Have you seen the fancy computer re-creation that the AF made of that C-17 mishap? I have. Let me tell you what, I can't even imagine that series of events taking place on any Navy flight deck. Do you know why? Because we put a flight engineer up there that will smack the shit out of a pilot who does anything close to what that guy did. If you haven't seen it and have access to it, watch it.
Oh, please.
Yes, I've seen the video, heard the CVR, read the report. The idea that an FE would have been the key to saving the day is asinine. There were plenty of people on that airplane who could have stopped that chain of events.
The fact that you "can't imagine" that series of events happening in a Navy aircraft means that you're either totally unimaginative or totally ignorant. Just because you haven't seen something like that during your time in the TACAMO doesn't mean that stuff like that doesn't -- or wouldn't -- happen anywhere in your service. It certainly, absolutely, without question HAS happened in the history of your service, just like it has in mine. Period.
I love it how the peeps on this board want to have it both ways; usually, you guys are poking the USAF for being a bunch of over-rule-following pencilnecks that "can't do anything unless it's spelled out in the regs" (with the sharp implication that the Navy's 'if it doesn't say you CAN'T do it...' philosophy is the Truly Superior Way Of The Light), and yet here the USAF is being painted as a bunch of hotdogs while you're claiming the USN features only super-professional and perfect aviators who would never think of being such idiots.
C'mon...get out from behind your service bias and look at it for what it is: an isolated and tragic incident that could happen anywhere, in any community, given the right circumstances.