DirkDiggler

Honestly appreciate the replies, they were helpful. I was considering pulling my retirement request and staying another couple years but in the end I've decided to proceed with retirement so this won't be an issue (at 21 and change total years). Once again I appreciate the info.

Girl in my class FAIP'd to T-1s (her husband was a couple classes ahead of us and FAIP'd T-6s), they were both T-1 students. They both tracked B-1s after their FAIP tour was over. Both made major, she was an IDE in-residence select but decided to separate at the end of her commitment.

Glad he got out!

Wasn't really sure where to put this but on 21 April 2024 LtCol (ret) Sam Galloway flew West. Sam was the Navigator on the lead aircraft of the Operation Eagle Claw (Desert One) mission. Post AF he trained almost every MC-130H front ender that went through the FTU at Kirtland until he fully retired in 2011. Sam was a phenomenal instructor and also a genuinely fantastic human being, he'll be missed. Galloway, Sam | Gathering of Eagles Foundation (goefoundation.org)

Thread bump. Anyone have any recent experience with getting a FC1 waiver for eosinophilic esophagitis? According to the AF waiver guide it's a DNIFing condition but waiverable. Was curious if anyone had any data on likelihood of waiver, how long it would take, etc. Appreciate any help anyone can provide.

Ole Buddy Lee isn’t someone you should casually trust/turn your back on. He’s one of Dag Andersen’s boys. On a side note, he went to the MC-W program right as it as standing up. AFSOC really fucked up the rollout of that; most communities in AFSOC used that as an opportunity to get rid of individuals they didn’t want in their respective communities (not all, there were some real good dudes that got sent as well). Don’t know if that was the case with Lee, but he was bounced between a lot of different communities, which is odd. Edit to add, he’s also at least DOS adjacent, he went to IDE out of the 27 SOW when Slife was the Grp/CC out there, if that helps paint the fuller picture.

This would be a good idea. I thought my TC-12 training was a good feeder for the Herk. It would give the student a more complex airplane with more than one engine to worry about. At this point anything is better than the ridiculous idea of T-6s straight to whatever heavy the student tracks. Would probably be fairly cheap operating cost wise too. All those are reasons why the AF would most likely never go for it.

In a spot of good news, the new aid bill for Ukraine (amongst others) was signed; hopefully they get the new weapons/supplies rolling forward quickly. Biden signs $95 billion aid package with assistance for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan. Calls for TikTok ban or sale | AP News

Israel continues to do good work. https://apple.news/APIQSH1_5RHm-1iOPVCvBjA

This is no longer true anymore and hasn’t been for awhile.

It’s real strange, that’s for sure.

Agreed

Probably belongs in the WTF thread… https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/04/04/former-air-national-guardsman-facing-child-porn-charges-may-have-defected-russian-military.html?amp

This has been my experience as well

Highly recommend getting in the SCIF for additional information on this, there’s multiple reasons you’ve heard very little open source.

In a bit of good news, the Israelis continue to stack up the Iranian body count.

This was all that was left of that Silk Airways IL-76. If you blow the pics up you can see part of horizontal stab, besides some other small debris and the black impact mark that was all that was left.

I had just taken off from Bagram when that happened. Explosion lit up the whole valley. I tried telling ATC that I thought I’d just seen a plane hit the ridge out west, ATC comes back with “are you sure you’re not seeing the AC-130 tweaking on the range”. We had a mission to fly and I didn’t feel like arguing. Couple days later we found the crash site and orbited a couple times to take some pictures. Nothing but a hole in the ground with tail laying nearby. Nobody from Silk Airways, the Afghans, or the US ever went up there to my knowledge.

Most DZ Surveys have a blurb on them that states "Supported unit commander accepts responsibility for damage to equipment, property, and/or injury to personnel on and around the DZ." So if I drop a bundle that lands on the DZ and it crushes some poor solider/HUMVEE/civilian that happens to be running towards an aid bundle, that not on me. If I toss a bundle off DZ and it's something I screwed up, and it hits something bad, that's the fault of the crew. An Air Drop Review Panel (bod bomb board) investigates, will figure out what happened, and assigned responsibility as required. Looking at the video it looked like LCHV or Low-Cost High Velocity chutes. Them and their cousin Lost-Cost Low Velocity were developed during Afghanistan due to the high numbers of airdrops we were conducting. They're basically a trash bag factory chute that's plopped on top of a pre-formed container; they do have a high failure rate compared to other types of chutes (though I've personally never had one burn in, I've had lots of LCLV fail). All of the container and rigging materials are thrown away after airdrop unlike a standard CDS where most things are reused. I've dropped LCHV around half a dozen times in Afghanistan and Syria; they're actually pretty good at going where they're supposed to (at least in my experience and unlike LCLV, which can blow all over the place) but you wouldn't want to be anywhere near where they're landing. I think the Rate of Fall on them is around 60 feet/second, which is screaming in for a bundle.

Wait, a Middle Easten Air Force showed itself to be tactically inept? Shocked I tell you, just shocked.

Thats fucking horseshit. AF leadership has already stated they're having/going to have a problem producing & retaining qualified people for Sq command; now they're back to levying an artificial requirement for command that will drive more good people away.

Just watched Dune Part 2, phenomenal movie, honestly think it might be better than the first.

CAE currently has the contract; it was just re-bid and awarded to a company called ATC. Someone protested, so the ATC can’t do anything until the protest is resolved. Government asked CAE to bridge the contract until the protest is resolved. CAE said sure, give us X number of dollars to do it. Government said we’re not gonna give you anything, CAE said great, dueces, and laid everybody off.

I've got some buddies up there that are trying to effect change/do the right thing where they can, but agree with everything you wrote above. I've never seen this level of thrash/the HQ reaching into line units directly. I honestly think the only thing that would satisfy the guy is every -130 and person in the unit fully committed 100% of the time. On an another fucked up note, CAE just laid off 100% of the MC-J CIs at Kirtland two days ago. That's really gonna do wonders for PFT production/shortening the pipeline like CAT 5 was adamant about.

Also, that’s the second Sq/CC fired from the 353rd SOW in 4 months. 1st SOS commander was fired back in November with no cause or details that were made public. Must be something in the water over there.