nsplayr

Didn't we have authorization for them like a year ago and then the money got turned off last minute? I know that was one of Deacon's pet projects (figures...). Either way, we're probably f-ed now that the Army is eating up all the capacity to produce the things and since we just got those spiffy ABU two-pieces.

Not a pilot, but general rule is ask for what you want. If they say no or you drop something else then so be it, but always make your preferences known to your leadership and on your dream sheet. Seems like since the RJ isn't necessarily a hugely sought after pilot assignment you might have a decent shot all things being equal. GL.

Now that's a goddamn oxymoron.

13:36 is the cutoff if you're under 30, so honestly you were probably closer to failing than you thought. However, if you normally run a 10 and change outside that's gonna be a problem for people that aren't that fast under optimal conditions. Seriously, you should have a foot to stand on if you can get sympathetic leadership to talk to the person who "approved" that run course to. Obviously winter conditions make testing outdoors tough, but seriously, if it was a legit indoor track, that makes sense even though you would still lose time (example: Randolph AFB has a 1/8 mile indoor track). But using a basketball court or whatever you guys were forced to use with 69 turns is not a fair assessment and should not be an "approved course" as is required by the regs. Unfortunately for you the regs don't delve into what an approved course must consist of, but whoever does that approving must have guidance of some kind somewhere...

Took the PFT this morning and the whole "have a buddy count for you" seemed to work well. The people from the FAC were too overwhelmed to be pushup Nazis and I think most people are ready and willing to not be dicks now that they see what the alternative is. On the other hand, a chick from the FAC did fail to count about 8 of my situps for not going all the way down, which is unusual from what I've seen in the past; did 60 good ones anyways just a a little FU to the powers that be. Hopefully the bad idea of the FAC will be allowed to fail and we can go back to testing on our own. If we're so worried about integrity issues there are other ways around that, but the only thing the FAC is good for in my opinion is employing 6-9 individuals who would probably be jobless otherwise. Newest wrinkle at my unit is that based on the new guidance, deployment waivers are no longer required (i.e. a member's PFT expires while they are deployed). If that happens, you are exempt while you're gone and for 42 days once you get back. Seemed like a way to get rid of paperwork, good thought. Except now how in the hell is the FAC (which is the only place data can be entered into the AFFMS system) supposed to know when my guys are gone vs. if a dude just goes non-current because he's lazy/forgetful. Approved solution is to send a memo when members deploy versus a CC-signed waiver. Great, trade one dumb process for another. Progress at it's finest...

I'm not a pilot, but cooperate to graduate man, can't go wrong with that. Doing well should not trump being a good bro (within the bounds of what's legal and right), and frankly doing well is more difficult if you're not. Also, probably should move this to the "road to wings" section. Take heed of those who have asked dumber questions here and gotten their nuts hammered. Technique only, make your second post in about 6 months after you've read all you can handle and opened your ears for a little while or at least stick to the road to wings section as needed. Good luck to you.

Dude, this is bull sh*t! I'm from North Stafford and lived in that neighborhood for 7 years. Hope they catch the guy and let Dick Cheney have a little fun with water...

Just read this on Danger Room & thought about posting. I think the expectations the company sold got a little blown out of proportions. At 2 fps how the F were you gonna track man-sized targets in an urban environment? Either way, the idea is potentially good but maybe the technology isn't quite there yet. Wonder how we can possibly digest all that video even if it does work...

Yup, the way I'm looking at it these changes are the first indication that the FAC concept is failing. You need a ton of people at one time to give tests to groups as large as 30 (since there's only 3x tests per day, 4 days a week at my base), but they only need to be there like 4 hours a day and there are large breaks inbetween tests. That means either paying workers to sit around and do nothing, or using common sense and tapping the vast amount of "free" labor available on base in the form of other airmen. We're taking bets on how soon we UFPMs can start testing folks again due to FAC undermanning...can't come soon enough because I could personally test every member of my unit (while I'm home) and alleviate 100% of the work the FAC is currently doing and it would add maybe 4-5 hours to my normal work week, not counting the time I'd save not having to schedule people online and/or constantly call the FAC to schedule walk-ins...

Holy thread-bump batman...

Exactly. That's why I like that in my community we're called CSOs. I think based on the divergence in the 12XX career field CSO will be the thing that makes the most sense going forward when you have dudes transferring across platforms with vastly different mission sets. But really, whatever communities have historically used kinda makes sense too because it promotes a little heritage that the AF is sorely lacking...the dudes that get wrapped around the pole (sts) over the fact that they're a "WSO" or that think the new training is gonna make them more awesome are the ones who need the attitude check.

I hope we can all agree that the PFT standards are a joke...really, a waist measurement? Nothing to measure power, only muscular and aerobic endurance? Anyways, if women want to play in the big leagues of ground combat there should be one standard that's a true measure of what's needed in combat. For the other 99.5% of women who want to be in the military but not in the infantry, they can have whatever standards they want.

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. One of the greatest sci-fi/military books of all time and I just got around to reading it recently. Really interesting critique of the Vietnam War when it was written and it's also very applicable to today. Cool ideas about time dilation, weirdly appropriate look at changes in society based on some recent events in the news.

Yea, seen that before but the way our unit deploys it would be very difficult to get that. We fall just short, and therefore will be prime targets for a short tour after doing 2 on, 3 off for 6-9 years in a row. We're gonna have dudes gone an average of 220 in 18 months but you'd pretty much have to extend twice in order to get to 300, so from our perspective the rules are BS. It works out to being gone 40% of the time, year after year. You have to be gone either 54% of the time in an 18 month period or 49% of the time over a 36 month period to get a non-consecutive short tour; we'd all agree that's a pretty stout amount of time away from the fam. Whereas the dude who does 1 consecutive short tour in, say a 5 year period, is gone 10% of the time but is sitting pretty in the eyes of big blue. YMMV depending on how you go TDY/deploy. I'm sure for that dude that does one 185 day tour in 10 years, or even every 5 years, the rules are great. IMHO, when the short tour list come up and there's a bill to pay, it should be total days deployed instead of all these ridiculous rules.

So you're saying WSO makes sense not because you employ kinetic weapons, but because you are qual'd to operate the entire "weapons system" in terms of 12XX duties? Wouldn't an AWACS nav fall under the same definition then since he's the only nav on board? Or a slick herk nav? Or a U-28 CSO? I always figured you were a WSO if you employed actual explody-type weapons, but that buff radar navs were still called navs because that position existed before the term WSO existed. I guess gunship dudes are kind of in the same boat. Anyways, not that one is better or even fundamentally different than the other, but interesting semantics I guess and it's good to know how other communities view the position.

I'd caveat that to say I have no idea; not a bomber dude. The point was that there really isn't a reason other than heritage that Buff navs/radar navs aren't called WSOs since their mission clearly involves the direct employment of weapons. Any reason a bone guy would tend to think differently?

Yea, definitely. If they can't train with the boys they can't fight with the boys, simple as that. If then can then have at it.

Not as far as I know...but I'm not army/marines so it's possible that they weren't allowed in the initial push into Marja or circumstances like that. I think that was one point in the commission's report; since there aren't really front lines anymore and since commanders are currently skirting the rules by "attaching" rather than "assigning" women to units with dangerous missions it kinda made the rules seem unnecessary. There are women on PRTs and other units that are out there knees deep in the Afghanistan/Iraq populations. For my part I think if a woman can perform a job adequately then she should be allowed to do it. If that involves lifting heavy things, rucking for miles, dragging a full-grown man to safety, then so be it. I don't think PFT scores are exactly indicative of combat performance or tasks, however, I do think it's BS that their run times are so much slower. A little slower at the top end, maybe, but honestly the max passing run time for women is 16:22 vs 13:32 for men @ <30 years old...really? If you can't run a mile and a half in less than 16 minutes you should be thrown out immediately; I can probably hop on one foot that fast.

Originally saw this here. Here's the text from a related story that was easier to copy and paste: The website to the commission and its actual report isn't loading correctly, but the link to it is here.

Yea, it's one of those if it's priced like kel-tecs should be then it might be worth a look, but generally guns that look like sci-fi movie weapons aren't nearly as cool as they look. Guns that look like classic guns are kinda what I'm looking for in the future, i.e. 1911, 870, AK-47, etc.

...and now apparently they don't have "change fees" anymore. I always hated that. With other airlines, I'm left asking, "So wait...if I had walked in off the street and booked this ticket I'd pay less, but because I was already doing business with you and changed my itinerary (which allows you to now resell my ticket on the original flight to someone else at a much higher cost...) I have to pay you more in addition to the price of my new, last-minute flight?" Good on SW and I try to fly with them when I can.

I never made this claim and tried to make a philosophical argument on the proper limits of rights, if any. I personally think that since there are reasonable limits on many of our other rights, the same standard can be applied to the second amendment, i.e. it's not some sort of special, unlimited right. Any thoughts on that? It's not really a facts-based argument so not much to present. Lol, while your stats are true the demographic makeup of Arlington is slightly different than Southwest DC. Just a thought. I was never for the DC gun ban, but gun crime in DC versus a gucci part of northern virginia may be due to other factors unrelated to the ability to own guns. Thanks all for the 870 wisdom...I've never really heard a bad thing about the gun. The kel-tec shotgun looks intarasante depending on price...looks like a weapon from a sci-fi movie.

I like how you used queep in the letter. Good points all around. I'm sure they either won't post it or some shoe will respond with back-asswards logic about how their job enforcing uniform violations is important.

I wasn't advocating any particular gun control measure in my last post, just sharing an article I thought was interesting with quotes from someone who seemed to supported some kind of limits but that also should be immune to the commonly used "liberal gun-grabbing" line. Since you asked though, my personal views are that most types of guns and gun related paraphernalia (i.e. mags, ammo etc.) should be legal damn near everywhere; the legal thought on this is pretty settled at the moment. However, I believe there is an argument to be made that all freedoms afforded in the Constitution have limits, and common-sense limits have been placed on many of our other Constitutional rights already, so I don't know why the second amendment should be any different one way or the other. Where you draw the line at "common-sense limits" is the question and obviously opinions differ. I agree that gun laws are not going to stop the determined criminal. A determined criminal will get whatever illegal weapons he wants, and a skilled gunman will be able to cause devastating damage with weapons well within the legal and reasonable limits. Like many have said, a well-trained gunman can kill a lot of people with a small semi-automatic pistol, or a knife, or his bare freaking hands so stopping determined criminals isn't the reason for limits. What I think should be the litmus test is rather an item has a legitimate use to the common citizen or rather it exists simply to exist or because it was a piece of military hardware with a specific military purpose. To me, a common citizen has use for rifles, pistols, carbines, shotguns, etc. for hunting, personal defense, target shooting, etc. Some things like very hi-cap magazines (i.e. more than a reasonable amount to defend yourself with), armor-piercing bullets, fully-automatic weapons, belt-fed machine guns, etc. don't, to me, meet the criteria of a reasonable use. All of these things allow amateur, unskilled criminals to cause devastating damage based on the advanced capabilities of these items rather than based on their skill or determination or weapons experience, all of which are impossible to limit or control. Now we can argue about the specifics but I'm obviously not a judge or legislator so the specifics of my opinion don't really matter. The philosophical argument should be: do reasonable limits to constitutional rights exist? If so, what should those limits be based on, and then you can nitpick rather something is truly an "assault weapon" or rather a certain bullet has a function in niche hunting or etc. etc. Some things liberals want to ban seem perfectly reasonable to me, but the right of the government to set limits on the rights granted by the second amendment for the public good really isn't in question. Anyways, I am liberal but am not a huge gun control dude so I've tried to keep it reasonable. If you disagree cool but I'm not going to really engage further because I know the attitude around here is very passionate and honestly I like reading about the finer points of guns in this particular thread rather than political debates. Out Edit: back on topic, anyone wanna comment on a Rem 870 in terms of fun-to-shoot factor? I eventually want one for home defense reasons but I enjoy shooting at the range too. Only used a shotgun a few times but I know some out there probably own and shoot 870s and the ability to go out and have fun throwing slugs or popping watermelons is a factor I'm curious about WRT a shotgun purchase.

Thought this was a really interesting article...actually surprised me. Robert Levy, the chief financial backer for DC v Heller and the chairman of the CATO Institute, giving a few quotes about how in his view, the Heller case supports some common-sense limits to gun ownership such as restrictions on hi-cap magazines. He said, in part: Now, I know how folks around these parts feel about guns and I expect there to be more middle-fingers flipped and youtube videos of epic gun collections posted, but I thought it'd still be worth it to post this. Try not to pre-judge what my opinions on gun control may or may not be when responding I guess is all I ask...