yes. i don't understand the liberal aviator at all. Is he just thinking "flying is fun and dropping faux bombs is fun but, I believe in the real thing is unjust" everyday. Seems a little hollow and disconnected to me.
So maybe this guy believes in small government, low taxes, and use of our military power when necessary, but happens to disagree with what got us in to this war? Does that make him a liberal? And how is that hollow or disconnected? Obviously he is willing and ready to do what is asked of him, but maybe his personal opinion is that we shouldn't be in the war in the first place. As long as he doesn't allow that to interfere w/ his mission, I say 'big deal.'
I'm also surprised that no one has raised the issue of "Hey, aren't we spending an awful lot of our available time transiting to and from the Boat, rather than being on station?" Given that in the timeframe of the filming the fight was in the Baghdad-Fallujah-Ramadi corridor, and that it took 1.5 hrs to transit from the Boat up to your orbits, wouldn't it have made more sense to beach det some of the jets to Al Asad or Balad, and allow for almost immediate on-station times? Think of the savings in tanker gas alone that such an approach would have allowed.I did get tired of hearing "We haven't dropped anything." While I understand the sentiment (knowing how you'll perform in the big game), it seemed like a lot of the pilots didn't really get the big picture. The simple fact that they're overhead, flying a SOF, or simply trying to help the guys on the ground build their SA, can be more important to the guy on the ground than a big boom. They know they've got someone up on high protecting them. So while they feel as though there's no reason for them being there, the grunts would disagree wholeheartedly. It seems as though they missed that fact.
I'm also surprised that no one has raised the issue of "Hey, aren't we spending an awful lot of our available time transiting to and from the Boat, rather than being on station?"......My response was always "Well gee, I hate it when the war we are fighting interferes with your CQ metrics." Of course, that was my internal monologue response, since no one ever asked me for my input on the matter....
So maybe this guy believes in small government, low taxes, and use of our military power when necessary, but happens to disagree with what got us in to this war? Does that make him a liberal? And how is that hollow or disconnected? Obviously he is willing and ready to do what is asked of him, but maybe his personal opinion is that we shouldn't be in the war in the first place. As long as he doesn't allow that to interfere w/ his mission, I say 'big deal.'
My first thought was, "Man, they're uptight in the jet community." Then I thought "well, we only get one small snippet of the story. This could have been the straw that broke the camels back." We don't know the full story, and this could have merely been an indicator of his previous failures.
True dat. Very true. The assclowns like the idiot manchild redneck "racist with black friends" are the 10% of your division you spend 90% of your time on. The secret is not forgetting the 10% that does 90% of the division's work.
(for you math majors - the other 80% are more or less just there...makes it fun at eval-writing time...there's only so many ways you can write "vanilla")
Moving on; does anyone else think a FNAEB on that Rhino guy was kind of harsh for just mis-managing your fuel ladder? I mean, he was a nugget and effed up. Everyone walked away, all it needed was a new tire. Shit happens.
I'm noticing a trend with these stories, though. If they anchor on someone for more than 10 minutes at the start of an episode, something bad's going to happen to them by the end. Mrs Fester watched him talking about safety, trends, grading, being a nugget, etc, and said, "Watch...he'll get FNAEB'ed."
The very liberal guy in 30 was a great dude and pilot, just was way out there in his political views (relatively to most of us). He always got a good ribbing. He was a vegan and an animal rights type of guy. He had pictures of his pet turtles on his desk
This may come across as a dumb question but I was watching the program tonight and I was just blown away by the pitching deck sequence. On one hand it looks scary...really scary. But then that crazy side of me kicks in screaming 'I can't wait to do that!'
So, my question is this. When you're coming in during seas like that, what do you watch? I would guess some instruments come in as no use so would you just listen to Paddles all the way in? I finally (after a long time of wondering btw, been interested in this since I was a kid) how they get the plane in (the flat camera) but for the pilots what's it like up there?
Overall I'm liking the program, not the absolute best, but but still worth my time. Most of the things I want to see though they probably wouldn't show - mostly flying/aviator/officer stuff like the day to day and living and....you know I'll just wait till I get there to find out.
former TW6 Commodore