Steve Davies

I interviewed both of the widows of the two pilots killed in the Constant Peg programme. Their stories are heart wrenching and their emotions were raw even after the passage of so many years. It took 30 years for one of them to find out how, where and what her husband was doing when he died. The other had a pretty good idea what her husband was doing, as I suspect the Schultz family does, but that's not the same as knowing for sure, and it's not the same as getting real answers. "Doc" Schultz may have made the ultimate sacrifice, and I doff my hat to him, but his wife and five children are the ones who must live with the consequences. In my mind, they are the real heroes. My thoughts go out to them.

For those who don't get to see the VTRS: https://livestream.com/wab/tailhook2017/videos/162478715

Well, to make the experience less unpalatable, you could akways ask him who he thinks barrel rolls better: airline pilots or AF pilots (or maybe ex-AF airline pilots)?

Lurking.

No, it was never considered by us. Until the mid-80s, the French and Brits were working together on the Future European Fighter Aircraft programme (alnong with Spain, Italy and West Germany). When the French realised they wouldn't get the aircraft they wanted from a collaboration with multiple air arms from multiple other nations (who'd be stupid enough to do that!?), they smartly went off and did their own thing. They ended up with Rafale, while the original FEFA nations ended up with Eurofighter Typhoon.

100 T-45 IPs are apparently refusing to fly because of fears over the safety of the jet's OBOGS. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/04/04/navy-instructor-pilots-refusing-to-fly-over-safety-concerns-pences-son-affected.html I am curious to know, is there something about the effects of this OBOGS issue that somehow makes it different to the Raptor's OBOGS issue? While I appreciate that one is a training asset, the other a front-line operational asset, it just strikes me that response from the two communities is startlingly different. In one case, an entire community refuses to fly, prompting a 3-star Admiral to publicly state that there is no policy of 'Fly or else...', in another a meagre two pilots speak out (one of whom is still trying to resume his AF career), and a one-star General refuses to make it clear that his pilots have a choice to not fly.

Good. I got answers to all your questions except the stupid ones, but rest assured I asked them all. I'll write up the interview for Combat Aircraft magazine and post a link to it here when it's out.

You can be sure I am going to ask all of these questions.

All I am interviewing Gen "Hawk" Carlisle, ACC CC, next week. He retires this Spring. Any questions you think I should put to him?

Does the new one break your neck when you have to get rid of the jet, or will that be a thing of the past?

Not a bad innings at all. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/willie-rogers-oldest-surviving-original-tuskegee-airman-dead-at-101/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7e&linkId=31404489 Him him.

You've been 96'ing. Try facing the other way. Much more fun.

Your old man happen to be Boomer?

If you are (or were) an A-10 maintainer and you're interested in being interviewed about your work for a book on the A-10, please PM me.

On Brexiting BO.net? I don't need you guys. I can make it on my own. In fact, fuck you all, you controlling bastards. On Brexit EU? I think that the underclass majority (non-immigrant, working class) finally got to have their say. After decades of being marginalised by a PC establishment that favours championing the rights of minority groups at the expense of everyone else, they had an opportunity to change the course the country was taking. I'm glad we're leaving. And I'm looking forward to what the future may hold.

Check PMs.

In addition, the F-35 is still in the middle of a planned, *iterative* development programme, which is something that the detractors of the F-35 never mention. If you applied the same level of criticism to the F-15 at the time it entered service as the media and bloggers do to the F-35, you'd have had to have gotten all hysterical about how the APG-63 didn't work very well and how the Air Force had pushed it into service without any self-protection capability. And yet the F-15 went on to get 105 kills for zero losses (and counting). I think it's fair enough to lambast the acquisition element of the programme, but it's tiring reading self-professed experts take the F-35 apart without talking about Blocks and tapes, and without acknowledging that the aircraft is still in development.

But does it automatically shut down the motor in-flight? My guess is that requires pilot input. Wouldn't the pilot want to be the final arbiter over whether to shut down the radar? What if he's in the middle of an engagement when it starts to degrade? He may still be getting *some* capability from it.

Yeah, it doesn't work like that and the Turks know it. And, if I were Russian, I think it would be reasonable to feel aggrieved at being shot down 40 seconds *after* I'd left Turkish airspace. This is about nothing more than the Turks protecting their proxies south of the border from Russian airstrikes. They've given ISIS room to do what they want, they buy oil from ISIS and they'll do whatever they can to remove Bashir.

Surprised at some of the comments here. Some facts to consider: 1. Turkey routinely enters sovereign Greek airspace, despite repeatedly being asked not to. The Greeks don't shoot them down, because that would not be a proportional response... just like shooting down a Russian aircraft that is clearly not heading north into Turkish airspace, but is instead briefly crossing a small tit of airspace, is not a proportional response 2. The timings and reported geometry of the intercept and shootdown are revealing. By the Turks' own admission, the Su-24 was in Turkish airspace for 17 seconds, but it had been back in Syrian airspace for 40 seconds when it was hit and downed. You don't have to be a genius to work out that in a rear-aspect AIM-9 engagement, the shot was taken when the Fencer's airspace incursion was already over, and meant that the F-16s were probably in Syrian airspace when they engaged. That makes the Turks' response a punishment for the incursion, not an attempt to prevent it, and that constitutes an aggression that we all could really do without. Further, if you look at the data that the Turks have released, it's clear that the Fencer was pointing at the border for less a minute, which makes their claims of 10 warnings in five minutes sound suspect 3. The idea that Russia is a de facto supporter of ISIS because it is targeting the Turkmenistans, FSA and other rebel groups in the north is as much of a nonsense as the idea that the groups the West is supporting are 'moderate'. These so-called moderates are the same ones who shoot pilots in parachutes and behead children for being the wrong type of Muslim.

True, probably only a couple of thousand.

Yeah, that's funny.

Deaddebate Thanks for the response. I am a British national, so I am not familiar with all your terms (although I know what DNIF is). But it sounds like I should cancel my dental appointment tomorrow.

Question from a civilian: I am due to fly (fast jet) with an Air Force unit on Thursday next week. I have a root canal and filling scheduled this Friday (tomorrow) ISTR that, in previous medicals, I have been asked about recent dental surgery. Would Friday's root canal and filling DQ me from getting my passenger medical?

You lose almost all rights to the publisher (vanity or not) when you get your work published. For starters, the publisher owns the majority of rights to the edited and laid out book, not the author. So, no, the author can't simply take it and make a digital version using a free digital publishing service. While a typical contract may require author approval for foreign rights sales and digital versions, to go digital, the publisher would expect the author to pay the costs to convert it, and then they'd expect a cut of the revenue. Even with non-vanity publishers, the author eventually pays for the cost of conversion to digital because he/she only gets paid on revenue minus conversion costs.