Blue

Nothing of substance to add. Except: When it comes to the military, I hate it when words like "enterprise," "portfolio," and the like are used. It's the fvcking military, not a consulting group.

McCain is 80 years old, and was recently reelected for his 6th term in the Senate. He'll be 86 the next time he's up for reelection. He's been Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee since 2015. I've got a lot of respect for the man, and what he's done over the years. I agree with most of his political views. However, he's 80 years old. I've known some 80-year olds over the years. Some were sharp, some less so. Some carry themselves like a normal adult, some are bitter, cantankerous, difficult people. The vast majority have some level of diminished mental capacity due to their age. When you see someone like McCain going after something like military BAH, you have to wonder. Is he doing it because he's weighed options, put critical thought behind the matter, and has some far-reaching vision for how this policy change will make the country better? Or is he doing it because he's a cantankerous old man who's brain is slowly turning into mush?

It's a car. Take a best guess about what you think is needed. If you PCS somewhere and it's not the right vehicle, trade it in and get something else.

Would look better in dark grey.

“Morale has always been an issue at NSA, with roughly 20 percent of the workforce doing 80 percent of the actual work,” a former official told CyberScoop on the condition of anonymity. “NSA is a place where people retire in place. At some point watching this behavior even for motivated people becomes highly demotivating.” Describes most government entities I've worked with......

Since when does "single = not getting laid?"

How much of "school" is actually helpful and relevant, and how much is simply a matter of sending folks to government run courses so that the government run courses have a reason to exist (i.e. the self-licking ice cream cone model)?

Recent Popular Mechanics article about the A-10 Depot line at Hill AFB being "brought back," since the Air Force has decided they were going to hang onto the Hogs a little longer. Didn't realize they had done anything to shut down the depot line in the first place. Sneaky move, Air Force. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a23537/air-force-fires-up-depot-line-keep-a-10s-flying-indefinitely/ "They have re-geared up, we've turned on the depot line, we're building it back up in capacity and supply chain," AFMC chief Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski recently told Aviation Week. "Our command, anyway, is approaching this as another airplane that we are sustaining indefinitely." On a related note, someone pointed out the AMARC Experience site, which I've never seen before. An unofficial site documenting all things in the Boneyard, to include tracking what aircraft have recently arrived and what aircraft have recently left. There were a whole lot of A-10s (most of which originally arrived in the early 90s) that were listed under "Departures." Sixteen of them in Feb 2016 alone. When you click on the tail number, most of them have a destination of "To HVF West, Tucson AZ. Scrapped." https://www.amarcexperience.com/ui/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=244&Itemid=316 Have we really scrapped that many Hogs?

Tactical patients?

I thought that being able to go supersonic was one of the original requirements for the T-X?

I think Boeing is going to win, if only to keep their St Louis plant open.

All of the talk of increasing 11F production, just to make sure that 11F staff billets are filled, reminded me of this blog post from a couple years ago. I feel like the whole damn defense apparatus of the country is somewhere between "Bloat" and full-on "Failure/Implosion." https://www.oftwominds.com/blogdec10/lifecycle-bureaucracy12-10.html "Tip of the spear" military forces and readiness are left twisting in the wind while the thousands of senior officers in the Pentagon and Services jostle for promotions. At the point of implosion, there are more captains, colonels and generals than actual war-fighters. (There are plenty of barbers, cooks, waiters and assistants, though, to serve the senior officers.) Benefits for the survivors are left basically untouched while new hires are fired to preserve the budget for those with seniority. At some point, the mission of the bureaucracy is completely lost, and the citizens' patience with institutional incompetence and self-aggrandizement finally runs out.

I'm sure there are glaring limitations in those systems. Part of that is they're old -- CMWS/ATIRCM was fielded in the late 90's. There has been significant amount of work in the ECM realm since things like ATIRCM and CMWS were originally fielded. However, you never see anything about the A-10 taking advantage of any of these advances. Same thing here. DoD has poured a metric ton of cash and effort into developing Hostile Fire Indication (HFI), which is designed to give some level of protection against AAA and other unguided munitions. Google it, and you'll get hits from all of the big military contractors. Lots of talk of applications for USMC and Army helos and slow movers, no talk of applications for the A-10.

The survivability question is valid, but at the same time, has the Air Force done anything recently to give the A-10 better countermeasures? The other services have put a lot of effort into faster/better/cheaper ECM systems for low and slow aircraft (programs like JATAS and CIRCM). The A-10 (and the Air Force) always seem to be absent from these discussions.

Article published about seven years ago.......

This. The title you're looking for is "Veteran," or maybe "Former Air Force Captain." Also, you're running for political office in a district that's right down the road from Tinker AFB, an area where there are a whole bunch of military veterans, retirees, and civil servants. I gotta think that all of these potential voters are going to have the same kind of questions and critiques that are in this thread.

This.

A Facebook link..... https://www.facebook.com/adam.pugh.56 Also,

Went from ABM to ENJJPT, then washed out maybe? On a related note, is that some sort of goofy photoshop job? Why does the background look like huge blades of grass? Where is he sitting?

I'd think that, given the choice, a politician would pull for a manned unit vs. an RPA unit, just due to the number of jobs. I assume if you go from say, F-16's to Predators, you lose a hell of a lot of jobs (less maintainers, life support, etc).

Honestly, I think that's the only way it would ever happen. If some Governor or Congressman with enough clout wanted a manned mission back, then I could see it happening. I think the likelihood of it occurring are very low.

Big companies should have all of their personnel policies documented somewhere, including the policies on how to handle folks that are in the ANG. It would probably benefit you to go look on the HR website, poke around, and find what the regs are. If you're somewhere where they have a lot of folks in the Guard/Reserve (ie a defense contractor), then it should be no issue. If you're someplace where HR doesn't encounter this a lot, it would pay to get smart on their policies. Edit to add: To put it another way, Big HR is typically dumb. You have some level of protection from USERRA. Know HR's regs, know what USERRA says, and make sure no one screws you.

Had never heard of Snow Aviation. Google brought up some interesting info, one of many links below. So the guy basically wanted to sell C-130 upgrades as an alternative to buying the J, but seems like after ten+ years, they couldn't make it happen. Primarily due to the fact they were good engineers and lousy business people. https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/print-edition/2011/12/09/snow-aviation-owner-pledges-to-rise.html

Eh, I tend to agree with nsplayr. Big Blue will continue to burn hours on the 4th gen fighters, with no thought of trying to conserve them. They'll SLEP the hell out of them, and then point to the "rising maintenance costs" as all the more reason to buy the latest 5th gen wonder toy.

Also, I think when folks have done this before, they've rented the mansion, as opposed to buying it. Always heard it was kinda common amongst the CGO's at the Space and Missile Center at Los Angeles AFB.