Will it? It seems that TACC is quite comfortable with slightly increasing the risk of diverting to reduce the outrageous costs of carrying unnecessary fuel. Have you seen the numbers? It's staggering. I'll see if I can find them.

What store was this? She deserves a raise for her poise and professionalism in handling this imbecile.

Anyone read Adm McRaven's book "Spec Ops"?

:beer: To the Pedros. I was at BAF at the time and remember watching this rescue unfold from the ground. Incredible work guys.

Awesome shot of Patriot's Point and the USS Yorktown. What was the purpose of this formation? I'm sure the tourists on Fort Sumter and elsewhere enjoyed the view!

In the words of Rainman "yawn". In all seriousness, thanks for the jewels of wisdom. Especially: "Never talk to the media" "Poise under pressure is the single most valuable thing you can have as a pilot." and "Make mistakes, take corrective action as quickly and calmly as possible and press on."

Couldn't agree more. 5.3 it is!

Isn't the C-17 the only MWS in AMC that does not have an extra crewmember (ie: boom operator, FE, nav, etc) present in the cockpit for landing? Honest question, but what exactly does a load master do in the back during final approach in a C17? "2" on a crew save is a good save!

Vipers post AR on Sept 11, 2011

Cut 'em some slack. At least their gear was down

Anyone do any Elk Hunting in NM? Seems like it would be worth the drive.

Hypothetical scenario right Porkchop? Good on you and your bros. RPA dudes should never have to buy drinks.

"His mustache is so unprofessional"

LMAO

Any updates on the status of the crew?

Good point!

Check out liberty university, it's only 250/hr for military and they give a book allowance too. Don't know anyone that's done the program but it seems decent. http://www.luonline.com/index.cfm?PID=14265

In our sq, the RA grants AC/IPs that right. Non issue.

I agree with the turbo tax similar software but also think it should interface with GDSS2 to pull itinerary information as soon as the crew is official to help automate portions of the authorization and voucher, similar to the way turbo tax pulls your tax return data from T. Rowe Price and others automatically. Btw, I'm still doing group authorizations and have had great success with them . Adding all the info and just inputting the names of my crew makes it a piece of cake...not sure why others can't do them anymore. (null)

Also of note with Fedex, while certain airlines have nepotism clauses against family hiring, FedEx actually encourages it. They've had a lot of success with families of FedEx pilots and there are numerous husband/wife, father/son, brother pilot teams at the company. It helps a ton with getting an interview. Also, your sponsor should be someone you've flown with that can vouch for the kind of pilot and person you are.

Charleston was doing Sat flights to Sato Cano AB, Honduras for a long time. I also used to see a fair amount of flights to the Virgin Islands....

Cinque Terre, Italy...hike the trail connecting the five villages on the Med. You won't be disappointed.

Posting for Dave Blair since he can't post from his new baseops.net account yet. ======================================= Greetings all. Out of respect for my friends who have gone out on a limb for me, I will explain the rationale for posting this piece. Frankly, it is a waste of your time and mine to discuss my own relative merits or respond to ad hominem arguments, but I believe the argument at the heart of the matter is a critically important discussion for our service. The argument is not about medals, but about culturally anticipating rather than resisting changes in the nature of warfare (ideally before our enemies anticipate them.) Baseops.net seems as appropriate a place as any to have that discussion. To clarify a few things - the Time article came as a surprise, and I do not agree with either the title or how it is parsed. I would prefer that people read the piece as written in ASPJ, which is where it is in context, and assert that if you wish to responsibly engage with this argument, you should do so. To be perfectly straightforward, it would have been far easier to let this piece sit on my hard drive, as it had for a year after I wrote it out of frustration, as a flight commander trying my best to convince my troops that they were at war when institutional incentives seemed to be doing their best to tell them they were not. If I am putting a guy in the seat with a red button wired to a missile liable to be shot in close proximity to friendlies, I want to use everything in my power as an institution to convince that guy that he is in Afghanistan rather than in New Mexico - I owe that to the guy on the ground whose life I am entrusting to the guy in the seat. And as the response to date predictably points out, I have much to lose and honestly nothing to gain by posting the article, as I am no longer at Cannon. But I continue to believe strongly that this is a discussion we need to have. One misunderstanding is with the definition of 'differential risk of combat.' I will take a spear for this misunderstanding, as I felt it was self-evident, and upon re-reading realized it is not. There is obviously risk associated with the physical act of flying - mourning a few friends over the last few months made this quite clear. If the argument were about the appropriateness of overall aviation incentives, then this would be a crucial point. It is not. The argument is about the conditional increase in risk due to combat, where I hold to the point. With the tremendous exception of rotary wing aircraft, which I saw in my gunship days and still see today as very much taking on risks the rest of us don't, the increase in risk due to combat is very small in both cases, and plausibly higher in the case of RPA. I have more combat hours than home station hours in manned aircraft, mostly over Sadr during the surge, and the three times I've truly felt as if my life was in jeopardy were all during peacetime missions. A second misunderstanding is about the stakes of the argument. This is not about medals, but about messaging. The historical example that figured most strongly in my mind when crafting this piece is that of artillery. In a similar story to our current discussion of RPA, artillery was initially considered a civilian 'non-combat' role, as they were not in the line of battle and initially could not expect to take significant casualties. However, people soon realized that it was less than bright to have the people lobbing explosive shells over their heads less institutionally invested in the outcome - the nation that first let effectiveness trump prestige gained great advantages (Napoleon, I believe, was the first to militarize and professionalize artillery.) For this reason, I believe the cultural valuation of RPA has much to do with the trajectory of our service - the 'swarm' and the 'cloud' stand to revolutionize air combat, and it worries me intensely that we'll get there second and find our way into some Kipling poem about eclipsed empires. Given the budget issues we're having, air-centric 'offshore balancing' a la Libya seems one of the few viable options in the long run, and persistence (not necessarily unmannedness) gets us there. So this is why I care so much about the messages we send with institutional incentives - because they shape futures. If you don't believe this, look at the promotion rates at Creech and ask what that means for the maturation of RPA. The heart of the matter is 'how do we constitute combat' when the functions of killing become de-centralized and geographically dispersed. (This is one level up from the discussion we had about BVR engagements and cruise missiles - both an AMRAAM and a JASSM are both 'drones' by the pure definition.) I believe 'combat risk' - your own personal life being in danger - is a subset of 'combat responsibility,' which is first-order causal agency over life and death in wartime. What is the primary role of an army officer - to risk his own life, or to make tremendously difficult decisions with the lives of others? I argue that both of these qualify as combat. (When lives are not directly on the line in the Pred, such as persistent ISR without blue forces on screen, or IED scans without an attack clearance, then I do not believe this qualifies for combat per this definition.) To not do this is to ask for little bubbles of peacetime flying around the AOR in the name of preserving some entrenched order. We owe better to our comrades in the ROZ stack and to our comrades on the ground, and tragically we have at times failed to deliver. I believe part of why is because the institution is communicating through cultural markers (medals, blogs like this, etc.) that it is appropriate to not view the actions of RPA through the life-and-death-serious lens of combat. I may very well be wrong on this point. But it is a discussion that I believe we need to have.