Clark Griswold

Ditto. I don't know if this generation of AF "leaders" / other public officials (very last boomers / oldest Gen X'ers) desperately trying to seem cool realizes that Millenials can smell their cheesy lame attempts at "connection" a mile away. My oldest is amongst those oh so ironic sensing cohort and I may be naive but I have her respect by not attempting to be just like them, you know young kids, but I act like an adult, reasonably mature and not ham handily trying to emulate their idioms, mannerisms, humor or fads. Unsurprisingly, I am treated well by her and her friends because more than anything people respect honesty. This goes not just for AF leadership but other public officials: people (especially young people and those serving in a defined hierarchy) want to respect the person in charge more than they want to identify with them on a personal level. You can't respect someone that is not genuine and honest, you may not like someone but if they can have your respect and loyalty if they are honest, capable and moral. Give them reasons to respect you rather than reasons to like you.

Agreed but the MX and sustainment cost of the B-2 is prohibitive given the small production run and consequently low parts availability from premature truncation of the program. Didn't realize the B-21 had a lower range unrefuelled than the B-2, that's UNSAT. If anything, give the next bomber greater range to keep from telegraphing its ingress when it ARs pre-strike and push the tankers further back from the beginning of the A2AD area

Yes Wiki on Stop Loss: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-loss_policy US Code DoD policy is based on: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/12305

Yup, that sounds about what the machine is likely to deliver in lieu of procurement. The Borg collective is just incapable of admitting a mistake, that they should have bought a LAAR around the 2005-06 timeframe when it was obvious we were in for a long slog in two different theaters with no air/air threat and for fixed wing a mostly low threat environment. Yet here we are.

What a useless punk...

Yup.

1. We don't know. Something less genocidal than a few years ago. 2. To stymie Russia/Iran. 3. Yes. I would add there is no good move in Syria (or what's left of it) just less bad moves than others depending on what day of the week it is. Bomb the remnants of ISIS, Al Nusra, Al Qaeda, etc... try to avoid the Russians / Iranians but sure as hell don't back down if they try shenanigans, keep the Kurds armed and fend off the Turks/Iranians from attacking them, keep funding the Iraqi central gov as it is better than letting it implode and hold your nose while this shit sandwich is chewed on for the next 5-10 years. Unless we are ok with letting the Kurds get the shit kicked out of them when we pull out (sts) then we are there to keep them semi-sovereign, not bombed and attacked with chemical weapons. They're good allies, they deserve our support.

Yeah, I think it is low on the priorities and they are probably only doing this to placate Congress / keep another branch from procuring this aircraft or mission ala the C-27 but one can hope.

Another round of OA-X demos in May - July timeframe: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/will-the-air-force-really-buy-new-light-attack-aircraft-24397 and IOMAX wants to adapt Archangel to a coastal / maritime patrol mission: https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/singapore-airshow/2018/02/09/iomax-may-adapt-its-archangel-aircraft-to-patrol-asian-coastlines/

This Onion headline seems similar to the the current situation in Syria.

Rand Paul on Neil Cavuto, not usually a fan of his but as we pass 20+ trillion debt now with a trillion dollar deficit forecast in few years, along with higher interest rates inevitably necessary, shit is about to get real IMO in a few years. Skip to 9:45 and he has a good idea, individual spending bills vs. the all or nothing omnibus bills we choke on now. Department by Department, vote on each and IMO should have 3 COAs for each: Full Resourcing, 5% haircut across the Department's individual programs or 5% haircut with discretion granted to the head of the Dept to shift resources to achieve the 5% savings. For the 2018 budget, it is about 3.654 trillion in revenues vs. 4.094 trillion in appropriations, for about 440 billion in deficit spending or about 9% over budget. Let's dip our toes in the water of fiscal sanity and aim for just 4% over budget and shift just 5% of budget and spending authority to gov officials who don't have a huge need to beg of campaign contributions and face reelection every 2 or 6 years...

Ditto. Saw a video on the Orion spacecraft system and it was designed specifically with plenty of dials, switches, physical buttons, etc. for human factors and with touchscreen capacity for reversion capability. 20 lb. brains working on a multi-billion dollar spacecraft think keeping a conventional control system is a good idea, it probably is.

It was insanely cool. SLS / Orion is gonna be impressive when it comes to be (fingers crossed) in Dec 2019. https://spacenews.com/nasa-sets-december-2019-date-for-first-sls-launch/ I'm hoping this interest and optimism given the successful launch can be sustained. We can get to Mars orbit sooner rather than later (maybe 6 years from now) get a solid win and ask the for the big, big mission(s) - Mars landings with a permanent outpost. https://hom.planetary.org Also, give NASA one penny at least... https://www.penny4nasa.org/mission/

Do it. I can't imagine saying no if I were in your shoes. I can still remember my tweet solo, first flight as the A code, etc... all the bullshit you will have to put up with is worth it.

But they collect the intel to know whom to strike, that’s the primary tactical problem to be solved for the strategy leadership currently prefers. Not saying that strategy is good, bad, effective or wise just what we do and why. Any number of assets can deliver a PGM, very few can deliver a weapon after the exhaustive collection and target discrimination our ROE requires. Make droids primarily an X-CAS platform and what they bring to the fight rapidly diminishes.

Crap - pardon my ignorance

MAJCOM patch Really? Thought Cyber was happy in AFSPC but if y'all are good with it, cool.

AF Global Vigilance Command... sounds right. Sending 24AF to ACC... sounds terrible.

Yeah, it's an interesting situation, my RPA experience is the Global Chicken, very different from the Reaper world so I am thinking from an outsider perspective looking in. A resurrected AF Intelligence Command would really need to be Air ISR Operations Command (or something) and keep the emphasis on the process to gather the intelligence / action on it not the PED of it. Too many functions/missions in ACC, can't legitimately balance them all out under one roof.

Copy that. Another fix that really would be the thing that could actually cause the others is IMO that the RPA community needs a home of its own for its core function/mission of Global Integrated ISR, resurrect AF Intelligence Command and give them the top cover of their own 4 star. It's a large enough core function/mission that it has out grown ACC and is sufficiently different that it needs its own dedicated leadership and MAJCOM.

Yeah I do think that absent a growth in resources and the authority to execute them wisely that a reduction in CAPs to execute the resources allocated now thus allowing for some margin for QoL and development of the community is the best long term COA but I doubt that the AF would either lower its force contribution beyond 60 CAPs or would be allowed to. The get-well plan sounds fine but to narrow in on the 10-1 crew to CAP ratio you have to put an asterisk and notes with that. Not all of those 10 aviators are crew dogs flying the line, just drawing on my experience in an RPA squadron from years past if you took a sample of 10 pilots from the squadron probably 5 were company grade crew dogs and the other 5 were field graders that flew occasionally as they had other duties that sometimes legitimately precluded scheduling them and sometimes RHIP. My point being is the devil is in the details and that if the AF really wants this to not be a morale and retention killing assignment(s) then it must acknowledge and program for it. As for other nations picking up some of the slack I doubt it, the political will / balls to conduct the precision HVI / signature strike mission is just not there. No one in the West wants to publicly admit that we are attempting to kill our way out of these COIN missions just not indiscriminately. Not saying that is a good or bad tactic but it does not have a noble ring to it hence the politicians keeping their distance from it if they can. Don’t mean to be all negative but just my honest opinion. If I were king for a day i would: - program 50k per year bonuses for volunteers - establish a companion trainer aircraft program - establish a sensor / JTAC to warrant officer 18X program - establish 10 new RPA ops centers on bases across US territory for QoL across time zones and I would CLOSE Creech to RPA ops - establish a policy that states any rated officer in an RPA wing holding a qualification in the primary MWS of that Wing must remain maintain within 80% of the average flight hours per pilot per month to receive flight pay or ACIP Fat chance on all of those but advocate wherever you can for what you think is right

Good Lord that's low... Good article but beyond allocating more resources and using them logically rather than politically (people, perks and bases in desirable locales with timezone distribution versus some wasteland of a congressional district) what else could fix this?

Fair enough and I am not for using conscription willy nilly just for keeping it legal and ready if required Referring to your idea that if the people will not willingly fight in numbers sufficient to ensure their sovereignty then their nation is not worth fighting for perhaps but if they are not willing to fight I am thinking that it is more accurate that they are not worthy of liberty

Then I enslave my children on a daily basis. Just being a cheeky bastard but the libertarians in this discussion are taking things too an extreme. Liberty and Personal Freedom / Choice are not infinite and the price to realize them at any level is that as individuals we sacrifice a small amount of our own allotment to allow the group to experience it as a whole. Like paying taxes, we each pay some so that we all have something(s) we all need. I think @Vertigo mentioned earlier that your freedom ends when it intrudes on the freedom of another, I would caveat that with unreasonably intrudes on the freedom of another. The greater point to take away from that astute statement (Vertigo's not mine) is that all principles, values and other human concepts are subject to limitations of realization in the real world, that is they can never be fully realized only approximated to a reasonable extent. To have a place on this Earth where your God given rights can be realized requires people who organize together as a tribe / nation willing to use force and violence to keep other groups of humans from imposing their will, stealing your resources and/or killing / displacing your group. Paradoxically, in order to do this, the individuals of that group will have to subordinate some of their freedoms / personal choices in order for the group to realize the maximum amount of liberty / personal choice, not fully but as close to fully as conditions / resources will allow.

Gotta keep that per unit cost down, strategic concerns be damned... I don't know what the data architecture is but why would the Russians want to let some of their best A2AD stuff talk to ours potentially compromising theirs? This is all in the rearview mirror but a non-ALIS based JSF would have been the ideal export variant.