TreeA10

Hard to beat the response time of "Wedge, guns, shoot where I shoot" briefing.

Could be a celebration of Tiger's ex and her soon to be second place in "Most golf money won on the tour" standings despite her having only recently picked up a golf club.

IIRC, In 1570, Ottoman Turks killed approximately 30,000 Christians in the Bosnia/Kosovo area doing a little ethnic cleansing. Paybacks, while certainly not Christian, are a bitch.

Okay, more reading suggestions. "What went Wrong?" The cultures in the Middle East led the world in art, science, and math while Europe was somewhat backward and lagging. Somewhere around 1300 AD, that changed and the Middle East stopped their cultural growth. And the book "Infidel" which covers conflict between Christian and Islamic cultures up through Bosnia/Kosovo.

Regarding Steve Davies comment on muslims in Europe reminded me of the book "While Europe Slept." Very interesting reading about assimilation or the lack thereof and the associated cultural problems currently and in the future.

Anyone badmouths the Flying Spaghetti Monster or publishes cartoons or drawing of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and I am going to call down the wrath of my fellow marinara warriors and hurl meatballs of biblical and hunger satisfying proportions at the pasta infidel.

The best Christmas party I can recall was while I was at Shaw. One of our guys had his Commercial license and checked out a bus from Transportation. We met at the Squadron with coolers and wives in tow, piled onto the bus, and drove to a German resturant in Columbia. Order what you want, drink what you want, and the bus will make two trips back to Shaw. Plan accordingly. The only problem I recall was someone standing in the aisle on the return trip stumbled while the bus was turning and poured the better part of a 1 liter boot of beer down my back. So, if you have a resturant nearby that will put up you guys, that might be an option.

I think an A-10 type addition would a good idea. Why did we get that jet in the first place? Because some third world gomers one generation from the stone age were puncing holes in small prop planes, high speed jets, and helos and knocking them out of the sky with low tech weapons while the troops on the ground needed better CAS. No need to reinvent the wheel or, worse, ignore history and make the same mistake.

My theory was if she is eating for two, I can certainly drink for three.

Here's some more: http://www.skygod.com/quotes/index.html

"High Speed" are two words that do not belong in the A-10 vernacular. However, on the big jet side, the FAA mandates the use of auto-brakes. So, for something like a 757/767, if you reject a takeoff above 80 knots, you get max autobrakes. At higher gross weights, you are at least going to melt the fuse plugs. The rule we use is if anything affects the ability of the jet to safely fly and you are 80 knots or greater, abort. Otherwise, press with the takeoff and sort it out once airborne.

I've only had one RA. Base leg flying into Newark, we get an RA, I see nothing in front of me but follow the commands and start the jet climbing. A twin prop of some sort goes a couple hundred feet under the right wing. ATC sees nothing on their radar.

It is usually the threat that you don't see that kills you. Better to move the jet and land in one piece than blow off the RA, miss identify the threat, and try to land the many pieces resulting from the midair.

A marine once suggested the way to deal with Mogadishu was to build an 8 foot fence around the place and just throw khat (a form of amphetimine leaf popular with the locals) and weapons over the fence. His idea has merit.

I was a T-38 IP in the late 80s and the AF in it's infinite wisdom had screwed up the pilot forecast so nobody was being washed out of T-37s. These guys come to us having lost maybe 3 or 4 guys out of 30. Within a short period of time, we have students in big trouble in all categories, academically, military, and flying. The massive culling begins and we washed out half. It was ugly. I did have the class leader break down and start crying during the debrief of a formation ride. Not pretty. But it gets worse. My big kill for that class was the Class Leader. He earned that position due to the earlier departure of the previous class leader. I was the Flight Stan/Eval guy and a firm believer in "cooperate and graduate" and expected them to work together. So what happens? This guy takes a test, I grade it, he busts it, and I hand it back. This bust meant an automatic and potentially fatal ground eval for him. Shortly afterward, he comes to me saying I made an error in my grading. Interesting. I recalled that question quite clearly because it was easy and only one person, our hero, missed it plus I had gone over it twice because I knew the implications of him busting another test. I ask him if he changed the answer, he said no. I ask him to join me talking to the Flt CC and we repeat the process. A short meeting later with the Student Squadron CC and this guy is facing an Article 15 as a bonus to the whole getting thrown out of UPT. He ended up taking the Article 15 and I have no idea what happened to him later.

In the whole planning process of who might to what to who, a lot of people focus on intentions versus capabilities. Someone mentioned the 1930's and we thought Japan's intention's did not include at attack on the U.S but they certainly had the capability. We paid a big price for that bit of myopia. However, in China's case, their intentions are to reclaim Taiwan. Capabilities? They're working on it.

A few years back when I was stationed at Eielson, we had a Hawg land gear up after a gun malfunction. A slow burn round exploded in the gun bay and sent shrapnel through the bulkhead separating the gun bay from the nose gear wheel and caused the nose gear to be stuck in the UP position. The decision was made to land gear up and to also pull the Emergency Brake handle. This moves a valve that allows the brakes to work in the UP position. The landing was fairly uneventful with damage done to the lower tail caps, a couple of antennas, a saber drain, some TERs, and the main gear tires themselves due to the snubber. Rollout was about 3500 feet on centerline. A jet sitting on the runway with no gear and the engines running looked rather odd. The attitude of the jet sitting on the runway had the gun muzzle about 6 feet or better above the runway. The crash recovery guys were parked on the edge of the runway with a crane and had the jet up on the main gear in about 20 minutes and the jet was back in flying condition in a couple days.

I can't say I'm real involved in the F-35's at Eglin but I was down there last year to look at the Reserves getting involved in the test wing and the F-35 topic came up. Mulling it over some thoughts came up: Noise footprint. Again, not a decible expert but the thing is louder than the F-16. Luke already had land buffers that met requirements. Airspace. There may be some problems with our coalition partners sharing airspace with the F-22. Runway configuration. Not optimal for the sortie rates they are going to need. My guess is you will see the F-35 program start up at Eglin and then an additional RTU will be established at Luke.

This makes the drastic assumption that the Air Force gave a crap about CAS, as Hog drivers know it, before.

Airshow at McConnell, I got the "These things saved my ass in Nam." Must have been the same guy that wandered past Rainman. Same airshow, some yokel dad with his son comes wandering up. Dad is explaining the A-10 to his kid, points at the empty chaff/flare dispensers, and says, "This is where the jet exhuast comes out when the jet hovers." Tree