Posts posted by DirkDiggler
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21 minutes ago, pawnman said:
Well, there's this one, there's Gen Milley wearing make-up, there's the convoluted one about the Fed, there's the one from Robert E Lee...it's just starting to add up.
Dude, don’t do it to yourself. Just ignore it, most everyone else here does, helps keep the threads more on point.
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1 hour ago, Lockjaw said:
Ah good. OSI is involved.
Nothing good is gonna come of those no-talent ass hats getting involved.
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4 minutes ago, Negatory said:
I get the sentiment, but not ever asking questions just because I am deployed to Afghanistan and you shouldn’t be disrespectful to me isn’t productive for the nation.
See why it was seen as unpatriotic to even question the Iraq war in 2003.
Let me be more clear.
I sincerely hope that next week or the week after, once we’ve completed the withdrawal and our guys are safe, there’s a start of some really serious lessons learned and quite honestly soul searching on the part of our civilian and military leadership.
I hope that we dig real deep into why we went, why we stayed, why we kept lying to ourselves year after year, and why we finally decided to leave. I’m not holding my breath that many in our leadership are going to take either responsibility or that there will be any accountability for the lives lost, lives damaged, or money wasted.
I just don’t think that right now, while our brothers and sisters are literally finishing the job, is the right time to have the conversation.
One guy’s opinion.
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Edited by DirkDiggler
Maybe us military folks on this forum should have the SA to hold of on the blame/pointing fingers game that all these worthless suits and talking heads in Washington are engaging in while our brothers and sisters are still in harms way in that shithole of a country.
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7 hours ago, JeremiahWeed said:
Agreed - but I guess they meet the mins.
I'm no crash expert, but that one seems like maybe there's a possibility it wasn't immediately fatal. First guy on the scene runs up after about a minute with nothing to fight the fire which took that long to start building. Just thinking out loud, but I wonder if the RJ pilot who ran into his a/c to get the other pilot to come look instead came out with the Halon bottle and hauled ass the roughly 100 yards to the crash. Hard to watch at least 7 able bodied people stand by while someone potentially burns to death.
I had the exact same thoughts watching the video. Hindsight’s always 20/20 and all but I have to believe there were some fire extinguishers in the RJ or in the terminal that someone could’ve grabbed and at least made the effort instead of standing around gawking.
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20 minutes ago, Danger41 said:
So on the topic of “toxic leadership” and command pressure to fly, I’d love to get opinions on this scenario. And spears as well but hopefully someone can learn from my thought process and your responses.
Several times in deployed environments, other AC’s have elected to cancel based on low weather given instrument approaches available (e.g. 300&3/4 when an ILS with 200 & 1/2 is available) with no forecast showing it will get worse or significantly better). The phrase they’d always use is it’s the “conservative” choice. Well one time I’m the DO deployed and a guy who is a bit notorious for canceling in that scenario comes to me and says he’s going to cancel. I ask why and he says for weather. I had him walk me through it and there was usable weather at the field at Takeoff and Land +\- 1 hour and also a viable alternate (which admittedly was 250 miles away and would reduce 75% of station time). After showing that, I said I didn’t understand the cancel decision. There was then a bleeding heart speech about backing up AC’s and undue pressure to fly when it was unsafe etc. I’m not particularly proud of my response but I said that I’d back up his decision every time, but I asked if we need to look at our evaluation criteria because we don’t have Pilot Weather Categories and all of our AC’s are approved to what’s on the plate. He said no (he was a SEFE) to which I retorted why aren’t you going then? “Because that’s my decision” and I said “then why do we have the 202v3 if it’s just up to your gut”. He then asked if I was ordering him to go when he felt unsafe and I said no, I don’t have that authority and wouldn’t do that if I did. We canceled the line, NBD and then I get feedback at the end of the deployment from this guy about how I set up a toxic environment and he cited this particular case. That pissed me off but I just let it go and moved on but it ate at me for awhile. A few other guys made similar comments while others praised me for upholding the standard, etc.
Debrief? Is that toxic? Where’s the line between toxic and upholding the standard? Is this in the same ballpark as the Tinker OG?
Short answer is no, not toxic at all.
I can understand (sort of) someone CNXing a training line for WX like that but a combat/contingency line? Absolutely not. It’s leadership’s responsibility to make sure ACs are getting shit done and CNXing for WX your airplane is capable of operating in in combat would be a big red flag for me. Over the years I’ve had Sq/CCs and DOs give me feedback on decisions I’ve made when I was a young AC and could’ve made a better call. What you did was nothing different.
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15 hours ago, Flare said:
Bump.....
I waited too long and I'm now staring the "check the container" masters in the face.
I want easy and cheap. I don't care how worthless it is as long as mother blue counts it. What are my best options?
I did AMU with a WWII history degree, finished it about 8 years back. Was fairly cheap, not too difficult (varied by instructor), and actually kind of interesting if you like history.
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2 hours ago, TreeA10 said:
There's crazy then there is full on, deranged crazy. I think this is the latter.
Not down with a little cold packing?....
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1 hour ago, Clark Griswold said:
Article on seaplanes being discussed and potentially considered, not sure if this is the new light attack platform being "considered" but enjoy:
Ok, would this really be useful or just damn cool or both?
Expeditionary logistics to remote islands or ships at sea, long range maritime CSAR, ISR, Patrol & Attack, probe and drogue AR (helos), etc...
So I’m gonna eat a little crow here cause I believe I gave you some shit on this topic a couple years ago; now this “may” become a reality.
That being said, yes SOCOM/AFSOC is seriously looking at this. It would provide several interesting capabilities for the peer fight (not sure if specifics are appropriate for this forum). I think the major stumbling block (besides funding) is that the command is really shooting for the Moon (and maybe Mars) on what they’re asking for capes wise.I’d volunteer to fly it in a heartbeat but I don’t think it’ll become a reality before I retire.
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This was a pretty interesting opinion piece on this very topic, I hope things don’t come to a full blown invasion. I’m truly not certain what our decision caucus would be if that happens.
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53 minutes ago, Boomer6 said:
For those of you that have taken the vaccine already, are you having to sign a consent form saying you’re volunteering to receive the vaccine?
Yes. There was a page long pre-screening questionnaire and part of that was consent to receive a vaccine that hasn’t been formally approved by the FDA.
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Edited by DirkDiggler
GrammerHurlburt Field dispensed all their allotted doses this week. I got the 1st Moderna shot on Thursday, felt a little shitty yesterday but otherwise it wasn’t bad at all (personally thought anthrax and yellow fever were worse).
As an added bonus, post vaccine my 5G download speeds have been incredible (4K UHD streaming pornog in the middle of the range, no problem!) and an image of Bill Gates constantly pops up in my periph with helpful dining out suggestions. Totally worth it!!
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15 hours ago, ClearedHot said:
He was a complete raging asshole...but one hell of a pilot and an American hero.
RIP
Two
My parents bought me The Right Stuff movie (on VHS, movie is so long it took TWO tapes) when I was a kid. I know now that some of the stuff in the film was only loosely based in fact but I loved that movie, watched it all the time.
Yeager and the guys of his generation beat one of the greatest evils on earth, then repeatedly strapped themselves into untested machines and kept pushing that envelope. Asshole or not, cheers to a great American. 🥃
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9 hours ago, Waingro said:
The fringe left works the same way, but the difference is that their mainstream doesn't allow the fringe ideas to dominate the conversation. The mainstream left has certainly embraced that side of the party, with Sanders, AOC, Warren et al. If Trump had won this general election though, no chance you'd see 75% of the house Democrats refusing to acknowledge it, or discussions about sending a pro-Dem slate of electors forward anyway, etc. Embracing that level of kookiness would destroy the future prospects of the party, which are already not looking bright for the Dems.
As you said, they'd like to keep moving the ball, without being hijacked by the extreme crazies in the party. I'm shocked that the GOP is allowing it to happen. What on earth for? They're no longer beholden to Trump, they're likely to keep the senate, just jettison your dead orange weight and start thinking pragmatically about 2022 midterms and beyond.
To quote a famous TV show, “Follow the money”. The Trump campaign has raised over $200 million since Election Day, much of it with no strings attached in regards to spending.
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46 minutes ago, nsplayr said:
For anyone who has multiple sets of wings...is it just me or is there just no possible way to fit a second set on the OCP flight suit?
It just seems weird, I have double wings on my leather coat name tag, my green bag name tag, my service dress jacket, and on my now defunct ABUs.
Anyone cracked this nut or should I just give up?
I gave up. I always wore both sets of wings on my green bag and blues but with Velcro on the 2 piece multi-cam it just looks weird. I will say that I’ve seen a guy that permanently sewed both sets of wings onto his OCP two piece and that looked ok.
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Edited by DirkDiggler
AIB to SIB mis-typeWhile I know the AAR first time at night was not the cause of this mishap, I can relate to this trend in my community. Over the last couple of years there’s been a push to accomplish more and more METLs in the sim (don’t know if that’s the case in the Viper B-course). The FTU has been graduating guys who in some cases have never seen things like, example, a tanker at night outside of a simulator. This pushes the onus onto the line units where you have IPs who aren’t FTU instructors/aren’t in that mindset and generally have a ton of other things on their plate. Line unit IPs generally aren’t overly familiar with some of the syllabus limits that are referred to in this AIB because it’s not their job to be.
Sims are great procedures trainers, and they’re great for replicating higher end capes we don’t want burned in the real world, but representative of how the aircraft feels/handles in the real world they are not, I don’t give a shit how good the engineers say the aero modeling is.
There was a lot to unpack out of this report, I don’t have all the facts, and I haven’t read the SIB, but it really seems like leadership at multiple levels failed this LT. His IPs in the squadron, as much as it pains me to says this, failed him too. I’m definitely going to take some lessons learned out of this going forward with my students and the younger CPs/ACs I fly with.
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28 minutes ago, 17D_guy said:
My wife was the same. Been a R voter most of her life until 2016. As much as she hated Hillary she couldn't vote for "grab 'em by the pussy."
She's tried very hard to see through, but some of policies (re: healthcare) she juts doesn't agree with, and his lack of tact pushes her over.2
My wife was the same. We live in a battleground state; she has been very unimpressed by Trump’s rhetoric and how he has conducted himself ref the aforementioned tape/infidelity, women in general, healthcare, and COVID. I personally know several other women I’d describe as pretty centric voters who viewed him the same way.
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43 minutes ago, hindsight2020 said:
Oh lookie, it's children of the magenta "5th gen" style.
"tHaT's jUsT tHe aDmIn bRuH".
The irony of the intersectionality between 5th gen'er commentary and the PTN/UPTX.X shills does not escape me.
Oh well, Uncle hindsight's gotta get back to "standing in the way of progress" and tend to my Luddite affairs now. Horse got loose from the ol' buggy in the final turn again....*shouts in the distance* "runway-airspeed-bank Stan, there ya go, watch your sink Stan...."
I actually lol’d
COVID-19 (Aka China Virus)
in General Discussion
So I just got my forth COVID shot (2x Moderna through the military, 1x J&J, and just threw in 1xPfizer for the hell of it at the local Walgreens). No adverse side effects, got some extra solid gainz at the gym this morning, and honestly feel great. As an added bonus, my phone is currently crushing it on 6G.