pbar

www.strategypage.com is an awesome website as is www.china-defense.com (forums have tons of chinese military photos). For photos for briefings, militaryphotos.net is great as you can find pictures of any hardware there. As for what's going on in North Korea, I read a couple of English language Korean newspaper websites (http://joongangdaily.joins.com/, http://english.chosun.com/, http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/index.asp). I get a better grasp of pol-mil issues in nK than I do by reading our official stuff. Seriously. Half the stuff in those newspapers is leaked from the ROK National Intel Service...

Shack. Being the squadron EWO as a captain basically got me an IDE slot (to my huge surprise!) and hence my promotion to O-5. On a related note, it seems to me the successful guys I know always tried to leave whatever job/unit/office they were in a better place than they found it, and always tried to operate on the principle of making all of the rest of the squadron bubbas' lives easier by improving stuff, never walking by a problem, etc. Example of this might be like somebody said, become the squadron expert on a system, especially a new one, and do the homework/legwork for the rest of the bros so they can become experts without having to dig all of the nuggets out of the TOs. Worked for me but I've seen many a promotion-focused careerist fall flat on his/her face come promotion time.

I don't know how true it is but there was a rumor that the genesis of the 2018 bomber project was the Navy going to Congress a few years ago and saying that since the AF seems to want to ditch the long-range strike mission by delaying a new bomber, that the AF should go away and all the money the AF was spending on fighters should go to the Navy. The Navy was saying that the AF's raison d'etre'is long-range strike and AF fighters duplicates a Navy mission but the Navy doesn't have to ask for basing rights. The rumor says that very soon after this the AF started up the 2018 bomber project. Given the lack of seriousness with the AF is taking the 2018 bomber thing, there might be some truth to this rumor...

B-1 WSOs are dual-qualified right out of the schoolhouse. However, the DSO training is not that extensive and most guys tend to focus on the OSO seat especially with all of the stuff lately. Not much use for a full-up DSO over Afghanistan right now and the DSO ends up mostly acting as a secondary OSO. I always told my students that if they wanted to stand out from the crowd to become a good DSO as there aren't many good DSOs in the Bone community. Worked for me... PBAR

When he was at the Kun, I heard that O'Grady took the cable due to a brake failure, and then while the SOF was on the line with the OG, O'Grady proceeds to taxi with no brakes and ends up going off the taxiway. There was also a picture of him wearing a female cheerleader outfit floating around. This was circa 1996 when I was at the Kun and shortly after his shootdown. The Juvats seemed pretty embarrassed that he had been a Juvat.

From www.af.mil talking about next year's AF budget "Air mobility and personnel recovery requirements are supported in the budget with $400 million for the development of the KC-X tanker, $1.4 billion for M/H/C-130Js and $90 million to acquire HH-60M helicopters. " Anyone know what the helo buy is about? Isn't the HH-60M the Army medical evac version of the UH-60M? PBAR

Thought this was funny. 'Course it could apply to any number of Air Force organizations too...

It will be interesting to see what Congress does. Afterall, they haven't shown any fiscal restraint lately and getting re-elected, er, I mean jobs for their districts certainly outweigh any national security or national debt issues.

I know two RC-135 navs who came over to the B-1 about 7 years ago and the way they did was 1) get released by their RC-135 AFPC bubba 2) constantly talked to the B-1 AFPC bubba about taking over the EW school slot of someone who washed out of nav school. In both cases, they slid into the EW school slot of some Lt who washed out late in the program at Pensacola. I've seen one Buff EW cross over too but since those guys I personally don't know of nav who transfered into the B-1. The FTU pipeline for B-1 WSOs was backed up for a long time (not sure about current status) and so I don't think it would be possible to try the aforementioned trick now. Still, it might be worth talking to the bomber AFPC bubbas.

Ticks me off that USAA now charges a 1% overseas transaction fee whereas some other major banks do not. Kind of an odd business decision given how much of their customer base is stationed overseas. Guess I need to get around to canceling my USAA card and get a different one.

I second Dmeg's advice. However, I'd stay away from Korean. It's the hardest language for an English speaker to learn and the reward versus the effort required isn't worth it unless you happen to get married to a Korean. I did DLI Korean and just finished a year at the ROKAF ACSC and still can't speak it worth a damn. It's the toughest thing I've ever tried to learn. PBAR

I believe this is the whole point of Gitmo. How else do you deter people who not only aren't afraid of death, but welcome it? This is the only end-state that they fear and that has the power to cause them to re-evaluate their chosen path...

When I was an intel officer, I at least received the ole' performance feedback session via AF Form 724 twice yearly. After I became a WSO, I received hardly any mentoring. When I was in the flying squadron, I was the only Flight CC who actually used a 724 and did regular performance feedbacks. That should be the absolute minimum with regard to mentoring. Mentoring is so much more than an AF form but it's a good start. I was surprised how many pilots and WSOs I met, even field-graders, who had never seen a 724 and didn't know what it was. It's been my experience if you want any mentoring, you have to seek it out yourself.

Grandfather- WW2 flight instructor (AT-9s), ferry pilot Dad- operating room tech in AF Uncle- infantry, Vietnam (left two days for Tet Offensive) Uncle-retired MH-53M Pave Low pilot Me-prior enlisted Army Reserve, AF intel officer then B-1 WSO bunch more cousins and uncles AF enlisted A couple of my Korean AF classmates asked me today why so many Americans have multiple generations of family in the military. While a Korean's male relatives have all been drafted as enlisted, from what I understand it's exceedingly rare for to have 2-3 generations of officers or NCOs (if you enlist in Korea, you start as an E-6 but if you get drafted you come in as an E-1 and leave as an E-5) in the same family. I said, unlike their military, ours is a good place to serve and family members often encourage the next generation to join. As an aside, my grandfather told me a cool story about how one day after he transferred to being a B-24 ferry pilot, a P-38 landed at the base he was at and he said if could have found the pilot, he would have taken it up for a spin. I asked him if they could do that sort of then back then, and he said, "Easily." Imagine being a B-52, etc. pilot and just hopping into a transient F-16 and taking it for some pattern work spur of the moment...

While we're on the subject of C-130s, I have a question about the differences between the normal C-130 and the stretched C-130. As I'm a bomber type I'm not schooled up on air mobility stuff as much as I should be, but if the H/J-30 stretched models can carry more stuff, why buy the normal version? What are the disadvantages or advantages of each? I notice we bought both C-130Js and C-130J-30s while the ROKAF here uses C-130Hs and C-130H-30s. Why buy both? The only thing I found with the search function is Slacker saying the assault landing speeds are different and not to bang the tail skid. I also looked through 3-3.C-130J but it just mentioned some formation differences but that was it. Can any 130 types here elaborate and educate a bomber puke? Thanks. PBAR

An update...she ran in the 2008 USMC marathon too. http://www.runtri.com/2008/09/marine-corps...results_02.html do a ctrl-F search and you can see her name. PBAR

My uncle, a retired Pave Low driver, told me that MAC (now AMC) spent most of the money for the HH-60D on the C-17 and so we ended up with the G model.

Well, our ratio of infrastructure (i.e. bases, ramp space, etc.) to forces (people, planes, etc) will be even more out of whack now. What they are gonna fill all that ramp space with? Maybe UAV/RC-12/AT-6Bs? Congress definitely won't let us do another BRAC round.

Damn, I've been wearing blues everyday for the last year and was so looking forward to burning them after graduation and not wearing them again. Anyways, maybe I'm paranoid but this whole business is a little suspicious. Could be it be that all of the dry cleaning places around AF bases throughout the country have been bitching to their local congressman about the massive drop in business due to the switchover from BDUs to ABUs? Then said congressmen bitch to the AFCoS and voila!- Blues on Monday... Fine, we have to wear blues, but at least can they change the damned blue shirt? At least give us a wash-and-wear version like the squids have. And make it grey or dark blue while they're at it... Didn't we use to have a long sleeve dark blue shirt? As aside, to those in Korea, don't eat Korean ramyon noodles in your blues, the broth will not launder out of the blue shirt...

I worked for Doc's son about 10 years ago at the Kun when his son was an intel patch there. After reading all of these stories, I feel sorry for him to have a father like this. He was actually a pretty good dude and one of the better intel patches I've run across. Of course, that was ten years ago and I have no idea what's he's like now. Last I heard he was an intel squadron CC somewhere. PBAR

Seems like Guam is cursed lately. B-1 rolls into a fire truck, a B-2 crashes, and now a B-52...

This is definitely why I learned Korean...

Sorry...I meant this tongue-in-cheek. In addition to the 2018 bomber or instead of? Just curious. PBAR

The B-1R was a Boeing proposal a few years ago that came out when the AF was considering a regional bomber. We were considering the F/B-22 at the same along with a C-130 JASSM truck IIRC but that all went away when the AF pressed ahead with the 2018 bomber. The B-1 F-119 re-engining was over $4 billion IIRC and the AF doesn't have that kind of cash laying around. I don't think it would be feasible to equip bombers with AMRAAMs simply due to the amount of training it would take, much to the detriment of our other training requirements and it would only ever be a secondary mission. Plus there would be the problem of every bomber crew ignoring their primary mission for the chance to score the first bomber AMRAAM kill... PBAR

A master's might not be required for making major officially and it might be masked but it's used for a lot of things that go into the major's promotion process. I've seen it used as a discriminator for picking who goes to SOS in residence, who gets a DP vice P for major, going to WS, CGO of the quarter/year, etc. If I were a young LT, I'd get a real master's while I was still a LT as a Plan B (I doubt an ACSC Master's is gonna help with the post-AF job search) and then if you get another along the way from the AF , than so be it. Just my two cents. PBAR