contraildash

....well they've already had the 1/2 homosexual F-15E crew.

Still looking forward to the 'chance' in two years. Random question: is all that nose art just done with chalk? impressive if so

I hate this kind of news and then the immediate scramble to call/email/facebook buddies flying at whatever base the crew is from. Godspeed gents

Doesn't that go without saying? :)

f'n knucklehead

I missed the one about the all female F-16 crew...

Not really a WTF, but a HOLY SHIT WTF THAT WAS AWESOME. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2l26qaXt1o

Jesus. Godspeed to the crew. The article below said they were doing "takeoff performance tests" Article with picture Based on the picture, looks like they were on rwy 21. Comparing that to Google Earth it seems they departed somewhere around 6,000 ft down the runway, traveled around 3,000 feet over dirt, the intersection txwys B & E, and an access road. Also missed the last few jets parked along 30/12. The jet came to rest about 1800 feet off the side of the runway. Edited for link

pics here: Kampfflugzeug abgestürzt

Geezus that's f'n horrible. Hope no one got hurt. I have some family near there and their FB status hinted at some nasty WX there.

Both.

I have some family based at Misawa. The wife was on vacation in Hawaii when this went down, got evacuated there to higher ground for a few hours. She's back in the States now, no word on her house (I don't think they had tsunami issues that far north, but they live close to the beach) nor when she'll be allowed back. I wonder how this will affect the deployed people from there.

I get a kick out of the folks bitching about certain locals in the Gulf. A better joke: Kosovo still qualifies for CZTE and HDP.

I think the predominance of T-38 studs going to the U-28 had more to do with the situation starting back in the '09 classes. Maybe 1 fighter per class, and the whole "universally assignable" (heavies) thing didn't really come to fruition until the end '09, beginning of '10 classes. Simply put, the need for fighter pilots slowed drastically but the need in AFSOC was growing at the same time. Easy solution. Just my thought.

What did I just witness???

Fail at funny, but I'd still hit it.

I see those in the strangest places....as in...how'd they get into this field?

Easy solution for her, teach younger kids. They'll still have a few years until discovering the joys of porn.

I still firmly believe in the point one of my college professors kept driving home: "the only way to solve problems in the Arab world is for one side to win completely. There is no such thing as compromise within the tribal mentality" He grew up in Lebanon and fought in their civil war back in the late 70's / early 80's. I think the huge lack of education and the tribal mentality are the biggest hurdles to building any sort of national identity. Everyone is out for their own, not the greater good of a nation. Until that changes, we are just wasting time, money, and blood. I'm going in the near future. I'm sure I'll come back even more pessimistic about the whole place than I am now.

If you do a start/restart improperly on a turbine/jet you most certainly can exceed ops limits and trash the engine. Read the SIB for more.

I found out about this shooting just as I went into crew rest for a flight to Kosovo. It hit pretty close to home. Not knowing the circumstances around the shooting, I thought I'd be getting a call stating our mission was delayed or postponed. We still went, although we had a few armed Germans come along last minute to provide security for our passenger. We didn't really know what to expect down in Kosovo. By now we had gotten word that this was most likely an isolated incident, that said we still figured we'd just be hanging out with security watching our jet for the day. In reality, it was an entirely different experience. Every Kosovar we met expressed sympathy and condolences for what happened. There was also a lot of anger towards the guy that did it. (supposedly his family was from Kosovo, but he has been living here in Germany for a while). The biggest surprise was the gratitude they declared for the United States. "If it wasn't for you and your allies, we wouldn't be Kosovo". We ended up changing into civi's and went downtown for lunch. Bill Clinton was everywhere. Bill Clinton street, huge Bill Clinton posters, even a big statue of him. Apparently they love the guy there. So instead of being stuck on the airport, I enjoyed a pretty damn good lunch and got to meet some great folks down there. Returning home I was welcomed with some very saddening news. One of the airmen killed was a guy I played hockey with. While I didn't know him all that great, the last practice I was at with him was a memorable one. He took a puck just above the eye and was bleeding all over. When asked if he was ok he replied: "it's superficial, there's no crying in hockey" Godspeed Zachary. This morning at Ramstein, a few thousand people lined the streets of base to honor the funeral procession as the two airmen started their final journey home. It was very sobering and at the same time amazing to see that many people show up.

I think my point wasn't clear. Pubs...yes. Plates/charts...no. Also, What about all the damn TERPS write-ins, ect for STARs,approaches, SIDs, ect. Yeah Jepps are nice, but any time I use them (or host nation) I'm completely changing the mins/visibility/ect on them. How do you do that on an iPad? So I still think this is a good idea for our PUBS (I have my pubs on my iPhone). But as far as a practical use for what I just talked about above...far from it.

I love how I am required to carry all my pubs on a USB memory stick that is absolutely useless to me in the A/C. Most guys have already put our pubs on smart phones or iPads. I can see the benefit to having plates/charts on these things, but to me it'd only be useful if I can have all the volumes preloaded. They'd have to allow us access to the network with them to update/download/ect. I don't see that happening yet. The way of the future...sure. Now? Not quite yet.

Dude in my SQ here has a wife who's a PT and works on one of the Army bases. So it's possible.