ViperStud

I wore glasses all the way through Sheppard, and only had been on the Soft Contact Lens program for 4.5 months (not 6) when I showed up. They would not let me keep wearing the contacts. Good luck but they seemed unwilling to budge on the 6 month thing, and it basically comes from the fact that they don't want pilots missing their 2 week, month and 6 month checkups due to scheduling so they just say no outright. And yes a doc told me that, I'm not just casting stones. After UPT you SHOULD be able to get fitted for contacts. The regs say only studet pilots will not get fitted for them while flying, and you are not a student pilot as of the day you graduate UPT. When I pointed that out I was eventually told that they had an ORI coming up and had other things to worry about; they'd address the contact thing later. So I had to wear glasses for IFF too. Don't worry though when you get to RTU the flight docs are a lot more...uh...user friendly to say the least. They've let me wear contacts from day 1. Good luck and if you have that 6 months left before UPT go get fit for contacts NOW, they are way better in the jet than glasses.

I spent almost a year there and I grew up in the area too. The advice everyone has shot out is good, any place is a bit of a commute since there really is nowhere right outside base, and I think Mt. Holly would be the best place for someone new to there to live. I stayed with the 'rents and saved boku cash, which brings up a good suggestion IMHO... If you are able to get someone else on board consider living by the shore. I live right by the beach and it was basically a 40 min commute (maybe 10-15 more than mt. holly or most other places you'd live anyway) and consider the upside. YOU ARE RIGHT BY THE BEACH. Offseason places are dirt cheap and you can get good deals on year round stuff. Only gets real expensive if you only want it for the summer. And the commute is a straight shot down 195 to 537 by Six Flags then straight onto base. Easy drive, never any traffic (seriously I did it almost every day) and remember your schedule as a casual LT should be pretty lax so no worries about the commute. There are even nice little airports in the area like Lakewood, Miller Airpark or Allaire Apt if you need to do IFT. I loved McGuire cuz it was by my family and I made some good friends on base and we went to Philly all the time (South Street rules), it's a great casual assignment. I would highly reccomend living by the shore if you are at all into the beach and some good nightlife, it's well worth the extra 10-15 min drive. [ 29. March 2005, 23:25: Message edited by: ViperStud ]

My setup cost about 200 + the price of the fridge. First find a fridge that will fit the keg. Standard kegs we use are half barrels, full barrels are basically industrial size. You'll need a CO2 tank (or nitrogen if you plan on serving guiness). Then get a faucet, tap (make sure you get the kind with two hose attachments, one for the low pressure air, not the pump kind) and pressure regulator. You'll attach the CO2 tank to the regulator via hose and control the pressure the regulator puts out (10-14 psi works for most beers). Then attach the regulator output to the tap via hose # 2. Then hose # 3 attaches the tap to the faucet. It's a pretty easy setup, saves money on beer, and makes for a good party house, take my word for it. Good luck.

Sorry about beating this dead horse but I think this topic might be a little more worthwhile than the several threads spent defending/crucifying the dudes at Columbus. It's not about GOUGE, people... WHAT IS GOUGE? Anyone who flies in the AF knows there are only about 43,869 pubs/regs/afis/supps that govern how you fly. If I want to figure out how to fly tac form in my Viper, I can reference the IFG, 3-3, 11-2F-16, a bunch of local supps AS A MINIMUM to figure out all the things I need to know. So long ago pilots got tired of going to brief with their instructor thinking they studied everything they needed to only to have the IP throw out questions from AFI 11-29383 Vol 3 Chapter69 IOS 4-4 (amended FCIF 06-9). Enter gouge. Sometime shortly after we coined the phrase "think smarter not harder" someone thought it would be a great idea to consolidate info from all these sources into nice little study guides. Maybe those guides were a picture of the pattern with all airspeeds, radio calls, ground tracks, pitch and power settings, blah blah blah on one nice sheet. Maybe those guides were a list of bullet points from 11-217 that incorporates different techniques and organizes things by topics. This "gouge" just let individuals spend more study time actually memorizing than sifting through the endless stack of pubs we must live by. Over the years gouge came to include old (and legally obtained) tests and review materials that gave trainees some idea of what evaluators like to concentrate on. Fast forward to today. The term gouge has become overused to some extent if people think that ANYTHING that gives them or their class an edge is gouge. Gouge is study material, NOT things that you are not supposed to have. Gouge is unofficial but it has saved people a ton of time in their efforts to learn everything, as the SEFEs expect of us. The point? Aircrew, you know everything I said already. Those not in the community (or newbies) you need to understand what is gouge and what is not. If it feels wrong it's probably cheating. You are officers (the pilots at least, but we are ALL professionals) and thats why they pay you the big bucks, to make those judgement calls. We all had to make those choices in training and I hope I made all the right ones. I'm just sick of hearing about stolen (current) EPQs (not that I'm saying that IS what happened), SELO involvement, etc and people throwing out the word "gouge" and hiding behind it. (me falling OF my soap box) PS comanche, I did not spell check if you want to do the liberty for me...

If you are asking this question you probably are going to have problems. In training you might go out and do a defensive bfm sortie with 5 or so engagements, each where you pull 9 g's for like 20 sec followed by varying g levels for the rest of the fight. What you have to realize is that you will do all of that with your body and head twisted around looking behind you. It sucks for people with no back problems, which means you are only going to have to work that much harder. A great IFF IP I know is going to have to fly another airframe because of chronic back/neck problems. My advice is to seek advice from pilots you come into contact with (duh my bad i'm sure that's why you posted here...) and take what they say to heart, it's too serious of an issue to blow off thinking you can tough it out if all other signs say it will be a problem...

Beaver, HD: I could not have said it better. In the end we hopefully hear the full story and realize there was a lot more then having EPQ questions ahead of time that led to all this trouble. One point has been brought up that I think needs to be stressed a little more. EPQ's are 99% NOT about handling emergencies. They often ask completely queep questions, and the answer is often some obscure -1, 3-3 or chap. 8 number that has little to do with actual flying skills. Answering EPQ questions amounts to little more than study a "Nice to Know Numbers" handout (i.e. "gouge"). Big picture: Gouge/EPQ/N2KN do not help you become a smooth pilot, nail an ILS or grease a landing. They do not help you understand HOTAS, fly formation or bfm, find the perfect wire for your LADB deliveries, get a good snapshot or get to the merge behind that Fulcrum. The academic tests ARE a formailty. True evaluations happen in the cockpit. Non-rated don't even comment in this thread. I know that sounds like us rated guys being @$$es but it's not, you simply don't know what the training and the community are like. To the rest of you, who fail to see the big picture, get off your damn high horse. To quote a former IP of mine who got sh!t on by a toolbag CC for hosting a safe and well organized assignment night celebration..."We'll take this Air Force back one party at a time."

Two things about this situation piss me off. First, these studs are taking the fall for doing something that they, at best, got mixed signals on. I mean if an IP gave them the test, combined with the culture which is alive an well (awesome post noseartgal) is it really fair to screw their careers over it? I'm not going to say I saw anyone steal an EPQ, but I remember "stories" of the SELO getting up to take a leak and making sure some of the questions were visible. If everyone did not know at least those Q's on the test, their bros had failed them. If there was no foul play on the studs' parts, should they really get the boot? Second, what about the other studs who sold their bros out. I went through Sheppard so maybe I am a bit naive, but is it really that cutthroat at the other UPT bases. We were never looking for opportunities to backstab each other and I dont want that kind of dude in my formation...