daynightindicator

DT and OT haven't even tested it yet, let alone the WIC guys or ops units, so it's too early to speculate about CRM. We all know it will change CRM in the B-1 and the intent is to do that in a smart manner. It also doesn't replace all the tape gauges - the engine instrument stack will remain for the foreseeable future. The pilot MFDs will be a huge improvement and will make it much easier for new dudes to transition from T-38s and T-1s. The digital display upgrades will help the Bone better integrate with the rest of the CAF. I would not say it makes the Bone more "pilot centric", although pilots will have more SA and ability to make changes and inputs to the mission data. The pilots will still be limited by # and size of displays (two 6 x 8s per pilot and only one can edit mission data). WSOs will get 7 larger MFDs between the two stations. Also important to note that it is already funded and many of the kits have already been paid for - sequester may upset the mod schedule but shouldn't cancel the program, unless they come of out nowhere and retire the entire aircraft, which seems unlikely at present.

the point is moot since you can't enroll in the joint warfare concentration (the "ACSC" masters) until you're a Maj Select anyway. You also can't enroll in the OLMP if you already have a masters, unless they've changed the rules recently. if I were in your situation, I would just finish the AMU degree and then worry about ACSC in corr. once you've been selected for promotion. hell, by that point, it might not be mandatory anymore, knowing Gen. Welsh's stated opinions on the subject. for the record, on my board ('03) and in my community, masters was NOT a discriminator for promotion OR IDE selection. we had people with no AAD get picked up for school (they were shit-hot patch wearers) and dudes with an AAD not get promoted (good dudes too, which I didn't understand). as Boyd said, you can do something or you can be somebody. your choice. either choice will have consequences regarding career, family, and friends.

Yeah sorry Napoleon if I missed your point - just wanted to edumacate folks if they didn't know why Big Blue has such a ridiculous PT program. I honestly didn't know that was the point of it until I read an article. For the record I think it's a dumb way to try and save money and as usual, the implementation is terrible. Agreed on the FAC and lack of trust in general. Even now, with airmen monitoring the test, we've had issues with power-tripping NCOs not counting reps, etc, and failing people for no really good reason (people who can easily pass the test and are in good shape). I would love to see Welsh address the castration of the officer corps (led by senior officers) and cultivate a culture where CGOs can actually LEAD and are trusted with this crazy thing called responsibility.

You do realize that the point of the AF PT test/program is to ultimately lower Tricare costs, right? I'm not going to weigh in on whether that's the right focus for the program (not trying to derail the thread), but the reason we paid some scientician a bunch of money to develop such a ridiculous test, was to categorize someone's health risk and provide an incentive (i don't think that's really working) to improve their personal long-term preventative health. Supposedly, if the AF can move more people into the moderate or low risk category through their PT program, both short and long-term Tricare costs would be reduced. I hate the BS PT stuff as much as the next guy and I'm certainly no workout freak, but I think a lot of people don't really understand the point of it. It was never supposed to act as a "battlefield/combat readiness" test or anything like that. Not picking on you either - I also hope Welsh concentrates on more important issues. I heard that when he spoke at WEPTAC, he promised masters/PME guidance within 3-6 months and reiterated his stand that chasing box-checking masters and double-tapping PME is dumb.

They called KIO, No shit. Vul lasted 10 min.

the Lt Col called SF because the Maj refused to surrender his ID. IMHO the Lt Col could have handled the situation with much less drama. i don't expect to be corrected unprofessionally and in public by someone whom i outrank. it's called insubordination. would you yell across the room at your wing commander if was missing a reflective belt?

the Maj in question is a good friend of mine - he's not a douche but he also doesn't take bullshit from people that's not warranted. a TSgt yelling across the chow hall at an FGO is bullshit. the Major's argument with the Lt Col was not about sunglasses but rather the unprofessional "correction" by the TSgt. the situation escalated unnecessarily after that to the point where eventually SF was summoned and IDs were confiscated. the "punishment" was horseshit as well - the situation had absolutely nothing to do with flying or evaluator duties. the OG at the time was known for those kind of decisions unfortunately. the biggest problem is people don't mind their own f*cking business. if i have my sunglasses on my head, it's none of that TSgts god-damned business unless he works directly for me or is otherwise in my chain of command. this "correction" atmosphere needs to change. that being said, staying within regs is an easy way to avoid this crap and focus on the important stuff.

Maybe it's that way in your wing/command/MAJCOM, but I haven't seen that. The only beef I've seen with those awards (B-1 world) is that they're almost exclusively given to patches. Of course the argument can be made that your patches should be your best IPs anyway. Though I may have disagreed with the people who were selected over the years, I could never argue with their abilities or qualifications, even if I thought another dude was more deserving. The crap awards I've seen given out are for things like Flt/CC or CGO/FGO - I've seen those actually pre-determined to the point of forcing "opportunities" on an individual that they've selected to win the award for the sole reason of generating the bullets necessary to make it happen at the wing level. so as not to derail the thread, i'll offer my $.02 on the wrong-airfield deal... 100% fault with the crew and specifically the PIC/AC/ML. No excuse for this and it should be punished. I had a baseball coach when I was younger who told us that there were 2 different kinds of errors, mental and physical. Mental included throwing to the wrong base, not knowing the pitch count/outs, etc. Physical errors were missing a grounder, striking out, or dropping a fly ball. He told us he would never get angry at us for making physical mistakes but would pull us immediately if we made mental mistakes because they are 100% preventable. This was a mental mistake.

All of the above about ops focus and better flying are correct. There were reasons Ellsworth was chosen to support the strike during OOD (first-ever B-1 strike launched from CONUS, big deal for the community). I also think the new Reaper squadron will add to the combat focus of the base. To address a few other points... Crime is statistically higher in Rapid, but it's primarily seen in the Native American population, and for the most part it stays within that community. Lots of DUIs (very high among military as well), petty theft, domestic violence, some knife crimes, but not much in the way of gun crime. My ex-GF had a car broken into in front of my house (in a decent neighborhood) but it was unlocked and the items were returned within a few weeks when the genius criminal tried to pawn them to an undercover cop. BL - I was never, EVER concerned for my safety, even stumbling out of the bars drunk at 2:30. Single women options are severely limited in both locations. Abilene probably has the advantage here since you can leave after work on Friday and be in Austin or Dallas to troll that night. Easy to do major cities for the weekend whereas Rapid is a 6+ hour drive from Denver, making anything less than a 3-day weekend hard to pull off. Bones19 hit the nail on the cranium. If you're an FTU stud try and get to Ellsworth to soak up what may be the last of the recent deployment cycle and take advantage of the plethora of experienced instructors and weapons officers up there. All roads eventually lead to Dyess, so if you don't like it just change your ADP.

I'll honestly try to answer this without ranting. FWIW I'm currently in Abilene after spending ~5.69 years at Ellsworth (and ~1 year before that at Dyess). Personally, I vote for Rapid City all the way and twice on Sunday. The city is vibrant for a small town and is in the middle of a great little growth spurt. Although it's population is ~75000 (not counting the Lead/Deadwood/Sturgis peeps), which is smaller than Abilene, since it's the only "big" city for about 350 miles in any direction, it's got a lot going for it. There are about twice as many places to eat with a much better variety than in Abilene. It's got a good small local arts scene, all the shopping you need, and is in the middle of a downtown renovation project that's bringing some awesome small business growth (both shops and restaurants/bars). There is a semi-pro hockey team and the games are a blast. In South Dakota, you can shoot in just about any state park, and CCWs are $10 with a mil ID (reciprocity in something like 17 states). The folks are mostly conservative but with a libertarian streak, so state government stays out of your business for the most part. Schools are about average. I don't have kids but my friends who do usually don't complain much. Winters are harsh, although the last few have been fairly light. Expect a good solid 2 week period in late January or February where temps don't get above 10 degrees. It's not unbearable and you don't need anything crazy like engine block heaters. You will get sick of the wind and learn the true meaning of wind chill. You mentioned the outdoors activities so I won't harp on that. Tons to do outside. Lots of tourist spots to hit up - Rushmore, Crazy Horse, the Bandlands, and Sturgis to name a few. Deadwood is a blast. There is skiing available at Terry Peak about an hour or so west of town. The local airport has ~5 different carriers. You will still pay regional airline prices, but you have decent options for flights. Since the only two B-1 squadrons are ops squadrons, the base seems to be more focused than Dyess. For the last 6+ years, Ellsworth has had a squadron deployed for 12 out of every 18 months. MX rates are generally better than Dyess. There is currently a big airspace initiative that would give Ellsworth the biggest training airspace in the CONUS (about 2x bigger than UTTR/NTTR). If that goes through, flying will get even better. The backyard MOA (Powder River) is better than at Dyess (Lancer), and allows for low level training. In short, I had a blast at Ellsworth and would go back in a heartbeat. As for Dyess, I'll just tell you the reasons why I don't like it and you can decide if they apply to you or not. Abilene is so anti-progress it boggles my mind. The city council actively works to prevent new businesses, especially restaurants and bars, in some misguided attempt to prevent the city from becoming like "the metroplex" (which is an insane notion). The downtown, and I use that term loosely, is usually a ghost town after business hours. There are two decent restaurants downtown, but you'll spend ~25 minutes driving there from the good areas of town where everyone lives. Bars must close by midnight on weekdays and 1AM on weekends. I realize this isn't a huge concern for a lot of dudes but it says something about the local population and their values. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a church - some VERY conservative. Again, might not be a negative for some. It's Texas - west Texas at that, and you can't easily escape it. American Airlines is the ONLY carrier at the local airport and routinely cancels flights for weather or lack of aircraft availability. The flying at Dyess is sporadic and frustrating. MX rates are consistently low. The scattered nature of the units on base (schoolhouse, weapons school, test, and one ops squadron) seem to prevent the wing from having a real focus. The local airspace sucks - to get good training accomplished requires scheduling at least two or three different ranges. On the plus side, there is a zoo. You are also 2.5 hours from Ft Worth, 3 hours from Dallas, and 3.5-4 from San Antonio and Austin. I should state for the record that I hate the state of Texas with the burning passion of a million suns. Hope this helps.

agreed, but if you can, you should get paid and treated the same regardless of your junk

back in the fight... http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123308570 good luck and fly safely gents. i know for a fact the people of western south dakota appreciate your efforts and are in your debt.

C-130 MAFFS fleet stood down UFN... http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/02/us/south-dakota-air-tanker-crash/index.html?hpt=hp_t1 thoughts with the fallen and their families...

2 "AFN" is another gem

Culture, but since every culture itself has so many different factors that contribute to its nature, I would say that economic disenfranchisement and lack of education (which of course play into each other as well) would be the most blatant contributors to the violent extremism. Religion simply becomes the vehicle by which to justify and perpetuate the violence. As we all know there are completely wacko religious zealots right here in the USA. My personal opinion as to why they aren't violent is not their religion, but the fact that it's hard to be angry enough to blow up your own cranium when you have two cars and a big screen LED TV. When your station in life doesn't suck dog balls, it's hard to justify the anger and desperation that drives the violent extremism. Just my .02

Well, we all got what we wanted. I'm cautiously optomistic. Seriously though, good news.

video of Delaney controlling one of the strikes. Viper w/GBU-54. http://militarytimes.com/blogs/flightlines/2012/05/02/close-air-support-in-do-ab/ edit - maybe someone can embed the video - my feeble attempt failed

http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2012/05/air-force-tacp-silver-star-afghanistan-battle-050512/ Fvcking amazing. Final score - 270 Taliban dead, 0 US/Coalition casualties. My favorite lines from the article... and It's easy to get cynical with the gayness that mother blue perpetuates everyday, but to think there are men like this on the ground who we have the privelage of supporting puts it in perspective. 'Merica.

shit I know this guy. FWIW he's a good dude and was himself non-vol'd. he has very strong (and meticulously developed) opinions and knows more about world and military history than most people I've ever met. he's a brilliant dude that I think we need at a strategic level. that being said he's way off target on this one. my guess is he's trying to get more recognition for the enlisted side of the house - i know he cares alot about the issues that some of them have been forced to deal with, especially at Canon. regardless, he missed the mark.

CFACC can do it (can also waive crew duty day req's) we figured that one out last year

Some other things that I'm sure were considered was availability of FOLs that could support the re-arm and re-launch portion. This mission was actually two sorties, not a round-trip. That's cool that you guys do 4-ship stuff, I didn't know that. We have strong proponents of 4-ship in our community (I'm not one of them) but it's not something we actively train to or qualify FLs for. I think the escort vul was a major limfac for this as well. Slower would have made things worse. Not sure who made the call (above my paygrade) but AFGSC had a major role in the execution of the mission.

assumptions pretty much correct. however, the whole unrefueled range argument is kind of irrelevant. 1) tankers were (relatively) easy to allocate to the mission. 2) mission execution and divert options drive the range issue, not fuel capacity. This came down primarily to who could service the sheer number of targets required and in what timeframe. Package considerations also played a role - if you use more than 2 bombers you probably need to start upping the number of escorts/vuls required. Not sure about the BUFF but Bones don't usually fly 4-ships. Airspeed is important as well - these were the deepest strikes in the entire campaign, so escort vuls were limited and more striker speed = gooder. I f*cked up earlier in the DMPI/DPI thing. Bottom line in the OOD mission was that a certain number of targets needed striking and AFGSC decided the Bone was the right platform for that specific mission. Absolutely not. I hope sequestration does not happen.

It was a great game (Flyers fan here) but doesn't get me too excited for the rest of the series/playoffs. As usual the weakness will be goaltending. I would not be surprised if Bobrovsky is in net by the end of the series. Briere played a tremendous game and has scored more playoff goals since 2010 than any other player in hockey (44 I think). Exciting hockey though, I agree.

from the website... from what i remember about what we were briefed those numbers look very accurate. whether they are a "good" way to measure the effectiveness of an aircraft is up for debate.

depends on the conflict, doesn't it? and that picture is just cruel. you know where we are now.