nsplayr

Sure it's valid, but if you're worried about the government raiding the 401K fund you probably should also be worried about them raiding the pot of money where your retirement check comes from if/when you put in your 20 years. All of those payments relies on the "full faith and credit" of Uncle Sugar so if you're really worried about the government not making good on it's commitments then having the current retirement versus a 401K type-system doesn't really make any difference. And honestly depending on the rules in the 401K system for withdrawing money from the account, at a certain age you could just pull out all the money (including gov matches) and roll it into a private account that the government can't touch, you can't do that with the current system where you rely on them to cut you that check each and every month until the day you die. There is no lump sum you can ever access because you're benefits are not finite if you happen to live for a really long time. Anyways, all this is to say I think while it's a valid concern maybe (especially considering the recent debt ceiling shenanigans) it's not any more valid than under the current system because at the end of the say the Man guarantees the money either way and he's only as good at his word in either system.

Which is what happens when you blow through the first deadline on the debt ceiling and ask the Tressury Department to use "creative accounting." We would have defaulted already if they hadnt used some of the money in those accounts. As soon as that silliness is over the system will pay it back. On topic - hobbit, that's some smart stuff. My changes to what is being proposed are to both grandfather in any active member including guard/reserve if they so choose and to give new recruits the choice of the current system or then new one. That way haven't changed the rules mid-game on anyone more than you have to and you can ops test the new system on a smaller group of folks who choose rather than diving in head first and hoping for the best. If the goal is to make a better system that's the way to do it; if all you want to do is save money than by all means leap before you look Cutting budgets has consequences and messing with the mil retirement system in the wrong ways is potentially one of the big risks when you slash and burn just to save a billion here or there.

Although I have some doubts of rather or not this would pass in Congress, I really don't know how far the House will go these days to cut spending. The Senate will be more of a struggle to get anything like this changed. I'm also skeptical if President Obama will touch anything like this with a 10 foot pole, but maybe a second term would allow a President to consider something like this. No first termer would be wise to do so. As one of the 83% of troops who will likely not stay 20 years, this sounds phenomenal. Obviously we shouldn't trust the AFCrimes article for the details, but if there were a detailed proposal I'd be very interested to read it. Right now I'm looking at punching at about 8 years with exactly $0 in my pocket other than my own un-matched TSP contributions that I made before switching to a Roth IRA. Any system that turns out better than that for me would be great. I don't really care about the cost savings which are being touted, but if we can come up with a system that is more fair and rewards member contributions and gives further bonuses for undermanned or high-demand career fields versus just staying alive and breathing until 20 years I say we're moving in the right direction. Those planning to stay to the 20 years and get the very generous current retirement system will obviously not be as excited...

This guy sounds like the kind of douche who patrols the Dragon DFAC and hands out business cards so we can "feel free to contact him later." That E-9 is something else... Agreed with rainman, if you're doing enough flying and fighting and keep the operation lean there won't be time to worry about this kind of BS. Might happen if this whole thing in Afghanistan starts to wind down in earnest. The folks who will be there till the end can focus on actually working instead of conducting a social experiment on how many ridiculous rules you can create and enforce...

Do the regs state the color of boot laces? On my phone so can't look up. Might be a nice protest that starting nov 1 you lace up the puke greenies with black laces and pour one out for my nice black boots now lost to the clerks. If it's legal led the regs I may press to test one day... If you have a creative LPA they could get some squadron morale shirts that are desert tan just on the small area that shows up top in a bag and the rest of the shirt is your old morale shirt color. Or you could institute shirtless Fridays in protest, that's been done before too.

Bring a lot of lube and porn. The best activity at BAF other than killing the enemy is beating off mercissily or maybe trying to sleep as long as possible. Also a nice spot to go vintage furniture shopping; the very b-huts you may live in is at least 10 years old and if you know where to look some poor asshole from days gone by has already fabricated a desk or shelves or something that is better than what you could make. The most expensive marginal pizza hut in the world on the east side of the flight line is also legend, back from the grave after the mccrystal ban. Enjoy your time there and check out ilovebagram.com which is funny and somewhat true as long as you ignore people complaining about too much war noise.

...not sure a big airplane or a remotely-piloted one is the right fit for this mission with today's technology. Big is definitely not required and remote is probably the future of many things but it'll take a while to overcome the limitations of the systems for effective use in CAS beyond popping off a hellfire or dropping a LGB. There are plenty of advantages of having a low cost and small MX footprint, especially if you parlay that into more platforms for the money vs the all your eggs in one basket approach.

GL but unless things have changed OSI is very difficult to get right from the commissioning source. If you can pull off an OSI slot and then turn it down for pilot there will be a bunch of people who wanna slap you in the face. Hope you get whatcha want man.

Hummm...didn't know that. I've seen dudes wear that combo for 2 years in a high-risk-of-getting-chiefed environment downrange with no repercussions.

Yea dude, that is one sexy cow. I'd motorboat the sh*t out of those tits. Oh wait...you probably meant the girl...right...she's hot too...

Copy all and agree. I certainly have no experience in actually flying light attack so your opinions are very valuable even if there's room for argument one way or the other.

Lava Desert of Skeiðarársandur. Found Here. Viva the black shirt!

You said "please" as in, "please SNAP, you're full of sh*t." Based on the limits of the forum I'm unable to further expand on my reasoning. That's what I thought anyways. Whatever, I'll just drop it. I guess I don't expect you to change your mind, I'm just putting out an alternate point of view to the "one pilot maximum" mindset. You may know what some of my experiences are, but if you think it's all still rush rush throw something together you really are out of the loop. Absolutely. Hell, it's possible to integrate systems to a point where zero people can manage what once took more than one. The trend is to less personnel and more automation and that's generally worked out well for us and I'm not diluted into thinking all of our jobs can't be turned into robots one day. However, is full automation desired in all mission sets? No. Likewise, is a single-seat desired in all mission sets? I say no to that as well.

Greasy, Good post, but I think what you're talking about isn't what the program's goals are. Find, fix, finish in environments that would call for that doesn't require flares, an armored cockpit, or a gun. Since the program called for these things, I took it to be not the SOF dream aircraft, but the "ACC cheap replacement for fighters so we're not burning $69,000 per hour flying vipers to do NTISR in a no-threat airspace" platform. It accomplishes the dual goals of increasing manned cockpits and iron on the ramp as well as frees up high-end fighter platforms to actually focus on high-end missions. What you're describing would be awesome though.

Our squadron has heritage patches that we wear instead of the squadron patch on Fridays. Haven't gotten anything but positive comments even from higher leadership. Hopefully the morale patch rule will continue to be selectively enforced at the same rate as the "hat pocket must be zipped" rule. I've never zipped that damn thing closed probably ever.

Sarcasm detector set too high, false positive; recommend reset. I was being serious, you seem to know what you're talking about so I asked a legitimate question. Does the A model somehow integrate all the systems up front where the B model splits some things off to the backseat guy or does the B model add additional systems? It's the crux of the idea of 1- vs. 2-seat for this mission; does the 1-seat have all the toys the 2 seat does? If so, and the pilot can handle it, then you're correct that the second guy isn't needed. I don't know the super T or AT-6 enough to know this, maybe you do. This is what I'm talking about...you claim not to be an expert but then whip out very strong opinions based on facts I don't have. Convince me why a 2nd pilot or CSO should not be aboard beyond "it's an SA drain." You might be right and we're headed down the wrong path on the program, but I think the fact that we're only considering 2-seat options is telling. Aren't we exclusively looking at the A-29B rather than the apparently also available A-29A? Sooo...you say you've been out of the game for a couple of years and thus may not be familiar with the latest and greatest sh*t you can strap to a jet, you want to have this discussion on an open forum, but want me to be more specific than to say that there's enough magic to helmetfire any human being? No thanks, that's my position and you can disagree. I'm aware of what can replace a nav or EWO (and rightly should on many platforms) and I'm also very well aware of what kind of stuff is a huge attention drain and that pilots are glad to have someone else handle while they actually fly the jet and think about the big picture. No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that if you really think the mission can be done with one person, design the plane to be single-seat and put more gas/bombs/systems on board. The benefits of taking up the occasional GFC/JTAC/foreign national backseater are outweighed by the extra gas and thus loiter time you could give the ground guys on a daily basis; it's not a good trade off for occasional use only IMHO. On the other hand, if there's a second seat, systems back there that a person can use, and you don't have the option of just taking more gas if you left him behind, then why would you leave him on the ground? That's what I'm saying. If hoss and rainman are correct that you only need 1 person for this mission, then the program is f*cked up in a serious way from the start since we're buying airplanes that appear to carry 2. Somehow I think the program managers don't agree with their point of view based on their decision to pursue a 2-seat platform. Other than the unintentionally homo-sounding backend magic, yes, I totally agree and you've written more clearly than I have done in about 10 posts combined. There are missions where a pred is not a good asset for what you're trying to accomplish. It's not a knock on pred guys, it's the limitations that the system and platforms impose on them that we haven't found a way to solve yet. Why did we build all those MC-12s if we could have just used RPAs the whole time? I have no doubt that RPAs will replace most of us eventually, but for now there are manned assets doing this sh*t for a reason.

What I found beyond Wikipedia... Ah ha, so if you're gonna replace the second seat you should probably add something like extra fuel, not just have an freakin' empty seat. Since you're extremely knowledgeable on this it seems, do the A models have all the same toys as the B models? The same interface/avionics? I'll still maintain that if you add the level of modern magic toys that is possible, you're better off with 2 brains to run all that crap. Thanks for the history edumacation on previous light attack platforms.

It was my understanding that the Super T was purpose-built for combat and has always had 2 seats. To me, if there are two seats and a job for a second person to do, take 2 people. If you want 1 person to fly the plane, design it with 1 seat so you can have more gas/bombs/toys. I'm not arguing that 2 people are always better than 1, I'm arguing here that if you build for 2 people, take 2 people. Anecdotal, for the mission and the proposed capes/equipment, I also believe more than 1 person helps but that's a secondary argument and I don't suspect we'll agree on.

Agreed, this is my opinion and it's based on my background. I'm not a single-seat dude and clearly you and Rainman have some highly valid experiences coming from the single-seat A-10 background. I hope none of us expects to change a lot of minds, but clearly this is up for debate. Well if a single second dude in the back is a hindrance than the gunship must be a total sh*t show! ::sarcasm:: I know what you mean but clearly the -15E makes it work in a CAS environment with 2 dudes and the gunship makes it work with like 14. And although you and rainman deftly stomped on my challenge to provide examples of 2-seat platforms launching with just 1 dude, there is plenty of precedent for 2-seat being workable as well so your opinion that a second dude is a hindrance doesn't jive to me. A second dude in an A-10 might be a hindrance but history shows that both 1- and 2-seat platforms can succeed at CAS. Your opinions that a trunk monkey messes up your mojo is based on your background and to be expected but that doesn't really make it more valid. I assure you this is within my lane, let's at least take each other at face value here. So back in reality versus the philosophical 1- vs. 2-seat mentality argument, can we agree that either the AT-6 or Super-T should fly with a mission-oriented backseater or sometimes a GFC/JTAC/etc. since they were designed to do so?

I'm not sure what you guys' ABUs are made out of, but the fabric is so damn thick that when the sleeves are rolled my arms barely squeeze through and I look like I'm swole all day. Unless you have the biceps of a 12 year old girl it's just not comfortable or worth it...maybe there's a summer-weight version I'm missing out on? I'm all about fighting shoes with their own shoe rules, but the day we start adding to the bullsh*t just to f*ck our buddy is the day we're truly fit for managership (note I didn't say leadership). The big wig for uniform BS is an officer and in all likelihood a pilot (although not the current one) and maybe someday in the distant past he was just like us. But at some point he drank too much kool aid, became the good idea fairy, and bam, now we have more stupid sh*t in the new AFI than in the last version. Be careful about playing the shoe game too well. Also, here is the process for trying to reverse some of the dumbness:

Exactly. If we're talking "light attack" only, then by all means a single-seat aircraft designed for attack works great. See A-10 for reference. IMHO, we don't need smaller A-10s with this program, if you want more A-10s then get more A-10s. BUT, if you want to track man-sized targets through complex environments for hours and hours, lase for other platforms or for yourself without needing a wingman, constantly push and share data with other platforms, talk on 6-9 radios, and also employ both guns and AGM/LGB/etc., it's very beneficial to have a second person. Is it necessary as rainman asks, perhaps not, I'm sure the laws of physics will still allow the airplane to take off with only 1 pink body up front. But is there a better way to operate than the minimum absolutely necessary? When you add on a sh*t ton of other ISR-related tasks besides flying and releasing weapons, maybe there's a reason all these platforms were designed for 2 seats. If 1 seat could do that mission just as effectively, why were there no single-seat proposals?

I read the actual article CH posted and saw that SNC is behind the Super-T. Armed with that knowledge I really hope they get the contract. A-freaking-mazing maintenance and R&D support and they have a history of taking a small, foreign-built turboprops and doing great things with them. Many old-heads from multiple previous platforms say SNC provides the hands-down best MX they've ever worked with in their careers and that us young guys don't know how nice it is not to have to fight with MX constantly. We'll agree to disagree. Not the proper forum to discuss this fully. Not saying that, but there is merit to the argument that the mission the LAS would do is best supported by a two-seat platform. Giving credence to this argument is the fact that all the entrants in the program were two-seat platforms. I'm not making this up; ask hiflyer, I have no direct experience and therefore am not the most credible advocate for this position. So you envision a situation where you would purposefully not take an in-house backseater who was purpose-trained for the platform? On a regular mission, not a mission where you're taking up the GFC or an ALO or something like that? Do tell why you would ever do that other than the one-off need for absolute maximum gas. How many times does the mudhen fly a combat mission without the WSO? Maybe they do regularly and I'm suffering from low SA, please inform me if there is precedent for two-seat platforms flying with just 1 pilot on a regular basis in combat. Sincerely, this isn't a pissing contest between 1- and 2-seaters, I'm not a fighter dude and have seen both varieties operate effectively; I just don't get why you would forgo a backseater (WSO, 2nd pilot, whatever) when the platform is designed from the ground up to have one on board...

What was the first thing you looked at in the picture? Kinda reminded me of this...

At least they got it right...cool platform at sh*tty bases. Despite Salina being in the middle of nowhere Kansas, sure sounds better than Canon! AT-6, USA, USA!

Does that guy on the left have 2 really-deformed dicks?