raimius

Boldface/Ops limits is the biggest thing. Memorize that so you can recall it on demand, and be able to write the page without stopping to think about it. When you get your pubs, start looking at the pattern ops and departure/arrival procedures. Those tend to suck (sts) a lot of SA from students. VFR/IFR weather limits and when to file for an alternate/what qualifies as an alternate are good to know, but that'll be several months into training.

Is that an LD10 on the side?

I don't know about the whole "spec-ops" bit, but they can certainly run a pump shotgun pretty fast.

Is there any really good data on the quality of officers from various commissioning sources? (Retention is a fine number, but it doesn't necessarily tell much about quality, IMO.) It would seem to me that no one liking the status quo would like the resulting headlines. I could see the results being either we pay far too much for academy grads or we under-prepare the majority of the officer corps. Would "big AF" really want either of those results as the CNN headline of the day? As far as the article goes, Fleming brings up interesting points, but I think his "solutions" tend to fall a bit short. Perhaps his perspective (academic) limits the military utility of his proposed solutions.

Looking at the airfield layout, I have to ask...how did that one happen?

IMO, the USAFA service dress looked better than what we have now. That said, I don't really feel like paying 200 bucks for a new service dress. So, let's just let sleeping dogs lie on that one.

Dang, another tragedy. News reports said one of the wounded tried to tackle the shooter. Kudos to him!

Having been at a unit that had a civilian in the squadron working a lot of the finance and personnel stuff for students, it ran a whole lot better than other places I've seen. I wasn't around for the old system, but having local experts seems like a much better idea than what we have now.

A 10+ day power outage would suck...and some people found that out on the east coast a couple weeks ago. For people that lose a job, a several month supply of food would definitely make their financial situation a bit better or extend how long they could look for work without going broke. I have a few supplies, but going from the gov't recommended 3 day kit to the Mormon recommended 6mo to a year takes a bit of work. (Not Mormon, but I won't fault their "ready for anything" idea.)

It's a tragedy, and my prayers and condolences go out to those affected by it. I know it hurts losing a friend to an active shooter. "I wish someone was there to stop him" crossed my mind pretty quickly, when I heard about a similar situation with someone I knew. I know some people don't like the scenario-playing that some people do after these events, but I think that it is useful for people who do carry. Not having a plan seldom leads to the best results. This case was particularly ugly for those responding. It would be bad enough as the armed good-guy in the room, but even worse trying to make it to the scene with hardly any info but bleeding people running out of the theater as the gunfire continues. I doubt I would have taken the shot, based on where I usually sit (upper middle), where a crowd would have to run to exit, lighting, adrenalin, tear gas, and incoming fire. I honestly doubt I could make accurate head-shots at 30ish yards, against a moving, shooting enemy, in a dark, gas filled room, with a crowd of people between me and him. I know my accuracy isn't that great with lots of adrenaline, and when my fundamentals break down, I shoot low. I'd be more likely to try to hustle the people next to me toward the exit than take a shot with a greater probability of shooting a movie-goer than disabling the shooter, unless they zeroed in on me. I'd feel pretty awful if I hit some random person and didn't stop the shooter. Perhaps, the option to close the distance without him noticing would exist, and that would improve the odds of a stop and decrease the risk to innocents quite a bit. It's a tactically awful situation. For those with good accuracy, and perhaps less distance and fewer innocents in the line of fire, maybe they should take the shot. It's kind of unlikely, anyway, as that cinema company tends to post "no carry" signs at all their theaters.

The kazoo army...

There's some style points.

There was a DoD instruction that strongly recommended not allowing CCW for anyone on base for quite some time. Which AF policy changed the CC's discretion? I never really found that one (granted, I only looked for an hour or two).

Nope. That's probably why he had to shoot himself before being hauled away. No CCW is the intent of DoD policy.

Not having the system randomly reboot to the main page and erase the data I just entered would be nice. Kill the pop-ups. Have a more logical flow. I hate trying to remember which sub-menu something is in, because they aren't labeled in a fashion that makes sense to someone who doesn't spend all their time using DTS. I like WABoom's idea to link it to an actual form, so you can tell if stuff makes sense.

This guy whining about not getting combat medals while facing zero physical risk. Count me as unsympathetic...unless the monitors explode and kill people when the Predator crashes. The bit about being in more danger because of the potential for an Al-Qaeda assassination in the US is just ridiculous. Why would anyone with any self-respect say that after the number of "green on blue" incidents we've had?

Anyone who could safely carry out an injured crew would, of course. That's not really the point. The bird with the primary responsibility isn't capable more than half the time...that's a major screw up. ...and dang we got off topic!

UH-72s are just not built to carry much at all, even at sea level. They generate some funny stories for the TH-1 crews at Rucker though.

I'm guessing the randomness of more than a few Christmas-treed forms probably skews the results into a pretty useless jumble. That's what happens when you sit down a bunch of cadets and tell them the survey isn't required, but they are required to sit there while it is handed out...

I wonder why so many of these complaints appear to start by going to an outside group. Is it really that hard to say, "Sir, this could be taken the wrong way. We should fix it" or am I missing something?

No.

Rucker 12-05 HH-60G x 2 CV-22 TH-1 FAIP UH-1N Congrats!

I knew Justin from the zoo, as well...

Really!? A guy asks for help to get new stuff issued to his troops and you criticize him? ...and we complain about bureaucracy and crap?

Rule #247: Don't trash talk your own team. Nice work!