Stoker

All spending has diminishing marginal utility. There's definitely a point where the "dead Soviets per dollar" ratio doesn't justify spending more. But we aren't close to it yet.

For what it's worth, looking at the internal numbers the great FO oversupply at the regionals should be gone by the end of the summer if not earlier. Of the excess FOs, it seems like about 25% are upgrading or leaving for an LCC every month.

For anyone who complains about the cost of the war effort to the US, and points to the US debt... you do realize that the money we're spending on Ukraine is a rounding error compared to Federal spending and liabilities, right? I realize this sounds absurd, but $14 billion just isn't a lot of money. We've basically spent the cost of one Ford-class aircraft carrier to cripple our second most powerful foe for at least a generation. That's a good deal, in my book.

Interesting thing about the North Korean medals, remember that they're effectively an aristocracy based on loyalty to the regime. If you're in the military, you wear the medals your dad and grandad won, to show how you come from a long line of Kim supporters.

That memo reads like it's written by someone who doesn't actually believe that rapid global mobility is a tool in the strategic bag just like blowing people up is. Read about the Berlin Airlift and the strategic dilemmas a bunch of transport aircraft were able to create for the Soviets, and options they created for the US, and none of those pilots were shooting pistols at targets or flying like cowboys. The ability to deliver a couple thousand tons of cargo a day, safely, is a unique and war-winning capability in the right circumstances - we need to play to our strengths, not pretend we're ACC light.

The freight rail unions going on strike would have crippled dozens of industries across the country that don't have any alternative to get their material inputs, and even getting within four days of the start of the strike would force all of the rail companies to take actions that would have ripple effects for weeks. A single airline union going on strike takes down one airline of many, with plenty of transportation alternatives as Southwest's latest debacle has shown.

I think there's a legitimate Arsenal of Democracy case to me made on top of the realpolitik aspect. It just feels damned nice, for once in the past seventy years or so, to be on the side of a no shit more or less democratic and free people who are more than willing to put their own asses in the firing line on behalf of their country. We've spent trillions and tens of thousands of American lives in defense of people who couldn't find the will to fight for their country with two hands and a map. What a cruel joke it would be if we gave the Afghans our support for twenty years but couldn't be bothered to help Ukraine.

The idea doesn't work because the same defense we purchase can act as a fleet in being to defend South Korea, Taiwan, Europe, Israel, and a bunch of other places all at once. Whereas if we subsidize Poland the Chinese can be reasonably certain the Poles won't be coming to Taiwan's aid. So you'd need to duplicate the spending a bunch of times around the world.

The RLA is way less relevant to a new hire than the ins and outs of the contract. From the outside, it's easy to know what the hourly rate is, but really hard to actually get that that number is just a multiplier and the contract will determine how many times a month you hit that multiplier.

Remember that scene from Casino where they drive Joe Pesci out to the cornfield?

It's funny because when the C-17 program was struggling, there was talk of just buying 200 more KC-10s to have more tanker and cargo capacity, at the expense of airdrop and austere fields.

Gas comes out of a boom a lot faster than a hose and drogue. That matters when you're refueling bombers who want a lot of gas.

That works fine until you've got three Pacific coronets going on at the same time and there's nowhere to park.

We're converting to the Space Shuttle. At least, that's the rumor I'm starting, because it makes about as much sense as the "everyone is turning into the Guard" rumor.

We don't "ask the American people" what they want. That's not our system. Some states have elements of direct democracy, but our federal government has zero. Intentionally. The people get to vote, and their elected representatives get to decide how to spend that money, and if the legislature decides to delegate how to spend the money to the executive, well, consider that the next time you vote.

Spending a few billion to kill Soviets is one of the best investments out government has made in a long time.

There's no guarantee of anything. I think generally you'd be sent to the IRR (technically in the reserves, but you don't show up, ever, or get paid) until your two year commissioning service commitment is done. I've heard of people being reclassed to other career fields but that's highly dependent on what leadership thinks of you and what the Air Force needs at the time. Why reclass a disgruntled failure pilot when they could pick a deserving prior-E?

Does this even solve a problem? Are we short on copilots now? If you do single pilot ops, presumably that's an IP flying around themselves, which means the FPs aren't getting hours for upgrade, which means the problem gets worse in the future...

I don't think "deploying somewhere shitty" is really the problem. It's "deploying somewhere shitty for a lost cause no one believes in."

Oh, the retirement is still moving forward - but also here's a bunch of last minute taskings we have absolutely no one else to do. What do you mean you don't have a crew?

This program seems tailor-made for someone who's been trying to get picked up by a Guard/Reserve fighter unit for a couple years without any luck. I'd have to imagine anybody who made it through this program's initial training would be exceptionally qualified compared to almost anyone else off the street. And whatever civilian commitment you put on paper gets trumped by USERRA.

I wouldn't think so. The law says you have to provide proof of honorable discharge or proof that you're currently serving in the armed forces, and have been rated a military pilot. It's not UPT graduation that lets you have an R-ATP, it's being a military pilot (not a civilian pilot who flies for the military). Presumably if we sent a new pilot to a foreign program as an exchange rather than UPT, they'd still qualify for the R-ATP if we rated them.

To that point, there was something of a bumper crop of LTs at a bunch of Reserve units during Covid times. A general came by on a road show (not to my unit, so paraphrasing) and asked why people weren't upgrading to AC... "Hard to get upgrade time with one local every other week." Asked what could be done to fix it, and one co mentioned sending excess FPs back to UPT as some sort of Reserve FAIP. The response was, absolutely not.

What if we allow abortions, but we require a certificate of no abortions in order to dine in at bars and restaurants, use the gym, or cross the border?

If there's one thing I learned from reading Ibrahim Kendi's book on antiracism, it's that anything that has a disparate impact on minorities regardless of intent or cause is inherently racist.