StoleIt

Based on that quote, I really thought there were going to be racism accusations that rocked the organized professional world of cornholing. Not sure if I'm disappointed or relieved...

Same. Well, at least, I've never seen a fighter even crush the ice shield on the -135. I can't fathom how an F-15 could cause that. My best guess would be the boom operator applied full up elevation and violently flew it up into the ass of the jet. Can't wait to read the AIB/SIB from this.

"The mission was executed inside military test airspace..." So I'm guessing the flights had to be out of Edwards.

E-9 Stories? Manas in January: I deployed with no winter outer gear. I'd load up on thermals with just my flight suit. Best thing I eventually got was a summer weight green nomex jacket that they had to mail out to me. Shockingly, never get E-9'd for that...but I would normally layer up my PTs since it was warmer. I had the recently outdated grey PT sweatshirt that said "Air Force" instead of the new one with the AF logo. I wasn't in the chow hall for more than 60 seconds before I got told I couldn't wear that. Yeap, young LT me wasn't having any of that. Surprised I never got talked to later for basically telling the dude to go ef himself since it was -15*F outside and I wasn't taking off the only warm freaking thing I had on the deployment.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ex-marine-corps-harrier-pilot-who-worked-in-china-has-been-arrested I guess this guy didn't get the memo that he was supposed to be a double-agent before (allegedly) helping the Chinese...

That is some seriously impressive reaction time from impact to ejection. I wonder if he saw the missile launch and at least had that 1-2 seconds of warning...otherwise I'm just going to assume it's procedure in the SU-25 to have one hand on the ejection handle at all times.

Surprised this didn't come up earlier. It is 100% a James Bond villain plot. Boring 90's 007 movie plot reference: Here Hot 90's 007 Nuclear Physicist (Denise Richards) reference: Here

No OPSEC: everywhere we go generally makes the news so kinda hard to be sneaky, regardless. TDY rates vary drastically based on aircraft availability (down for maintenance or upgrades), your crew position, type of aircraft, the lunar calendar, your astrological sign, and world/domestic politics. Right now, the C-32 is busy doing lots of work with the midterms. The C-40 has some overlap with midterms and also has been busy ever since Russia vs Ukraine and China vs the world has been heating up. I can't speak as much toward the C-37 since I don't have a lot of overlap with their squadron, but I imagine they are busy, too. November will be very busy for everyone. Missions generally stay on frag. But I've also, literally, flown around to the other end of the world and extended for several days when the DV needed to be somewhere else ASAPly. Good news, maintenance reliability is way up with these jets compared to gray tail (especially compared to FRED). They are still airplanes and do occasionally have issues, but the C-40/737 is a beast of a jet. 757 doesn't have too many issues that I can think of recently, either. But it does seem like the C-37A is starting to have more and more issues pop up, but that's just a hunch, might also be the brand new C-37B's showing them up. If you are the FNG you will be most at risk for a deployment. That doesn't mean there will be one waiting for you, though. We pretty much own a dedicated position over at the AMD so depending on your (lack of) luck/timing you could end up going to Shaw for 4-6 months. As you work your way up the crew position pyramid you will find yourself (generally) more and more busy. Just like the rest of the Air Force, there are never enough IPs to go around. Honestly, being a copilot here is the best gig ever: no stress with mission planning, put the gear up, see the world, and very little office work stress (lots of FGO's as SELO's, schedulers, and training officers doing jobs they already did as LTs). At the end of the day, you're an Uber driver...but at least it's an Uber Black.

Looks like lead gets nicked on the second one.

And that Tweet likely would have cost him $2,500 if he had a PayPal account.

My future prediction: Assuming Biden wins the primaries and runs for a second term (yes, big assumption...but I think also a realistic COA right now) I highly doubt Biden will show up for any debates. There will be some magical reason for him to not attend, or rather, debates will get labeled whatever new buzz word that will provide the needed opportunity for the DNC to skip all debates.

Just curious, was it a VBIED? Almost seems like it could have been the truck. But hard to tell.

A rumored excerpt from Ramius's FITREP report on Mancuso as told by some CIA analyst who wrote a book with terrible conclusions: "Ah, the Captain seems to think you're some kind of... cowboy."

Boeing has entered the chat:

Not to be confused with the times when it's done on purpose...

🍺 to Officer Vakoff. But I think skibum, and other inquiring minds, wanted someone to out the General Officer that was chiefing people for their patches.

There are also UPT, white jet, Green Door, etc assignments available that can get you into a different jet. Don't suck and you can apply to the 89th. Win a lottery ticket (and also don't suck) and you can fly the C-37's out of Ramstein or Hickam or the C-40 out of Scott (if they don't close).

I was always told that Y was a second buy of the X tanker to replace the -135 and Z was a larger format tanker for the -10 replacement. Not saying they didn't change the definition sometime in the last 20 years or maybe my info was wrong. AMC also thought leasing 767s from Boeing was a good idea the first time round too. Has anyone looked at how we are going to get, maintain, and resupply millions of pounds of jet fuel out of an austere location? Yes, dispersing our assets is a great idea for survivability...but each sortie for a KC-135/KC-390 is going to be 200K+ in gas. You're talking millions of pounds of fuel somehow being refilled in a dirt strip...and I don't think an oil pipeline is going to be easily hidden nor is an oiler ship offload facility. This isn't going to be a FARP for a couple helicopters that we can push off the back of a C-130 and keep the Army happy for a week. This COA is talking serious amounts of fuel. I'd just be curious what the plan for that would be or is this a disposable FOB that we will fly 2-3 sorties out of and then bug out back to a hardened facility (that probably would be a smoking hole).

Interesting. Also, originally the KC-Z was supposed to be the KC-10 (large) replacement while the KC-X & Y were supposed to be the KC-135 replacement. So I wonder if Big Blue gave up on an actual -10 replacement and is just going to settle on 3x -46's for every 1x -10 on a coronet from now on.

So how much fuel can it carry?

Granted it's been a hot minute since I've been a tanker toad...but I'd imagine a low observable tanker is a much more survivable way to get gas closer to the fight than going the route of a jet powered H/M/KC-130. But with how much AMC is jerking itself off on the "ACE" acronym I guess it's hard to discount any idea, no matter how devoid of common sense, it appears.

UPS had a normal forecast so it is curious why the disparity. It could always be a negotiating tactic by management against their work groups.

I'd recommend avoiding small time financial managers in Wichita...but if you want to short that advice then you need to invest with them! 🤣