nsplayr

You old retired fucks are just haters, no worries 😎 I landed one plane downrange, took off another one, drove home & now I tucked in my kids and am watching NBA on my couch. If I’m lucky the airplane I took off will be minus a couple of hellfires when I go back in and land it tomorrow 🇺🇸 All title 10 orders, no deployments, no PCSing, part of a great squadron. Life is good. Hit me up if any of you poor bastards on active duty want to rush the unit, we happily accept bottles of whiskey and cases of beer every drill weekend from pilots looking to be a part of one of the best deals out there.

Indeed. Working weekends and shift work is the downside. Still, our unit (and I think most) work 16 out of every 28 days, which is noticeably less than Mon-Fri. Plus on later shifts there are about 10 dudes in the building and I’m often in charge, so it’s a more chill type of work day. I can complain because I’m aircrew and it’s our god-given right, but not too much, it’s a good deal. Coming up on 10 years homesteading in a place I want to live and I’ll (inshallah) still get an active duty retirement out of it, staying at the FGO level in a flying squadron, no staff, etc. There are way worse ways to spend the back half of your career than as a Major/Lt Col line dawg IP occasionally getting to sling hate at our enemies all while sleeping in your own bed every night.

Yea they're jammin' more than Bob Marley out there in a somewhat-successful attempt to defeat Ukrainian drones and other GPS-aided munitions. Thanks a lot Vlad!

I mean yea, that would be awesome, but it's never gonna happen, at least during the remainder of my career. There was some excitement about that possibility when light attack was seemingly going to happen, but that program was about 15 years too late and obv it didn't happen. The AF really put the whole community into a box canyon with the 18X program. That should have ended YEARS ago and everyone should have been sent to UPT. Copy the limited capacity of UPT as we have it constructed today. But the tradeoff is that if/when the MQ-9 goes away, unless there's a similar platform in terms of how we operate it (doubtful IMHO), all those rated officers are going to be hung out to dry. ~2,000+ people currently trained in AF flying, WX/pubs/class A international and CONUS + tons of weapons & systems experience. The only way out of the canyon is an 18X to 11X transition course, but that for some reason has gotten zero traction. It won't affect me, but all my my young LTs who are 18Xers are going to have to figure things out when the mighty Reaper heads off to the boneyard. A companion trainer of any kind would go a long way to giving RPA pilots the airsense you gain from actually being in the aircraft, but again, zero traction. To piggyback on a comment I made in another thread, give me the gov AMEX and I'll buy about 50x DA-62s, give RPA pilots the FAA instrument rating equivalency they deserve, and I'm betting 96.9% of them can be made in to competent manned pilots ready to be assigned elsewhere in Big Blue when the time comes. The biggest problem is many of them might just punch and go to the airlines if they had a manned mil companion aircraft to build time on 😅 And maybe while you're at it you can consider what's left of the RPA pilot job for warrant officers, seems like a perfect fit.

It says directly in the article that was linked: Bellingham International Airport in Bellingham, Washington George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas Syracuse Hancock International Airport in Syracuse, New York Cozumel International Airport in Mexico

It's not rocket science to look out at the civ aviation world, find a decent multi aircraft that you can buy at scale, and just buy it. Then send all your non-fighter, non-helo pilot studs to train with it. Wham bam, done. I or anyone with half a brain could do it in a couple of weeks if Uncle Sam will loan me the gov AMEX Centurion w/ no spending limit. Too bad it "doesn't work that way" for...reasons.

Guard MQ-9. And you don't even have to give up the rank! We have, right now, 5x Lt Cols who just fly the line full-time on T10 orders and have for years. Shit, none of them are even IPs! It's wild. Best kept secret I've seen in my career so far. No leadership/management required, yet get paid (almost) the same as the AGR SQ/CCs and DOs who are busting their asses every day and twice on drill weekend. Not a bad gig if you can get it.

🫡 you too bud

I have given lengthy, insanely lengthy, explanations and justifications for my views on numerous political and non political topics over literally 15+ years posting here. If this is what you take away, it’s more proof that it was all a massive waste of time! Thank you for confirming my belief that this is all a bad habit that we’d all be better off doing less of. The truth is my beliefs have changed over time just like anyone else, but also that my values remain relatively stable and those values lead me to overwhelmingly support liberal, Democratic policies rather than ones proposed by the conservatives, libertarians, socialists, etc. Believe it or not that’s a perfectly reasonable POV to have, just like it’s perfectly reasonable to be 69% consistently conservative GOP, libertarian, or grouchy contrarian and “politically homeless” like most of y’all here are. Also believe it or not all of this type of conversation is much more effectively had in person. It works so much better when talking to my friends of all political stripes in person, over a late night shift or a beer. As you pointed out, too many people are miserable assholes online even more so than in real life. I try not to be too often, but hey, sometimes it’s hard (sts). My resolution, although it hasn’t always been kept, is to stop typing political stuff here and to take those thoughts to places where they’re more productively heard and where I can better appreciate other peoples points of view - in person. Or just to STFU and talk about normal stuff like cars, airplanes, kids, sports, etc. Politics is a new national pastime 24/7/364 and honestly the whole country is worse off for it. Back to step 1 on my BO.net AA journey, “I am powerless over my desire to talk politics with you miserable bastards here, and that waste of time and effort has become unmanageable.” 🤣

Good thing you’re not a mil officer then! You seem to genuinely not like America very much. No mention that Russians have no rights under Putin other than what he allows. The brazen murders around the globe. Invading neighboring countries, etc. 🇺🇸 I for one find is to be the good guys the vast majority of the time despite our faults and I have hope for an even better future. I plan to work toward that rather than wallow in our faults and apologize for enemies. To each his own I guess!

Hold on, let me check JuannaBlowMe.net for the latest “unfiltered truth data” from the battlefield… Or maybe there’s another 4 hour podcast with 3 blurry guys from Cyprus that has some intel I’m not seeing at work? F off man, this is not a debate worth having with you Chang. I hope you can pay for your next set of knee pads in rubles once your current set wears out.

Look, just because I’m a terrible addict doesn’t mean I can’t tell you that crack is bad. You are 96.9% likely not convincing anyone of anything who didn’t already agree with you. You’re also, IMHO, being both a weird contrarian AND a useful idiot for clear Russian IO propaganda, but that’s just my opinion. I admittedly haven’t read your entire library and carefully parsed the facts from the BS. And I don’t plan to. There is absolutely room for debate on how, when, why and how much we should support Ukraine’s continued fight against the Russian invasion vs other possible policies we might choose instead. But not if the opening argument for that proposed policy change is based on what you heard on the PutinTV.net podcast, that’s just not gonna pass muster in this forum of what should be relatively informed mil personnel, nor should it. Love you too though 😘

My man, I say this with more experience than 69% of the people here...you abso-fucking-lutely are wasting your time here. I would know!

Saying RT is the same as privately-owned US news outlets working with the government at times is laughable. Especially from a fellow military officer. This is exactly the point of view Russia would like you to have! So well done there. Reminds me of the video below. While Trump is not technically wrong from a very cynical POV, the worldview is wrong IMHO in that in puts the U.S. government on the same morally equivalent ground as the Russian government, and again, as a mil officer I sincerely hope you don’t actually believe that!

Funny enough that’s a BO.net specialty! 🤣