busdriver

Something like an 800nm combat range?

An actual RQS? 5 years. I'm old balls, I pre-date the Pedro years.

I've been out of the shiny penny club for awhile now. I only went to staff because I was literally the only person in the Air Force who could fill that billet, at that time. I escaped and I work well over 40 hours a week, and the chance of me commanding a flying squadron is essentially zero. I put in the time I do in the hope that I can make even a small difference to nudge my little corner of the AF in a better direction. Maybe I'm just too stupid to know better, maybe staff made me appreciate the small victories, I don't know. I do know that perspectives change with time and experience, and I'll get to re-qual "soon," life is good.

That others may live. Here's a toast.

Which was my, apparently very poorly made, point. I get the desire/logic of a light attack aircraft for AvFID, but the talk about putting them all over the place to be close to US SOF units seems completely at odds to the way the AvFID mission is currently organized. Not to mention the outright discussion of AFSOC being the right MAJCOM for the aircraft, irrespective of the mission.

Your name fits

I'm way out of the loop, but my impression is there isn't a shortage of requests for the AF to come play. More like fending off the wastes of time is the problem. In any event, you're right about ranges. Proximity to a good backyard range and airspace is far more important than proximity to any Army unit.

You guys realize there's nothing inherently SOF about a plane right?

AGR-20 utility for the AF has nothing to do with Hellfire. If it can slow the KMU-572 expenditure rate, it's a win.

I don't have the actual numbers handy or anything, but all up round cost is similar to a GBU-38. It's a super handy weapon, but it's not a low cost solution.

APKWS isn't low cost. It just a different production line. We're dropping PGMs as fast as they can be made.

Dude, it's a notional requirements list. The idea is to put something inexpensive in the air and use lessons learned to inform any actual buy that goes through. If the experiment is expensive, it's a dead end.

I was referring to taking money planned to by X and diverting half to put towards Y. Repeat that decision when Z is right around the corner. It's not really that simple, but it never is.

Clark, we've been diverting acquisition money from now capabilities to put towards the new hotness that's just around the corner for years. The result is we don't have enough capacity in the now column.

If this thing ends up taking off, it'll be due to providing additional cockpit absorbtion capacity. It would make sense to put some 12F butts in seats. Need those bodies for staff one day.

I'll add: Be honest with yourself about how much you expect to shoot, and how much time you want to spend loading. The turret press was an honest 200 rounds an hour, the 550 is more like 400. A progressive with a case feeder and a bullet feeder doubles that again. Full retard automated 1050 gets you over 1k. If you have an inkling that you might like competitive shooting (USPSA, IDPA, 3Gun, doesn't matter) go try it before you buy a press. If you get hooked, you will out-grow the turret very quickly.

I would skip the single stage press unless you're only interested in reloading for bolt guns. If you shoot in any volume at all, it's a non-starter. My first press was a Lyman turret(which is really a glorified single stage), which I loaded on until it had paid for itself in savings and promptly moved on to a progressive, Dillon 550 in my case. The Dillon's are a bit more expensive (the 550 is around $450 vice $390 for a Hornady LnL AP) given the feature set and it's arguable whether they're actually worth the premium at that price point. Once you bump up to 650 and 1050 land, the DIllons don't really have any competition. Something else to consider is how much you shoot will probably increase once the cost per round goes down unless you're strictly budgeting. The turret press made more sense before I doubled my shooting volume. I loaded somewhere around 20k rounds on the 550 before upgrading again. I still have it though, and use it for all calibers other than 9mm.

Just buy one of the modern JHPs for carry and call it a day. Gold-Dot, HST, Critical Defense/Duty, etc. You'll need to try it in your pistol to make sure it feeds well. If chambering a round causes any bullet setback, limited the number of times you do that. You shouldn't need to buy much, practice with cheaper ammo. If you're loading yourself, have a velocity goal in mind and pick a powder that gets you that in the upper half of the published load data.

Glock stock sights are basically worthless as anything other than dovetail protectors, the triggers are awful, and they insist on putting stupid finger grooves and oddly shaped humps in the wrong places. But a barely trained monkey can completely rebuild one in 15 minutes with less than $50 worth of parts. Glock has made its name with inexpensive guns that work well and are easy/cheap to maintain. The combo is a wet dream for a large organization, maintaining a shit load of guns, shot by non pistol shooters.

Urban vs Rural. It certainly isn't new.

People need to lay off the identity politics. You are not who you voted for, you are not a canned platform of unrelated "issues," you are not your f'ing party.

I guess they could be shot in the parking lot or the local mall food court?.... The correct answer for anyone that cares is, if you have an inkling that competing would be fun just go try whatever is closest. There will be plenty of not so good shooters where ever you go. Just tell them you're a newb and be safe. If you're in the Langley area, I'll roll with you.

More important than all the tactical ninja stuff is understanding the law of self defense.

Comparing a puppy mill course to a check the box course isn't a particularly useful exercise. Nor is expecting the level of dedication of personal time of a competitive shooter. Not having a clear, and realistic expectation of the course's output is part of the problem with the current M9 program.

AF M9 qual is the puppy mill of firearms training. I'd bet the cop shop could get volunteers from on base to get checked out and teach a course of some sort. And it would be better than the M9 qual course.