Air Force – Page 3 – The Daily Brief

New Air Force Dress Uniform?

16. May 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force

Pablo’s got some photos of what my First Sergeant calls “possible” new Service Dress Uniforms for our United States Air Force.

First of all, everyone knows that our dress uniforms make us look like businessmen with a miltary fetish or airline pilots, or bus drivers, depending on how you look at them. We need a new service dress uniform. They simply suck. They suck large. I cannot express the sucktitude that the USAF Service Dress Uniform exudes. Ask any Air Force member and they’ll tell you, they’d rather get their medal or their promotion in their BDUs or flight suits.

When it comes to the “possible” uniforms I’m thinking that we’re going in the wrong direction. I like the darker idea, but I’m a fan of David Weber’s Honor Harrington series, so I’m a bit biased there. With space becoming even more of the Air Force’s mission, we need to start acknowledging that in our uniforms.

The belt around the waist OVER the jacket and the high collar? No. Nix. Nein. Uh-uh. The fact that the silhouette of the “possible” uniforms resembles something out of WWII (and not the folks on OUR side of that conflict) bothers me from an image point of view. It’s too Nazi. It’s too Imperial Storm Trooper. Our civilian leaders keep insisting that we don’t have imperialistic intentions around the world and I’m of the mind that our military shouldn’t resemble Nazis or the most vile and evil villains from one of the most popular movie series in our liftime in any way, shape, or form.

Now…why do I put quotation marks around the word “possible?” Because if these photos are being circulated through the ranks, it means that the powers that be have pretty much decided that these are our choices and are trying to get a feel for our reaction to them.

Here’s mine: I’m thinking darker blue-black vs the straight black because I don’t think America is ready for its military to be in black. Space notwithstanding, black uniforms just have negative connotations historically and culturally. Lose the high collar and the belt. Besides the Imperial overtones, the belt will wear out long before the coat will and you KNOW if you try to replace just the belt, the shades simply won’t match and you’re going to have to buy the whole freaking jacket just because the belt wears out or you’re going to have to clean the belt multiple times until it matches. Making it a leather belt would just increase the Nazi/Imperial creep-out factor, don’t go there.

The high collar? It’s been done. It’s old. Only Marines look cool with them. I don’t know why.

Update: Andy over at Non Partisan Pundit has word that the “Hap Arnold” (open collar) will be the choice for our next go-round of sucktitude with the “Billy Mitchell” (Star Trek Collar) as our Dress Mess. Figures, the Dress Mess is the only Af Dress Uniform that’s never looked like crap.

How to Control Your Drinking 0013

04. May 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force, Pajama Game

In the military culture there’s nothing quite as brain-sucking as the “death by PowerPoint” day known as inprocessing, or as the Air Force has chosen to call it, “Right Start.” This is a full day of sitting in the club’s ballroom while a parade of briefers, who may or may not know the material they’re briefing, comes before you and explains in full detail what they do for a living and what to do if you need them. These used to end with, “If you have any further questions, call us at ext: ####.” These days they tend to end with “If you have any further questions, check out our FAQ at www.####.mil.” Some functions don’t even bother coming to fill you in on their function any more; they simply have a sys admin guy come in to tell you where to find their website. This is for our convenience. Okay, this is because they need to cut even more of our folks so the big boys can pay for their new toys. I know the fleet is old. I know some of the bombers are older than I am. But even my Airman Basic has been heard to mutter, “Haven’t they heard of a scheduled refresh?” Indeed. But now I’m way off the point and truly funny stuff is coming.
More »

Rites, Rituals and Legends #18: The Club

03. May 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force, Fun and Games, General, History, Military, Pajama Game

A well-established military base, being that it has to be all things to all residents therein, contains all or most of the elements contained in any well-run established community, over and above the bare requirements of troop housing and mission fulfillment. Some of these I have written about before— the post or base exchange retail stores, the commissary or grocery store, dependents’ schools, family housing. Others I have not: things like base troop clinics and hospitals, and recreation venues like gyms and swimming pools, bowling alleys, riding stables and swimming pools, movie theaters, snack bars, package (or liqueur stores), and the economic engine that drives many of a bases’ recreational venues— the clubs. A long-established location like the Yongsan Garrison, the major American Army garrison in Seoul, ROK, will have all of these, plus refinements like thrift stores, a little theatre venue, odd little gift concessions and snack bars, being accumulated by accretion like one of those odd shellfish, adding a little bit of this or that to it’s shell. (Yongsan had a couple of bespoke tailor concessions and a bicycle-repair shop, to my great interest and mystification.)

The Clubs are official and traditional: classically broken down (with variations according to service, location and era) into Officer, NCO and EM (enlisted men) Clubs. Once upon a military time, (probably during the century before the last) one would be safe in assuming that the officer’s club would be the plushest, not to mention the liveliest, but actually that would all depend— depend upon sufficient numbers of officers to keep the O’Club in the style to which it was once and would like again to become accustomed. In practice, at most Air Force bases of my experience, the NCO and lower ranks clubs were where the numbers and the free-spenders were, not to mention the women.

Lately, the trend in the Air Force seems to have been toward just one large consolidated club facility, with a central kitchen and various lounges, dining rooms and bars designated for officers, enlisted, or both. The Air Force, it would appear, has dealt with the potential indignity of a colonel’s lady, an NCO’s wife, and an airman’s girlfriend, all dealing with separate but similar over-indulgences and barfing up in adjacent lavatory stalls by deciding that everyone is an adult (well, mostly) and can just suck it up and move on. It’s not likely that anyone will remember on Monday morning anyway.

Again, in my experience— which was predominantly overseas— the clubs were a very mixed bag. The clubs in Greenland, for example were lively places, and the food was great. They packed them in, all the nights of the week that they were open… because, of course, there was absolutely bloody nothing out there beyond the base gates (not even any base gate, come to think on it, only the billboard outside the MAC terminal that said “Welcome to Sondrestrom, the Miami of the North!!), just thousands of square miles of rocky, ice-glazed tundra. What little competition there was came in the form of the SAS hotel cafeteria, and private and unofficial bar clubs focused around the lounges in the barracks buildings… very popular on those occasions when one wanted to party hearty and not run the risk of having to crawl outside on your way back to your barracks room.

Conversely, the Air Force NCO club at Zaragoza AB— what with all that lovely downtown competition— was lackluster and the food there thoroughly explored the narrow range of territory between the totally vile and the completely disgusting. I postulated the existence of a warehouse on base, completely filled with #10 cans of sludgy, salty brown gravy, as nearly every dish on the menu arrived from the NCO and O’Club kitchen swimming in a puddle of the disgusting stuff. The only time the Zaragoza clubs made any sort of profit at all was during the run-up to Gulf War I. All the troops passing through on their way to Saudi Arabia (otherwise referred to as “down-range”) were confined to base while laid-over… and the clubs had the best damn two or three months they ever had.

In Japan, the NCO/Enlisted Club was a lively and happening venue, the O’Club a gloomy and over-decorated establishment with wallpaper that would have disgraced a Tunisian cat-house, and appalling dining-room service: some friends of my friend Cheryl (who had a thing for guys in flight-suits) regaled us with an account of how they had gone in for dinner, one evening, placed an order… and then ordered take-out from the NCO club’s delivery service, to be delivered to room so and so, building so and such. Everyone was enormously amused at their description of the delivery-service driver, walking into the O’s dining room, laden with paper bags. The Club in Greece eventually was located in a rented tourist hotel high-rise in Glyphada, all of it and the swimming pool, transient quarters and barber shop, under one roof, guarded by armed, and flack-vest wearing Security Police. I was never able to decide if the sight of the SPS passing in front of the plate-glass dining room window was an unsettling or a reassuring sight.

It gets interesting when there are different services located close by, which affords an opportunity to comparison-shop, as it were, and for the Army and Marines to turn green-eyed envious at the comparative luxury of the Air Force enlisted clubs, and for the Air Force enlisted to appreciate the appallingly Spartan lifestyle lived by those who just couldn’t connect with an Air Force recruiter. The Marines on Okinawa took out their resentments by starting fights in the Air Force NCO club at Kadena AB and trashing the place, from which they were frequently banned. Sgt. Blondie tells me that the Marines do still have a go at the Air Force club now and again, but it’s become more of token bow to tradition, an occasional ritual for old-times sake. And rumor had it around Lackland AB, just before I retired, that the EM club at Ft. Sam was on the verge of being declared off-limits to Air Force personnel, due to the number of unsavory characters that congregated there… most of said unsavories being civilians, not Army troops, since Ft. Sam was an open post, pre 9/11. Only the thought of how this would look to civilians — imagine the horselaughs, an Army club being off-limits!— kept the command from actually doing it. (Or so the rumor had it.)

Your own recollections of clubs, fond or otherwise are invited in the comments.

Latest CMSAF Named

01. May 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force

From Air Force Link:

Chief McKinley selected as 15th CMSAF
Chief Master Sgt. Rodney J. McKinley…has been selected as the 15th chief master of the Air Force by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley. He will replace Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force Gerald R. Murray on July 1, following Chief Murray’s retirement June 30. Chief McKinley currently serves as the command chief master sergeant for Pacific Air Forces.

Linky, Linky

01. May 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force, General, Site News

Former long-time contributor to TDB, Kevin Connors has taken up solo-blogging, at Westpundit, and is now blogrolled in appreciation.

Sh-sh-sh-Shaving Cream, Be Nice and Clean

16. April 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force, General Nonsense

What happens when you test a fire retardant foam system “for just 15 seconds” and it doesn’t shut off? Apparently you can fill an entire hangar with the stuff. The guy in the photo is about 30 feet up on a scaffoding.

Click on the photo for the entire set over at The Cellar.

via Boing-Boing.

PCS(ing)

12. April 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force, General Nonsense, Pajama Game, The Funny

We’re literally in the middle of a PCS (Permanent Change of Station) move. We’re a bit more than halfway between where we were and where we’re going. This is my ninth move in 22 years. I hate moving.

Watching all your stuff being packed away and put on a van is distressing. Especially if any of the good stuff you’ve collected over the years have survived previous moves. You wonder if it’s going to make it this time. You wonder if the recliners you finally found that fit your body are going to be crushed out of shape. You wonder if that great cat tree you picked up with your last adopted furball is going to still have all its limbs. You wonder if they understand how much you really like your sound system.

Then there’s the military silliness that goes with a military move. For instance: The quarters we were living in are going to be completely renovated now that we’re out of them. Yet we still had to clean them as if someone was moving in tomorrow. When I say completely renovated I mean they’re going to tear out the guts; they’re going to rip out the plumbing, completely rewire the shorty electricity, trash the cupboards, and put in new floors and/or carpet. Yet still, we had to clean as if Sgt Snuffy was going to move in right after we vacated. It was hard. There’s something about doing pointless labor that kills a part of your soul. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve always left a place better than we found it. We pride ourselves in that. It’s just cleaning that well after sticking our heads into the house next door that’s in the process of being renovated, had us talking to ourselves. I don’t understand why I’m fine cleaning cupboards that are going to wind up in a dumpster as soon as the contractors get to them. A good wipe should have been sufficient.

I’ve been lucky in my career. I’ve always had bosses that gave me a week or two to get all the various and sundry paperwork done. This involves a treasure hunt of appointments around various offices on base that you may or may not have had anything to do with during your stay there. I have no problem outprocessing the library, I use the library. I had a bit of a problem with outprocessing the COMSEC (Communications Security) office. I didn’t have an account. I wasn’t responsible (for once) for any crypto gear. Yet I still had to stop by and have them look in their computer and say, “Yep, you’re right, you have nothing on file.” I asked why that couldn’t have been taken care of with a phone call. Airman Snuffy sort of scratched his head and shrugged his shoulders the way Airmen have been doing for generations. I just nodded. I’ve been through the same ol’ too many times to get my blood pressure up for that one.

Dog tags! Do you know that in the year 2006 you have to have a set of dog tags on your person when you PCS? I don’t think anyone’s asked for my dog tags since 1990 when I went to Saudi. Luckily, to my thinking, not Beautiful Wife’s, I don’t throw anything away. I still have my dog tags from 1990 tucked away in a thick card-stock 6-tabbed mobility folder with ziplock pockets. They’re right next to my last 522 from 1998 when I shot expert again on the M16 using the NATO course of fire (that’s the hard one in case you were wondering, and yes I’m proud of the fact I can shoot straight). Someone tried to tell me where to go to find the office that makes dogtags, somewhere near the flightline, just past and around Wing Safety…what? Why doesn’t personnel make them anymore? “Oh, we contracted that out.” Blink-blink. Because stamping someone’s name, branch of service, social, blood type and religious affiliation into aluminum requires a level of skill beyond the average personnel specialist’s comprehension?!!! Breath, blood pressure, breath. Hell I used to make them in my Orderly Room when I was a brand new two-striper because our unit was so damn big.

Training records. Yeah, those of you who have been paying attention and are in the Air Force know that Master Sergeants don’t need no stinking training records. That’s no longer true…at least not for my career field. Our functional manager decided we were special. (Let the little school-bus jokes fly, I have.) He decided that we needed to maintain our training records until we achieved our nine skill level. I don’t know why. I think he thinks he’s doing us a favor.

All of that got done though and now we’re on the road. I love and hate being on the road. The fact that we’re running I-80 Westbound makes me very happy. Tomorrow we’ll see mountains and buttes and prarie. The fact that Nebraska seems like the widest state in the union makes me crazy. I feel like I’m in a scene from Twister. “Cow.” “Another cow.” “Wait, I think that’s the same cow.” Every town in Nebraska along I-80 seems to be exactly the same as the other. Three exits surrounded by silos. All the silos look the same to me. Mom and Dad would either be proud or disappointed, hard to say.

But there’s an excitement to being in the middle of a PCS. New challenges. New things to do. New people to meet. New weirdness to overcome. New beginnings. This is the part of moving that makes the rest of it bearable. The anticipation.

Yeah, I know it’s going to be the same as any other place, only different, but leave me my delusions, ‘k?

C-5 Crashes at Dover AFB

03. April 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force, Domestic, General

News Article

DOVER, Del. – A C-5 cargo plane carrying 17 people crashed just short of a runway at Dover Air Force Base early Monday after developing problems during takeoff, military officials said. There was no immediate word on fatalities.

The plane, the military’s largest, went down about 6:30 a.m., according to Tech Sgt. Melissa Phillips, a spokeswoman for the base.

Allen Metheny, assistant director in the state Department of Public Safety, said some people aboard the plane were taken to hospitals with injuries, but he did not have numbers or details. BayHealth in Dover said the hospital received about 10 people from the crash, including some who appeared able to walk, spokeswoman Pam Marecki said.

Flying Status

02. April 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force, General, Pajama Game

My first flying experience was at a local fair in 1962 near Fulton, NY. There was a barnstorming pilot type with a Steerman biplane trainer who was offering short rides for “a penny a pound” which, as I recall, set my dad back by about sixty-five cents. I was hooked. Three years later, my father arranged to have Mom and the four kids fly on Eastern Airlines from Syracuse to NYC, where we met him and traveled on to Connecticut to visit his sisters and their families. In those days flying was an important event in the sense that people actually dressed up, with my brother and I in suits and ties, and my sisters wearing skirts with crinolines (today sweat suits seem to be de rigeur, with the airport experience only a couple of notches above that of the Cleveland Greyhound terminal).

Joining the USAF as a radar technician (328X1) gave little hope of flying, other than in transport from one duty station to another. However, things changed around late 1974, when SAC decided that it needed to have technicians available to fly missions in order to troubleshoot certain types of problems that only occurred while airborne. Until that point we were limited to high-speed taxi checks, which involved accelerating down the runway to near S1 speed, and then hitting the brakes. They wanted people who could fly entire B-52 and KC-135 sorties, often 8 – 10 hours or more in duration. I had just earned Master Technician rating and, with an expressed passion for flying, I was able to convince the powers-that-be that I was the ideal candidate. Another plus was that I would collect flight pay. As I recall, this amounted to $75 each month that I flew for some minimum amount of hours (I think it was five or ten). Qualification for this status required that I undergo physiological flight training, which meant a TDY to Pease AFB New Hampshire. More »

Personal Responsibility Takes Another Shot

23. March 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Ain't That America?, Air Force, Pajama Game, Stupidity

I went to Boyo’s TaeKwonDo class at the Youth Center tonight to watch like I do on most Thursday Nights. Beautiful Wife watches on Tuesday Nights. We all enjoy that…for the most part. Other parents with smaller children often-times let their hellions run wild and they get in the way of the class and are generally disruptive. They’ve been talked to. Other parents have tried to calm the offending kids only to be glared at by the parents. It’s no worse than any other place with kids who can’t or won’t behave with parents who can’t or won’t parent, but yeah, it kinda sucks.

Tonight I noticed that there were a few parents in the snack bar and as I entered the gym I noticed there were no parents watching the class in there. One woman who is in the class and acts as a sort of liaison walked up with a letter on letterhead in her hand. She told me that parents were no longer allowed in the gym to watch the class. That was the solution. I found the Director of the Youth Center and told her that I understood, but I wasn’t happy about her solution. She looked annoyed that anyone would question her GS-ness and informed me that it’s ALWAYS been the policy that parents couldn’t be in the gym while class was going on. Okay, myself and other parents have been watching our kids for over a year in there and no one’s ever said a word before this, I knew I wasn’t going to get anything like a straight answer out of this self-important twit. She cited safety concerns and yadda-yadda and I stopped her and asked, “Why not just ban little kids who aren’t in the class from the gym and solve the problem? There’s like four kids who’s parents won’t discipline them, simply ban them.” She looked horrified. “We couldn’t do that, it wouldn’t be fair if we didn’t do it across the board. Besides the instructors can decide on SOME nights that parents can watch.”

Okay, I was done. When they have an across the board hard policy that isn’t an across the board hard policy…

So because a few parents won’t discipline their brats, none of the parents can watch their kids in class anymore.

Crap like this makes me livid. Everything I’ve learned in 22 years of service about responsibility and culpability is trashed at the Youth Center. These are the people who are watching my boy after school. Don’t hold the responsible parties to a standard, simply punish all the parents and kids who want us there watching. The very last thing I expected from any organization on an Air Force Base.

Personal responsibility has always had a decent stronghold in the military, and it’s eroding at the edges.

Set a standard. Enforce the standard. When did this become hard?

The twist of lime to this story is that I found out today that it wasn’t even the brats in OUR class that caused the action. It was ONE kid in an entirely different class. One parent who wouldn’t control one kid completely ruins things for at least a dozen other parents.

PSA (Dental Clinic Edition)

21. March 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force, Rant

If anyone ever asks if you’d mind if you have an intern for your dentist because your mouth is an “interesting case study,” tell them HELL NO I DON”T WANT AN INTERN. You know why? Because they don’t know how to give a painless pain-killer shot. Four months worth of work and most of my pain has been from the freaking injections.

Mohammed on a mo-ped, don’t they teach that stuff in dental school?

First to Fly

04. March 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force, General, History, Local, Military, Technology, Wild Blue Yonder

This month is the anniversary of the very crack of dawn, for American military aviation, and it happened in San Antonio. At the Fort Sam Houston parade ground… or to be precise, over it. More here, by a local reporter.

SUBJ: 97TH AIR FORCE UNIFORM BOARD (AFUB) RESULTS

06. February 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force

Since this doesn’t apply to all who visit here, I’ll shove it below the line.

Looks like the ladies are getting some weird mixed messages from the board, but my biggest gripe is that we’re not going to be able to wear badges on the new utility uniforms that we earned while working with sister/joint services. I’m sorry, any zoomie that jumps out of perfectly good aircraft on purpose, they ought to wear their jump badge, just so we know they’re crazy.

When we all come home

04. February 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force, Memoir, Military

Tonight while watching the current Military Channel program about submarines, when the program got to the part where the patrol ended, the scenes brought back a lot of memories.

In 22 years in the AF, I served six overseas tours, for a total of just over seven and a half years out of the US. Only one of those tours was accompanied, two years in the Philippines, at Clark AB. That means that the rest, five and a half years, was very lonely, separated from family. Then, at the end of each tour was the sheer joy and excitement of coming home!

Let me see if I can stir some distant memories in the hearts of my comrades who experienced like joys and sadnesses. My first set of orders out of Keesler was to the 6314th CAMRON, Osan AB, Korea. In fact, when my Army son-in-law finished his AIT many years later, his first overseas tour was Korea. Why does the US government love to torment us so? Well, it does seem that way. I remember that Korea in those days, only 8 years or so from the so-called end of hostilities, was a 13-month isolated assignment. I don’t know what it is today, but in those days the country was pretty badly torn up, and one did not go off base out of uniform. At least that is what the rule was. I don’t know how many people followed it, but…..well. Since I arrived in December and left in January, I had the dubious honor of being a 62-64 man. At a glance, it looked like 2 years, but it was, after all, only 13 months. And I darn near missed my flight home from Kimpo, as the day that I was scheduled to leave, there was an MPC change, which locked all the bases down, everyone restricted to base while the military payment certificates, which was what we used for money, were exchanged for new ones. This was to limit the black market, and it was always done as a surprise so, if you left your money off base, it was gone!

However, I managed to cadge a pickup truck from the motor pool, a friend to drive it back, and we managed to talk our way off base from the SP’s on the gate. I was desperate, I did not want to get stuck there and have to get new orders!! We managed to get to Kimpo, I got on my flight, and in a couple of days, I was putting my feet under Mama’s dinner table again. I wasn’t married then, Jen and I were engaged, and it was pure heaven to get my arms around her again! I was then assigned to Tyndall AFB, FL, and we were married in November of 1964.

We had just enough time to get married, have a baby, and then I was slapped with orders again. This time, to the PI. After 8 months of wrangling, Jen and L’il Joe were getting off a Pan Am 707 in Manila. We spent a few days with some missionary friends of mine before the trip up to Clark, Clark was an interesting tour, I was in an Air Rescue unit flying Grumman HU-16’s. They were durn near older than I was, and the radar system got off the Mayflower! We did a lot of sightseeing, had a lot of friends, and other than the ever-present violence, it was a pretty fun tour. I remember that my younger brother was at the time stationed in Vietnam, and he managed to get sent to Clark for a 2-month field training school, during which time he stayed with us. This kid, who had been in Vietnam, was scared to death of the Philippines. When he would go out the main gate after school, he would hit a run, and not stop until he got to our gate. We lived only a couple of blocks outside the gate, and we found this amusing. During this tour, I spent a couple of 30-day TDY’s to DaNang, we had a FOB there, and everybody had to do his part. That was one thing I didn’t like, leaving my wife and baby son in the PI, but we had close friends who took care of her. Then, when the tour was over, we were sent to Pease AFB, NH, a very lovely place, and one of our most enjoyable tours. Man, I’m getting old! Pease, and most of the other bases where I served, are now closed. Ugh!

The next call of duty was to Taiwan, where I spent 15 months at CCK, Ching Chuan Kang AB. Pease had gotten me into SAC, and once they got their mitts on you, you were stuck there! CCK, located about 75 miles south of Taipei, at Taichung, was a very safe, pleasant tour. We had KC-135’s there, used to fuel B-52’s from Guam flying to you-know-where. We lost one aircraft and crew while I was there. They were flying back from their mission when the plane just blew up over the Pacific. That was a sad day.

Then the happy day came in May 1970, when I flew home from Taipei, with orders to Wurtsmith AFB, MI. Another now-closed base. Man, the joy and excitement of meeting my wife and kids – my daughter had been born at Kittery Navy Yard in Portsmouth, NH, and my family had stayed in NH while I was in Taiwan, just hoping I would get sent back there. No, in the wisdom of the AF, they sent me to Michigan and another guy went from CCK to Pease. Don’t ask me why. SAC knew it all.

More in the next post of my tours in Thailand and in the UK, and Turkey. And of the sweet homecoming from those tours. Wow, it was so nice, and almost surreal, to be home again! It had gotten so bad, so lonely, that I almost began to believe that I’d never get home to my loving family again!

That’s all for this time. Hope I brought back some great memories of now-distant homecomings for you!

Redball

22. January 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force, Pajama Game

I don’t know about launch procedures in other USAF commands, but in the now defunct SAC it was a special experience. Each maintenance squadron would assemble members from each shop waiting for something to break on a plane due to fly that morning. Generally speaking, telling the crew that they had a broke-dick airplane so just call it a day was akin to airbrushing a penis on Curtiss LeMay’s portrait where his cigar should be – and under certain circumstances such as a real mission or a SAC operational readiness inspection it was impossible.

Mostly it was boring and, in the below-zero winters of northern New York, very cold. The back of the van (which never had a working heater) was a pile of airmen from the Radar, Radio, Fire Control, Doppler, and Bomb Nav shops, stacked not unlike cats in a barn. To this day I can sleep under almost any circumstances as a result of that experience, and to this day I’d bet that the radio call “31 – Control, we have a redball for the radar shop on aircraft [fill in tail number for Broke-Dick Airplane]” would have me fully conscious in a matter of seconds. Early pre-flight problems were fairly easy, but when the aircraft is sitting on the apron ready to go, it could get very intense.

Aircraft maintenance under any circumstances can be a dangerous business, but with radar and engines lit, and a crew anxious to go, it often got downright scary. My worst nightmare was always an APN-59 radar system failure on a KC-135. Sometimes we got lucky and it was either a navigator or copilot display, but it was usually the antenna or receiver/transmitter. To replace the antenna one had to first roll a scaffold to the front of the aircraft and remove the fiberglass radome. That was a fairly routine drill that, in and of itself, was fairly straightforward. The problem was that, with a new second lieutenant navigator, it was not a question of if but rather when they would decide to fire up the radar or set the antenna rotating – with people working on it. I was convinced that I was sterile from the microwave consequences of these breaches of red tag etiquette until Real Wife got pregnant 16 years after the last exposure. Replacing the receiver transmitter was also a joy. It weighed, as I recall, between 80 – 90 lbs. Nobody did it by the book – that took too much time. The real procedure was to straddle the hatch in front of the nose gear and muscle it in and out of its nest. In the day I weighed all of 150 lbs – it was not an easy feat.

The other one I loved during launch was what I recall to be a transponder system of some sort (Joe Comer, help me out – the R/T in both the BUF and KC-135 sat in the tail right next to the stabilizer trim screw, with the antennae in the vertical stabilizer). This was another nearly 100 lb. marvel of vacuum tube electronics technology. It was fairly accessible in the BUF, being just aft of the rear belly hatch. In the tanker, however, one had to climb through a very small hatch into a VERY claustrophobic area just aft of the fuel tanks. The danger in either case was a crewmember checking the stabilizer trim while you were in there (again, not a matter of if but rather when). The stabilizer trim screw, which was several inches in diameter, would move very quickly when activated and could easily impale or otherwise disfigure the unwary technician. Yes we had trim locks with red tags, but aircrew officers seemed to truly believe that they were more of a suggestion than a prohibition.

Being good at dealing with redball situations led to being assigned to more frequent launch duty, probably not unlike taking point in the Army. I do believe that it built self confidence and the ability to quickly assess and act like no other experience I have had before or since.

Radar

Some days are wonderful

13. January 2006 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force, Military, Wild Blue Yonder

I got the shock of my life this morning. An email from an old friend who was stationed with me at CCK AB in Taiwan. I have no idea how he found me, but it was a joy, and a pleasure to catch him up on the last 25 years. We worked together in the base MARS station. If you ever were overseas and talked by phone patch to home, you know what I mean. I was able to talk to my wife about every week due to my position. It made the tour much shorter! Some days are just jewels!

JSF Development Money Cut

30. December 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force, Air Navy, Politics, Technology

This from Aero-News:

Department of Defense representatives told Bloomberg News Friday the Pentagon plans to end a development program for a backup powerplant for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF.)

The move — which would have to be approved by Congress — aims to save approximately $1.7 billion through 2011, according to a DoD memo released last week. That’s not a small amount of money by any means — but it is a relative drop in the bucket compared to the $256 billion total cost of the fighter jet development program.

The backup program was initiated by Congress in 1995, according to Bloomberg, with the intent of maintaining competition and, thus, lowering costs of the Pratt & Whitney-designed powerplant intended to be the primary engines for the JSF. In a $2.2 billion deal, GE and Rolls-Royce teamed up to develop a backup powerplant — which also would have been utilized had technical problems cropped up with the P&W F135 units (below).

This would seem to me to be penny-wise and pound-foolish. Single-sourcing on any major component is just never a good idea. Even if there are no technical problems with the Pratt & Whitney design, any of myriad problems can develop to disrupt supply over the decades which this aircraft is expected to be in service. And I don’t believe, on a program of this size, any economies-of-scale will be realized by giving the entire production to one supplier.

My feeling, however, is that this cutback will not last. General Electric simply has to much clout in Congress (and Rolls-Royce in Parliament) to be nudged-out without a major fight.

But, as Military.com reports here, engine development is not the only part of the program facing cutbacks:

The plan would scale back the Pentagon’s requested JSF research, development, testing and engineering funding level by $108 million. The Senate-passed appropriations bill called for a larger $270 million reduction. The House’s defense spending bill fully funded the Pentagon’s $2.4 billion JSF RDT&E request.

The report accompanying the conferees’ FY-06 defense appropriations bill contains no language explaining the JSF reduction. But in a separate September report on the version of the defense spending Legislation that was later approved by the full chamber, the Senate Appropriations Committee said “continuing uncertainties” surround the joint Air Force-Navy program, making it “difficult to estimate the resources needed for the program.”

I find it a bit unsettling that these “continuing uncertainties” exist this far into the program. But it would seem to me that cutting development money would only hinder their resolution.

You’ve Got to Laugh (051229)

29. December 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force, Memoir, Stupidity, The Funny

There was a particularly contrary officer that worked in my area. He wasn’t in my chain of command, but I had to deal with him on a regular basis. His problem: He simply didn’t trust anything enlisted people said. He wanted chapter and verse and a copy of the page where it’s written. And sometimes even when he’s wrong he’ll argue that it didn’t apply to us because we weren’t assigned to the Air Force at the time. He made me tired.

After two plus years and two hours of going around on one issue in particular, I threw up my hands in exasperation and simply said:

“Sir, I’ve come to the conclusion that no matter what I say to you, I’m going to be wrong.”

Without any irony whatsoever his response was:

“Now that’s just not true.”

Luckily we were interrupted by one of the older civilian guys dragging me away because he needed something and I didn’t ruin the rest of my time there by laughing in the man’s face.

Caption This One (051114)

14. November 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force, General Nonsense

————-

Rodney’s got one going at OTB.

MILITARY HISTORY

20. September 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force, Air Navy, History, Military, The Funny

Complete the following:

“A _______ for SAC Is a __________ for freedom.”

“You call, We _____” is one of the mottoes of ________ units.

The U-6A, formerly designated the ________ is a __________ type aircraft,

__________ Aircraft Company.

The B-52 was first flown in _______, and is affectionately (until you skin your

knuckles working on one) known as a __________. )Please, the “nice” version!

What was the most common method of calling home from bases in the far east

during the Vietnam ~~conflict~~ war?

Try these, and I’ll see if I can come up with a few more goodies. Kevin, you

probably know all the answers!

AF Fitness Test Changes – Again!

11. August 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force

In the 60s, the Air Force’s fitness approach made use of the RCAF’s 5BX plan (you can download a copy of the book here — seeing the book cover brings back memories from the 60s of my Dad going through this exercise series almost every evening). When I came on active duty in 1980, the Air Force’s annual fitness test was a 1.5 mile run.

The run stuck around for another 10 or 12 years and was ultimately replaced with the dreaded stationary cycle. This program was tweaked a couple of times in the 90s and I think eventually included sit-ups.

I haven’t kept up much on the Air Force’s fitness test since I retired, but I see they’ve brought back the run AND they’re still tweaking that:

In January 2004, the Air Force underwent a major change in the way it looked at fitness. As part of the Fit to Fight program, the service adopted a more stringent physical fitness assessment that measures aerobic fitness, physical strength/endurance and body composition.

…

Updates to AFI 10-248 will include a change in how body composition is measured, a new table for the running portion of the test that takes into account the runner’s elevation, and a change in the number of days an Airman must wait before retesting after having scored in the marginal category.

I missed the run when they took it away. It was simple and easy to measure.

I hated the bike test. It involved all sorts of complex calculations based on heart rate, time, resistance, and other stuff. I saw some clearly fit individuals (including a guy who biked miles on a daily basis) fail the stationary bike test. Furthermore, with the run, you could test everyone at once. Not so with the bike test. At one point in my career, one of my additional duties was running the bike test, and it was an administrative nightmare (and a time sink).

I know that new discoveries are made about wellness and fitness, and I know that our requirements have changed in the GWOT, but I do wonder if the Air Force will ever stop tweaking.

Anyway, I’m glad the run has made a comeback.

Launch Tower at Cape Canaveral Demolished

11. August 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force, Science!, The Final Frontier, Wild Blue Yonder

From Air Force Space Command News Service:

CAPE CANAVERAL AFS, Fla. – What took years to build took seconds to knock down Aug. 6 when 171 pounds of strategically placed explosives were detonated, toppling the historic 179-foot mobile service tower at Launch Complex 13 here.

The 1,300-ton structure was used to launch Atlas/Agena space launch vehicles in the 1960s and 1970s. The most famous of those launches were five Lunar Orbiter missions for NASA in 1966 and 1967. Those missions photographed about 99 percent of the moon’s surface and helped pave the way to men landing on the moon in 1969.

The pictures are pretty cool, but it’s a little sad to see this. I’m sure it’s tough to have to maintain an unused launch tower, but this was a piece of history, one of the monuments to our nation’s continuing pioneer spirit.

Fortunately, the towers at Launch Complex 39 are a little bigger and would be harder to take down. 🙂

Is It Just Me…(050804)

04. August 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force

…or is a brand new Mustang sitting in an A1C’s driveway with the vanity license plate “BURNOUT” a pretty sure indication that the youngster is guaranteed a trip to the local OSI?

Feeding the Beast

29. July 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Ain't That America?, Air Force, General Nonsense

You know the drill. You’ve been tasked to put a team together to solve problem X. You gather your team, you gather your resources, you turn some abandoned old hut into your state of the art workcenter. Staff papers and action papers and point papers are all pooled to study problem X. Meetings are held. VTCs happen once the fiber is run to the old hut. There must be TDYs to D.C., Colorado, Hawaii and Nebraska because it’s that serious a problem…we must discuss face to face this serious serious problem. The discovery that the problem is bigger than it seemed is inevitbale. It’s now problem XYZ and Q(?). Everyone’s got the same problem(s) and teams just like yours are set up at key locations for all the commands. The orignal team disbands due to PCS moves and new people come in. Money is projected out for the next five years to ensure success. At some point a smart airman walks into the office with a magazine article from Wired or Computer News with a simple, off-the-shelf, solution to problem X and quietly tries to implement it, but it’s not to be. A Lt Col on loan from the Reserves and who works with Gigantic Aerospace (GA) n his “real” job knows that GA’s Information Technologies section can do a better, more military, solution and the studies begin anew. Manhours are gauged. Software development begins. The company that first released the off-the-shelf software solution is bought out. Software engineering ensues. Testing happens. Tests are studied. The hut gets knocked down and a new building with not enough power outlets and NO phone lines is built…it will be a couple more years before the comm issues are fixed so the military rents office space from GA. More meetings and TDYs occur. One of GA’s subsidiaries (made up of the original, now retired team members) gets the contract. No, military people won’t be able to use the software, this is now serious stuff with an eclectic and stiff learning curve, we need full time contractors on the job 24/7 and they’re all going to need clearances so we should probably hire retirees or actively recruit folks with a fresh new clearance.

The smart airman watches all of this and spits while he goes back to college, goes for his degree, and gets the hell out to form his own group of contractors that he can sell to GA in a couple years.

And that’s just one of the retention problems we’re having.

…end satirical rant…

The Safety Inspection

19. July 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force

Is there anything on this planet that causes supervisors and department heads to lose their minds faster than a Safety Inspection? Seriously, as a Safety NCO I email bulletins and constantly hammer home the basics at staff meetings and through other emails and that’s been going on for months. The day before and the day of the inspection, suddenly these things are a “suprise” to all and there’s this mad scramble. I’ve watched it for 20 years…still don’t get it. What is so hard about doing the right thing or correcting something as soon as you see there’s a problem?

Update: Jesus Christ on a Pogo Stick people are stupid! Over and over and over and over and over again we talk about the “dreaded” illegal space heater and I swear to all that’s holy we found one illegally set up in almost every freaking office I stepped into! (What makes a space heater illegal and not just stupid on one of the hottest freaking days of the year? If it’s under a desk and doesn’t have 18 inches of clearance and doesn’t turn off when it tips over and doesn’t comply with safety tests that NASA would balk at.)

Air Force Space and Missile Pioneer Dies

21. June 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force

From Air Force News, June 21, 2005:

SAN ANTONIO (AFPN) — Retired Gen. Bernard Adolph Schriever, widely regarded as the father and architect of the Air Force space and ballistic missile programs, died of natural causes at home in Washington on June 20.

I’m embarrassed to say that I thought General Schriever had passed away years ago. Nonetheless, I am deeply in his debt. In 1983, when I was still a 1Lt, my unit, the 20th Missile Warning Squadron, was one of the first in the newly formed Air Force Space Command (simply called Space Command back then). It was cool to be on the cutting edge, since it was obvious even then that Space Command was the place to be. And look how far it’s come since then.

Actually, the General’s influence on me personally goes back even further. In the early 60s, my dad was part of the team that introduced the Minuteman to F.E. Warren AFB (General Schriever helped develop the Minuteman program, as the AF news article points out). Living on base in Cheyenne is one of my earliest memories, and being an Air Force brat obviously played a part in my later decision to join the military.

I was unaware that the General was born in Germany (he came to America in 1917).

Perhaps this is a name to add to this list of 100 greatest Americans, since this list is unredeemable.

UPDATED 6/22/05: I thought I had a link that would let you quickly see Discovery Channel’s entire top 100 Americans list, but they fooled me. I have found such a link now (the second of the two links in the last paragraph above). For more on this list, see my post at Ticklish Ears.

Kadena AB Japan…

13. June 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Air Force

is a very possible destination for me and mine next year. Who’s been there? What did you think?

I keep hearing things like, “My best assignment ever.” and “Think Hawaii at half the price.”

I’m thinkin’ if it happens I’m finally gonna get myself dive certified, so is Beautiful Wife, and Boyo will be just about old enough to start as well.

The Daily Brief