No joke!!
No joke!!
I was with a unit that used to go to the flags at Nellis a LOT. Red, Green, Checkered, whatever else. We'd go a couple times a year. We'd usually stay downtown in place like the MGM Grand or whatever.
One year the OIC decides to book travel like 6 months out, so now we're staying on base. Everyone was PISSED! Instead of the regular Vegas per diem we're only getting like $30 a day, have 3 rentals instead of the usual 20 - everyone's bitching & moaning the whole time.
We get to base lodging, & there's a USMC squadron there with their 18's or Harriers or whatever, and these maintainers are in the lobby lounge in front of a TV playing on an Xbox they brought, drinking beer, going on and on about how awesome it is to be in an AIR FORCE hotel making 30 bucks a day!! Best trip ever!!
Remember the good ol' days when you could just plop your paper vouchers on the desk in the orderly room outside of the commander's office for an airman (or equivalent) to handle because that was their job? Now I have to spin aircraft mechanics up on DTS, authentication certificates, IP address settings. We may as well all go to IT schools before core MOS training.
We were in formation on a hot day for something one time & there was a band formation in front of us. The gal holding the cymbals went wobbly, stepped forward one, went left, went right, then kept going til she hit the deck. Loudest cymbal crash ever .
You have not lived unless you have had midrats on a carrier.Midnight chow was always my favorite.
The worst is when they would stick their bare hands into a bucket of fuel at -40, that was a medivac and usually seperation....of the hand and their service. Extreme cold weather is noting to fuck around with.When I was stationed at Ft Richardson and we'd got to the field in the winter we'd setup a shitter tent and the Pvt's were responsible for keeping the fuel can fuel so that there was heat in the tent. And of course as always happens one of them would forget to check and the stove would go out. The new guys on their first winter field problem would go out to take a dump and didn't know about warming the seat before putting bare skin on it. We'd have at least 1 per year that we'd have to take the seat off the platform and haul them into the sleeping tent to warm their ass up to get the seat unstuck. It was more fun than someone sticking their tongue to a pole.
I was army aviation for 8 years, we ate pretty good and slept in Hangars quite a bit. The Army didnt like their $20-40 million helicopters to be sitting outside in the dirt or extreme cold if there was a hangar close by. Our Huey's would have transmission seal problems if we tried to start in -20 without any sort of preheat.Any time I could make an excuse to have to go to an Air Force base you damn well know I did. I had a colorful career for a mechanic to start with. My first unit I was assigned to had a tasking to provide 2 mechanics to a Air Force weather squadron at the air base in Hanau, Germany. So it's a Army base but this weather squadron is assigned there to provide weather reports to all the pilots. They had no barracks on base and only a couple of offices and like 2 bays in a old motor pool for me to work out of. But when the Army went to the field so did the AF guys to provide weather reports. Plus we had RAT rigs spread out around the area to send back reports. And none of these AF guys knew anything about an engine. Kept me hopping trying to keep everyone one running and on the air.
But when we had to go to a base for parts or stuff it was always to a AF base. And I'd be like drop me off at the chow hall and pick me up on the way out. You guys ate SOOOO MUCH better than any Army defac I ever went into.
Any thoughts on the F-15EX?I was army aviation for 8 years, we ate pretty good and slept in Hangars quite a bit. The Army didnt like their $20-40 million helicopters to be sitting outside in the dirt or extreme cold if there was a hangar close by. Our Huey's would have transmission seal problems if we tried to start in -20 without any sort of preheat.
When I was Air Force, we put the F-15's into hangars every night, it helped preserve a 15 year old aircraft from freezing and breaking crap when it went down to -40. Pull them out, chock them, get then started and off they went. Landed, fix in the cold, then put into the hangar so the pilots could have a warm seat the next morning...hahaha
Well if we bought 1500 of them, then I think it would be great, I think that the F-22 would have been also an option but EVERYONE WHO BUILT IT is gone so they would have to relearn how to make it. F-35 is overpriced toy, too much electronics and special needs to operate in a war time environment and its heavy. Any major war will be a war of attrition and we don't have enough assets for a slug fest with a true foe.Any thoughts on the F-15EX?