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The problem, as I see it with mental health, is it’s not as black and white as other physical ailments. Dudes tear an ACL, has a collapsed lung, steel rods in their legs from wrecking a motorcycle (all actual examples of people I personally know), the doctors can fix them and then have a...

Efficiency at the expense of dynamic experience. Airlines are A to B with not much deviation in between. Tankers and transport are A to K, back to B, over to 12, and end at North. It also kicks the can on actual stick time to the FTU and squadrons. The squadrons already don’t have enough flight...

It’s a medical condition, they won’t take your wings. You just won’t fly anymore. No different than any other medical DQ. With something like severe depression, anxiety, and PTSD to the degree that you can’t fly, expect a med review board to determine your suitability for continued service...

Sold!

Depends on the community. In my first squadron, no new guy, officer and enlisted alike, could wear their leather jacket until they finished MQT. Also, for some AF silliness, I’ve heard Chiefs debate whether rank was needed on the shoulders of the the green Massif jackets. So, there is definite...

I’ll defer to recent VT IPs but my on-wing in primary (circa 2006) told me that’s how they did it for the new LT IPs. I doubt they’d let SERGRADs have a brand new onwing.

A lot of helo only dudes (no VT, etc) have been picked up for ANG or AFR. I have a few buds from my helo days flying the -135 now. Depends on the flavor of the month, but pre-COVID if you were a winged military aviator that had flown in the past 5 years you would get hired. Post COVID has been...

That’s how it was as far back as I’ve heard. They’ll have all the ships available listed under Hawaii, San Diego, etc, and you go choose which one you want. At USNA they had a big board with tags that the SWOs would walk up and pick. Needless to say, every time I’ve seen picture of it, Norfolk...

The AF has done the FAIP thing forever with no significant problems, so it’s not a insurmountable hurdle. I would assume the Navy will put the SERGRADs through a FITU before turning them loose with the studs.

Good catch, I meant helo numbers, not overall NA number.

Do they still award numbers when you wing? It was around 29000 when I winged in 08, curious what it’s up to now.

Ok, I see your point now and that makes sense what you were saying. The beauty is almost no one can do what he did, but he has those trickle down effects that draws people into the service.

I’m incredulous that there are haters on Kim’s career. He has 1st, 2nd, and 3rd order effects as a result of what he’s done, and has had greater impact on the Navy and US government, writ large, than all of us on AirWarriors combined. Saying he should’ve stayed longer in one community is akin...

A great American and close friend of mine was enlisted SEAL, Army warrant, and now Navy pilot.

Look at this guy that goes to the nice parts of Vegas.

We preferred ‘information superhighway’

You’re a better man than me. Fiscal responsibility is the last thought on my mind when I’m buying a luxury Swiss watch.

Motorcycles for the win. The one thing California definitely has going for it is lane splitting. Never get stuck in traffic, plus riding in SoCal rocks.

It’s not paper pubs per se, it’s relying on the magenta line vs actually reading instruments and correlating that with what’s on the pub. The iPad and FF is awesome because I have 100% of the DoD FLIP available to me while flying. I do miss being able to write on my paper approach plate...

The goal of PBN is increased safety in IMC conditions. Realistically RNP 0.3 is what would be needed to keep rotorcraft safe in low level IMC conditions. Higher RNP (1, 2, etc) would naturally drive the route altitude higher but would also drive the rotorcraft into higher potential for icing...

I disagree, and I fly with ForeFlight every flight. It is not a MEL item. If you can’t navigate, using paper pubs, without ForeFlight then you have absolutely zero business flying with it. ForeFlight is an aid, not a crutch. There’s a significant difference between the two.

I hear it’s a good course and I’d like to go, but I also hear that the MAF guys tend to argue the nuance of why approaches are designed the way they are and nerd out on departure procedures.

Have you heard of PWC minimums? It’s a single seat thing the AF does that sets higher than absolute mins based on time in the aircraft. Adds yet another layer to flight planning.

Good luck with that. The back is one of the most highly classified parts of the whole thing.

To take it a step further, no hover is ever perfectly stationary so there’s always some horizontal vector component.

That’s interesting, how old was this dude?

It's rented for $1,500.

No pool at the house. Several pools throughout the Eagle Harbor community though.

Time to sell my house in Jax. Really close to NAS Jax. Mayport is doable but it'd be a drive. It's in the Eagle Harbor subdivision, which has some great schools and great community ammenities. The inside was updated with granite, stainless appliances, and tile. New a/c in 2015, new 25 year...

Reading the past few pages about fraternities and the like has been interesting. I wonder if a lot of the negative comments about all of it are from people who’ve never participated in any of them? I say that because I’m a lifetime VFW member and also bowl in a weekly league in town. The VFW is...

Yeah, I get it, I just think it was unnecessary. When I’ve needed maintenance support on the flight line, I always asked my crew chief and he’s called the correct support troop. In the Navy it was DEMOT with the appropriate number of fingers held up. And while they’ve only been out for a year...

I’ll give credit where it’s due, some of the AF security forces dudes have done legit stuff and are badass. That said, I’ve dealt with more than a handful that consider themselves AF ‘infantry’. ?

Welcome to the questions I had when the Air Force started this a year or so ago. Damn near everyone has a patch now.

The Navy is keeping them around so that in 20 years, Paramount can have Mig-28s for Top Gun: Geriatric ‘I feel the need…for medicinal weed’…

Wait, it’s back to TAR again?

T-38 dangerous? Not at all, but can be unforgiving, particularly if you get slow in the final turn. The -38 is an absolute blast and actually somewhat straightforward to fly, but it takes work to fly it really well. It would be a mistake for the Navy to go to the -38, the plane is 60 years old...

It won’t limit your career, it’ll just limit your bases. If your wife gets the care she needs in the Norfolk area you’d likely bounce around squadrons there as each set of PCS orders end. Staying in one area like that isn’t a negative mark on your record. The only time EFMP could affect what...

Wow, legitimately surprised at that.

Can’t forget the Ensigns who drove to somewhere on Florida’s dong and started hunting federally protected birds.

10 USC 1370 permits the secretary of the Navy or SecDef to determine satisfactory service and grade for retirement purposes. At some point in the flag ranks that authority switches from SevNav to SecDef. In this case it would be totally within the scope of authority of either of those offices to...

I’m actually not reacting to the social media/echo chamber comments. The officers who received disciplinary actions should be permitted to retire at the rank which they last honorably served. That would mean VADM Brown retires as a two star. The same applies to the officers junior to him as...

I agree that it’s not criminal, but where’s the line? Sure, it’s a career ender, but it’s a career ender for Fleet CMCs and Fleet Admirals. These guys got a scolding via a letter or a board of inquiry but were then allowed to go about their way. I will caveat it with I don’t know all the...

Is a letter of censure against a three star who gets to retire as a three star sufficient punishment? A bit rhetorical, and I know there were NJP cases for lower ranks, but I wonder if LOIs, MIF, and NJP are really enough? Or, should more tangible punishments be meted out? Regardless of how...

A new X-33. For those future Mars missions. Wonder who will be the first Mars squadron to do a group buy? https://www.omegawatches.com/en-us/watches/speedmaster/instruments/x-33-marstimer/product

I guess Johnny Kim could also be considered dual designated? Or, is it triple designated?

I doubt the Marines would be willing to carve out enough budget money for the logistics tail that would come with this capability. Not many seaplane ramps at airfields anymore, and not many Marine airfields co-located with bodies of water big enough to take a seaplane of this size. I really do...

I guess my question is what does this solve that airdrop can’t already accomplish? The extract? I suppose, but I would imagine a plane this large would need fairly calm water, so open ocean would be tough. To get into the littoral a plane this size is hard to be stealthy with. Either way, I...

The culture was to not accept any flight unless ops/Skeds positively placed them into crew rest. For some reason the belief was they couldn’t get enough crew rest unless told what time they had to enter it. Mind you, there is nothing in any AF instruction anywhere that requires being positively...

The crew rest thing is interesting now that I’m on the blue side. I made as much fun of AF dudes and crew rest as any other but I can say the timelines are warranted. I’ve had multiple flights with a 24 hour duty day, logging almost 16 hours in that 24 hours, so I definitely needed the 12 hours...

I went to NPS after USNA and it was a great deal. That said, it put me a year behind my peers. That year delay, coupled with normal flight school timing, it trickled down and I didn’t have the timing to get the high water needed going into my O-4 board. I FOS’d first look for O-4. Luckily I made...