Today's Air Force

[BE911SC]

Originally Posted by AZ_porschekid

That's actually kinda funny you mention that, I know af pilots that are wanting all of the manuals and maps on ipads, instead of carrying hard copies in plane.

As a former USAF pilot and current airline driver and iPad user, the iPad makes it a hell of a lot easier to look things up and access information in general. Its implementation was, IMO, a huge leap forward in information access and cockpit resource management. Tap, tap, swipe, swipe and you have the answer.

[speeder]

It's kind of funny to hear members of one service branch bad-mouthing another branch...I guess it's just human nature and tribalism. Any member of any branch would put the kill on the enemy to save any other member of another branch, but just like one high school or college against another, one state against another, Ford vs. Chevy, people just need to form tribes and sub-tribes against one another. Two Marines will beat the living schit out of each other in a bar but die for the same guy on the battlefield, presumably.

There is an Arab expression that translated basically says, "With my brother against my cousin, with my cousin against an outsider."

My cousin is an AF pilot and officer. I went to see him at an air show @ Mirimar once and privately to me he called the whole base "a Marine nightmare". As in, *clusterfrik*...

But later I saw him jawing with some young Marines and they were all on the same team/family, shared a bond that they don't have with civilian strangers...

[Paco Anton]

At least the US Air force is better than the Swiss...

Hijacked Plane Went Unanswered By Swiss Air Force for This Ridiculous Reason | TheBlaze.com

The Swiss Air Force didn’t respond to a hijacking over their airspace Monday because it happened outside normal business hours.

The Ethiopian Airlines 767 co-pilot hijacked his own flight while en route from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Rome, and instead flew it to Geneva seeking asylum, according to ATA. But Swiss fighter jets were grounded throughout the entire incident because of “budget and staffing” concerns.

Though the co-pilot-turned-hijacker quickly announced he wanted to land the plane in Switzerland, where he later said he aimed to seek asylum, Switzerland’s fleet of F-18s and F-5 Tigers remained on the ground, Swiss airforce spokesman Laurent Savary told AFP.

This, he explained, was because the Swiss airforce is only available during office hours. These are reported to be from 8am until noon, then 1:30 to 5pm.

“Switzerland cannot intervene because its airbases are closed at night and on the weekend,” he said, adding: “It’s a question of budget and staffing.”

[RWebb]

Some of the recent USAF issues are at SAC missile bases - they cheated to get the highest scores, even tho they did not need to cheat to pass. SAC is a group whose mission vanished (at least in part) when our most powerful enemies vanished, or were transformed into trading partners...

[BE911SC]

I found that when I was in the USAF (pilot) the best liars, cheaters and stealers came from the Air Force Academy. When I was a pilot training instructor if I had Academy students I watched them like a hawk. They had all the inside info ("gouge") from their buddies who had gone before so I would purposely test them to see which ones were cheating. You just can't fake it in an airplane. Talked up a good story and then when you really tested them, really applied the pressure that they weren't expecting you could see their surprise. They didn't have all the gouge.

Yes, there were some really excellent academy grads in my experience but the best liars, cheaters and stealers came from the AFA.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Paco Anton

At least the US Air force is better than the Swiss...

Hijacked Plane Went Unanswered By Swiss Air Force for This Ridiculous Reason | TheBlaze.com

The Swiss Air Force didn’t respond to a hijacking over their airspace Monday because it happened outside normal business hours.

The Ethiopian Airlines 767 co-pilot hijacked his own flight while en route from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Rome, and instead flew it to Geneva seeking asylum, according to ATA. But Swiss fighter jets were grounded throughout the entire incident because of “budget and staffing” concerns.

Though the co-pilot-turned-hijacker quickly announced he wanted to land the plane in Switzerland, where he later said he aimed to seek asylum, Switzerland’s fleet of F-18s and F-5 Tigers remained on the ground, Swiss airforce spokesman Laurent Savary told AFP.

This, he explained, was because the Swiss airforce is only available during office hours. These are reported to be from 8am until noon, then 1:30 to 5pm.

“Switzerland cannot intervene because its airbases are closed at night and on the weekend,” he said, adding: “It’s a question of budget and staffing.”

That looks like an article from the Onion. That is utterly amazing.

[K9Torro]

They are great Golfers

[RWebb]

Cool! Let's diss the Academy!

[James Brown]

the F4 being a navy aircraft were all produced with the navy rated tail hook, drove the air force nuts!

[James Brown]

fun with the F4

[shoemakj]

Originally Posted by 71scgc

They've all changed.
Damn kids.

Damn kids. For the first time, I am older than my 2-star General Commander at my unit. He calls me sir

Certainly not the AF I was commissioned into in 1985.

[desertt5]

After spending 20 years in the Corps, I now work everyday in a shop with Air Force enlisted. The AF has a different mission and a different mentality because of it. They are not a rifleman first as all Marines are. There is no lack of professionalism, just a different atmosphere and mission.

They definitely have more money though. New furniture and electric staplers even. Never had an electric stapler in the Corps.

[Arizona_928]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

Every service has a personality: The AF has a job which they do well, but it isn't THE job, except for Predators. The other services also fly and provide all the other, essential services at the point of the fight: The Army and Navy provide boots and boats and air power, the essential elements of warfare, at the point.

But in a big fight, please give me some AF.

True, and the other services have the same roles as Air Force, mainly different type of air craft. Which leads to a interesting tidbit that Navy has more pilot slots then Air Force at this current time. Air Force is considerably winding down, take into effect we are withdrawing from conflicts.
Air force is very limited from my experiences in AFROTC. Don't get me wrong. I'm not hating on the program or the branch. But it seems that the Air Force is not of what it used to be when past family members were officers.

[fintstone]

Originally Posted by shoemakj

Damn kids. For the first time, I am older than my 2-star General Commander at my unit. He calls me sir

Certainly not the AF I was commissioned into in 1985.

If it makes you feel better...I enlisted about 10 years earlier...and still serve in the Reserve...youngster.

[fintstone]

Air Force has been crushed over the past 10 years. No funding, cutting troops, etc. No wonder there are problems.

It is no different than when we were winding down from Viet Nam...hard to keep focused and bean counters run everything. O-6s micromanaging everyone because they go from thinking about war/deployment to standing out if their subordinate's paperwork has fewer typos (track typos instead of kills/sorties, etc.).

My experience when testing (any kind of test) with officers is that many cheat and it was tolerated. Having started out enlisted where that would get you in the brig...I asked a few and it was the culture to do so where they went to college. It was common for most fraternities to have file cabinets of tests from instructors which were swiped by past students. They seemed to think it was normal study activity...and nothing wrong with it (not cheating, just "cooperate and graduate").

[theFONZ]

Geez, I read this thread last night when it was only a couple posts long and decided to stay out of it...oh well, here goes!

I'll start off with the OPs post. Sex scandals? Those have been going on in every service, university, profession, political party, etc. forever. So why would the USAF be immune? Same with drugs, they are in everywhere also. Of all the services, the USAF is probably the hardest on drugs. You get caught with anything drug or drug related, and it's immediate discharge, or jail then discharge. We do random urinalysis tests quite often, even while in Afghanistan. Cutting forces? People cost money, and the country doesn't have any. Everyone is cutting, thats not news. Security Forces is the largest single career field in the Air Force so it's no wonder they will have more cuts than others. The are also being augmented more and more with civilians on base.

Ok and for everyone else...

Why the hell would an Air Force pilot be as good as a Navy carrier pilot at landing on a carrier? What a stupid comparison. Oh by the way Bob, what do you think those "weenie" Air Force folks were saying about you being on a boat away from the fighting? Did your Carrier get regularly rocketed, mortared, and attacked? The Air Force bases there did.

As for basic training, the Air Force has lengthened it from six to eight weeks to add more training. When I went through (six weeks), I spent hours making sure my underwear was folded, there wasn't a spec of lint or dirt within 20 feet of my area, standing in a formation for hours per day, and all the other idiotic mindless things that were somehow important. It was both the easiest and dumbest thing I have ever done. Now at least they aren't as ridiculous about that stuff and spend more time on academic and physical training.

There also is a lot of "so-and-so says", "I heard", and "back in my days" going on here, but I'm just going to ignore those.

The current wars have been mostly ground wars, so not much need for traditional Air Force, other than close air support and other behind the scenes support. The Air Force has instead supported them heavily by assisting with, or taking over jobs, from the ground combat forces when they needed help. Air Force truck drivers in Iraq were right there getting blown up by IEDs right beside the Army drivers. Air Force engineers were (are?) traveling remote Afghanistan building and repairing tiny bases. At one point in Afghanistan, Air Force EOD was taking care of more IEDs (roadside bombs, car bombs, suicide bombs, etc) than the Army was. I could go on and on with endless examples, but you get the point.

And just because I'm a "candy ass", here is a story from a run-of-the-mill mission on my last Afghanistan deployment (which actually was the slowest and most boring out of my seven total). I'm TSgt Horton, BTW. Apparently some general thought it was novel that three separate Air Force units were involved with, and vital to, an Army Infantry dismounted operation to clear villages, even though we had been doing the same mission for years.

http://www.afcent.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123337524

[RWebb]

Carriers, no. But there was the USS Cole incident.

[fintstone]

LOL...it would be considered a "sex scandal" if you were caught looking at some of the OT threads on duty.

[J P Stein]

Originally Posted by zipinitaly

JP, I might be a candy ass...but I did manage to be a candy ass all over the globe for 20 yrs. You might be better off to insult someone other than service members. And as far as undisciplined, you are way off base with that as well.

OK, maybe 1 in 50.
I did my service time overseas.... Even back in the day, the AF guys attached to us were slobs.

I admit to looking forward to going 50 odd miles to their compound. We were out in the boonies while the AF was closer to civilization.......they lived like princes compared to we grunts. Really good food by civilian cooks......the KPs were civilians also.....thus the advice to my son. I traveled a bit too.

I happened to catch a parade on the tube recently. The Navy,The Army, the Marines.....all looked sharp passing in review.....the AF were in step most of the time.. I busted out laughing.

[theFONZ]

Originally Posted by Racerbvd

All services have their disrespectful members...