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There is not a doubt in my mind that AMC will know exactly what to do with a damn stealth aircraft flinging MALDS and jamming shit.

Fund was set up by Slam. It's legit.

Well pcola sure top-roped the shit out of that. WayUp, at the risk of piling-on, I'll just throw out there that your arguments lack validity. I'm not going to line-by-line them, you lost me at "carrier pigeon." You're projecting the GH's limitations onto the U-2, and you don't really understand the potential strengths of either.

Hey WayUp, while I appreciate the effort to keep your bro in line (though you're too late to keep his post from getting kinetically posted in the U-2 bar), there are some other issues here: - You want the CAF to wait until the GH is ready to get the party started? What if there's icing? Or weather? Or Satcom jamming? Or an IADS? Or a credible cyber threat? The GH won't be operating for very long in those cases. The CAF fights with or without you because they shouldn't need a handful of "special" jets (including the U-2) to make the mission happen. The job of both our airframes is to enhance their fight (in different ways) without introducing chaff. - While on one hand you believe the CAF needs you, you also don't care if you get shot down. You want to use GHs as SA-XX sponges, go ahead, but at least remove the expensive parts first; the U-2 would be glad to have more spare ASIP bits for test and training. Joking aside, there's a bigger problem here. GH operators really don't seem to care as much about their jets as their manned counterparts, and that's a problem for more than just them. I've watched them on multiple occasions not really GAF about their own buffoonery and equipment malfunctions even when they physically threaten the safety of others. As for why, my personal opinion is that millions of years of human evolution makes people just not care that much when they're not physically co-located with a jet or operation. - "...multiple times in the last year where the RQ-4 was more reliable and capable than the U-2..." I'll go ahead and call bullshit if you're referring to operational missions; if you're referring to how we did with a cobbed together jet in 16-1 I'll acknowledge that our stateside Ops-MX-DGS-CFSR team underperformed. 16-3 was pretty good, though, and I know of at least a couple pretty important Ex events this year where you guys were completely unable due to WX or equipment. - "...it's not a secret that we can replace the U-2 in what it does." Make no mistake, the GH will never be able to replicate what the U-2 can do. The U-2 has twice the thrust and electricity, which means it can haul more powerful sensors (particularly the radar kind) higher and faster that a GH ever will. And it'll do it in kinetically and electromagnetically contested airspace with a co-located pilot and a kickass defensive system. The GH's big programmatic mistake is that it's still trying to be a U-2 replacement. It will always fall short of that due to the above reasons, so the program relies on NG's political donations and book-cooking to get continued funding. Where it could really shine, and make itself much more useful than it currently is, is enhancing and expanding the BACN role. A bunch of networked GHs flying around outside of threat rings relaying IP-data is where the money could really be at. And as SAM sponges.

Adam, just replace the damn pictures with current ones.

They redirect their hate to the booms.

At the risk of making you grouchier, is it the Air Force's fault you're not flying anymore?

We've built so many military and civilian bureaucratic hoops that no one can navigate them.

Yeah but sometimes they try to screw the human that's working with them.

That's dumb. Everyone else will think so too, so hopefully the Air Force will get shamed into dumping it like they did the Distinguished Warfare Medal. BTW, that medal actually makes sense to me, as long as it's placed below all combat medals. If a UAV crew does something shit-hot above and beyond, they should get a medal for it, and since none of the other ones are applicable, why not.

Devil (and by extension, Huggy) are right. The picture is a composite of two images she took. In the photo description she says "I had to run to grab the right lens, so this is a bit of layering." In other words, the two pictures were taken from almost the same angle with the same lighting, but the U-2s were much farther away (and higher) than they appear. From the composite they look like they're south of the bridge at about 200' and ready to fly right over the Marina. Sorry dudes, I wanted to believe. We'll have to wait for the other pics.

AZ Wildcat: was Huggy's guess of 1800' MSL correct or were you guys lower?

Is that dude straight to the -46? I'm not sure what sense that makes considering the timeline. Guess he'll be in sims for a while.

This lot seems about as inspirational as the presidential candidates.

As if the SECAF or CSAF have any say in acquisitions. Congress controls that, or rather the contractors who fund them do. A Billion dollars to restart the F-22 line is nothing. That's 0.17% of our yearly defense spending; 0.067% of the F-35 program. With the ludicrous amounts of money we throw around, never say never.

What's the popular opinion on Everhart, the new AMC CC? I met him when he was the 1-star TACC CC in 2012 and he struck me as 1.) seeing the big picture and 2.) not a politician. He seemed to understand and agree with all of the gripes coming from our group of GRACC captains, which impressed us, at least. Obviously he's impressing others if he gained a star per year. I never thought he'd make it. Edit: I'm not in AMC anymore, which is why I ask. It seems like he'd be a great change from the Johns-era legacies.

Maybe he means you can have up to 7 teeth open on the bottom to show some brain.

An interesting decision. Soon the GH will have 11X, 18X, and EX doing the same job. Why not just commission the best E's (who probably already have a BA) and make them 18X's?

This speaks volumes. The rationale for retiring the A-10 is so it can be replaced by the F-35, yet the AF won't have enough F-35s anytime soon for all the potentially jobless Hog drivers. Seems like we need about 300 of them first.

His bio says he's a behavioral scientist/personnelist with a psychology major. It's an experiment and McGuire dudes are the lab rats! http://www.jointbasemdl.af.mil/library/biographies/bio.asp?id=18577

It is a lose-lose, but could be a win-win for him and the Guard-Reserves. They get the experience and he gets the retirement eventually without the 365 threat.

Dude, stop giving people bad gouge. Just because you hate flying AF jets doesn't mean we all do. My current assignment feels like the best job in the world. I've got a great family and a nice house in the mountains and the flying is amazing. Would I rather be a 767 bus driver for 50% more pay? No, not at this point in my life. I love this job. I'm not in AMC anymore so maybe that's it. But seriously, in the grand scheme of things, the Air Force can be pretty awesome. The real world sucks.

I think the general consensus is that we need the F-35 no doubt, but that the $2B/year to keep flying A-10s is a great value considering our most likely COAs. And nobody believes that "saving money" by divesting airframes will actually reduce the overall budget.

A companion trainer would work wonders in the heavy world, allowing them to save billions while increasing their airmanship and hand-flying skills. Heavies cost between $15-50k per hour to fly not including fuel while a smaller trainer runs on peanuts. That said, there are many heavy pilots who would kill themselves in the T-38. I say that coming from the community; some are great and some are absolutely heinous. So it would have to be some other airplane (without an autopilot available, because some would lean on it and negate the whole purpose of a CTP).

Dayyyum