The eDodo Rumor Mill

Re: Northrop dropping out of tanker bidding

Author: Slilock
Forum: The Rumor Mill
Date: 2010-03-10

I was half tempted to write a half smart assey response here....

So are these new tankers supposed to just refuel big cargo planes...for...like...like...when they fly over the big pond?

Whhooppss... I have these questions reversed...oh well...

I mean...are predator drones taking any sort of "market share" away from the fighters and attack aircraft in theater?

Is there still a need for tankers to orbit some 30,000 feet above the Persian Gulf and refuel fighters?

I am ASSuming that predators and/or other drones have pretty good "legs" and there has been no need to make them air refuelable.

Here, I'll answer.

You're stupid, surprisingly enough planes are still refueled in the air, they have prototyped demonstrated a UAS (or whatever they're called now) being refueled by a KC-135 at Edwards. This was back in '07.

Re: Northrop dropping out of tanker bidding

Author: comicus_01
Forum: The Rumor Mill
Date: 2010-03-09

And yes, we refuel the heavies going across oceans. Just because they can hold a lot of gas and a lot of stuff, doesn't mean they can hold a lot of gas AND and lot of stuff at the same time, AND take off from whatever airfield gave them their stuff and gas.
Shhhhh, don't confuse him. For chills: max cargo weight plus max fuel weight for cargo planes usually is greater than the max take off weight. So sometimes you have to trade one for the other. Though I have to say that the times I went on a plane after it was loaded, they generally looked pretty full. I think volume was more of an issue than weight. I would guess that usually both the cargo and the fuel were at 80% of their max weight. And that was still enough to get to Europe.

Also, as I said above, I caveat my knowledge by saying what I saw was planes going across the Atlantic... you've flown mostly around the Pacific, so....

Now, I remember one of our guys saying some of the first C-17s that Charleston received did not have the gas to make it non stop from there to Europe, so they would sometimes stop off at Dover or McGuire for a pit stop. But then they added another fuel tank and I think that solved that problem.

Re: Care package suggestions

Author: Mutt
Forum: The Rumor Mill
Date: 2010-03-09

Beef jerky.

One thing to watch out for, though, is to check the ingredients list. Believe it or not, there are beef jerkies out there that contain pork products and will get yanked if you ship them over there.

Re: Coward

Author: SCalCanz
Forum: The Rumor Mill
Date: 2010-03-09

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q101/chills1994/popcornEmoticon.gif

Please continue to talk amongst yourselves. BTW, I have engaged with senior leadership on the issue. We'll see how that goes...

Re: Obama's Land Grab....just 10 million acres in 9 states

Author: nemoman
Forum: Politics
Date: 2010-03-09

After you have enjoyed your private circle jerk, the fact remains that we all have incidents of ownership in the public lands that transcend our ownership of private property. For example, I own a condo at 8000 feet in the eastern sierra. It is 1800 square feet and governed by the usual CCRs run by a homeowners board that reminds you of the same fucks who ran for high school student government. Yet minutes from that condo, I have access to the backside of Yosemite. I have instant access to the Pacific Crest and John Muir trails. For payment of minor fees, that pale next to the carrying cost of the condo, I have access to thousands of acres of pristine wilderness, and could literally hike from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. I can sleep on the ground or pitch a tent, fish in wild streams, build fires, skinnydip in rivers, take my dog off his leash and in general do more than the CCRs at my condo allow. So the President and Congress are my homeowners association for this land. I do not know that they are any less accountable than my condo board. One of the many reasons I voted against Bush junior is that the butthead permitted snowmobiles into Yellowstone. He's gone, and the wilderness abides.

Re: Best IM Program

Author: Youbecha
Forum: Internet / Software / Computer Hardware
Date: 2010-03-09

Well, two and a half years later, I would say use Skype.

Re: The Perils of Social Media to Military Ops

Author: Chicken Salad
Forum: The Rumor Mill
Date: 2010-03-09

1-2-3-4-5? That's the same combination I have on my luggage!

Re: Coward

Author: Youbecha
Forum: The Rumor Mill
Date: 2010-03-09

We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth & reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. In this enlightened age & in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining & holding the highest offices that are known in the United States.

Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwhome.html

Re: Care package suggestions

Author: comicus_01
Forum: The Rumor Mill
Date: 2010-03-09

porn. duh.

oh, and cookies. I don't know about those dudes, but I can be a total cookie whore.

Re: March 2010 Issue!

Author: comicus_01
Forum: The Rumor Mill
Date: 2010-03-09

- Former missileer now AOC/instructor
- the stereotypical MTL, whatever that is (beats me, we never had 'em)
Heh, sounds like my first AOC/MTL combo.

AOC had sat in silos at.... I have no fucking idea. But he did. And he even had a base newspaper clipping framed on his wall from when he pulled crew duty (or at least posed like they did) with his father who was a bird Col and a group commander. Yes, like father like son. Seriously, who the fuck when your dad is a crew dog, then decides: "yep, that's the career I want to do!"?? Of course, being a new smack at the time, I had no clue how fucked up this was. Dude was totally and completely 100% by the book. He wasn't a jerk like you might suspect, but he could never once display any sort of flexibility. You know, the key to air power. But apparently not to space power.

Oh, and the year before I got there, he had been one of G-Lo's bitches. Um, I mean aids. I think he once told us a story about having to iron one of G-Lo's shirts at the last second for him. So he started as AOC when showed up to the squadron in August.

I think the stereotypical MTL has to be a cop. Yep, ours had done something like 13 or 14 years as a security forces dude. I remember him once telling us something about being at Vandenberg, not sure where else he may have served. So yeah, I guess he was also inspored by space command.

I remember my world history teacher rolling his eyes when I told him Capt X was my AOC. He too was a missileer, but apparently one of the few laid back ones. Ok, must have been FE Warren because I swear he said he got his masters degree at CSU. Then I went to Patrick on Ops and saw first hand that about 50% are total by the book tools who have no ability to think for themselves, while most of the other 50% actually seemed like ok people who did their best to put up with the job.

2nd AOC was a 135 nav (do they exist in any form any longer???) and the MTL was the notorios Mean Greene Machine. He started out life as a B-52 tailgunner, then when those got axed, switched to being a boom. He was... interesting. Definitely inspored by SAC. He turned out ok though. A little weird, but never bothered me.

Re: Northrop dropping out of tanker bidding

Author: GreenSwitch
Forum: The Rumor Mill
Date: 2010-03-09

Is there still a need for tankers to orbit some 30,000 feet above the Persian Gulf and refuel fighters?

You're kidding me, right? I mean, all tanker pride aside, how the fuck do you think fighters stay airborne? Or did you not know the war is still going on?

And yes, we refuel the heavies going across oceans. Just because they can hold a lot of gas and a lot of stuff, doesn't mean they can hold a lot of gas AND and lot of stuff at the same time, AND take off from whatever airfield gave them their stuff and gas.

I feel for Northrop, but I'm happy Boeing will get it. Mostly I'm just hoping we aren't going to argue about this for the next 30 years. A less awesome new tanker is better than no new tanker.

Re: March 2010 Issue!

Author: Enrique
Forum: The Rumor Mill
Date: 2010-03-09

Well done all around.

Mad props to No Respect for both the quality and quantity. A rarity 'round heah as well as elsewhere.

Dief, you always rock.

It's taken probably a 5 or 6 episodes, but Joe Dink is finally growing on me. The Mulder/Scully reunion, coupled with the PERFECT scraggly Mitch's employee stereotype, definitely sent it over the top.

Speaking of which...

That's what I should do. I should take ideas of cadet stereotypes that I overlooked and do them next month. Any other suggestions?

Hell yeah, might as well franchise the sequel. How about cadets and non-cadets alike, maybe...

- Frat & Travel doolie females (don't forget the Freshman 15)
- Former missileer now AOC/instructor
- the stereotypical MTL, whatever that is (beats me, we never had 'em)
- 2nd BCT cadre who's attended Recondo/Air Assault/Airborne
- waiters
- Martards
- church types

Re: Northrop dropping out of tanker bidding

Author: comicus_01
Forum: The Rumor Mill
Date: 2010-03-09

Here is the real question in all this: How many jobs will this create/save?
Zero. Since the gov't is the sole customer, the net gain in jobs will actually be zero, regardless of how many people Boeing claims they hire. The gov't by definition cannot create jobs. It will actually result, long term, in a net loss of jobs. Now, as I and I think just about everyone on here agrees, we need a military and we need weapon systems for them to use, so of course we have to pay people to make those weapons. But this talk about jobs is bullshit.

Re: Northrop dropping out of tanker bidding

Author: comicus_01
Forum: The Rumor Mill
Date: 2010-03-09

So are these new tankers supposed to just refuel big cargo planes...for...like...like...when they fly over the big pond?

Whhooppss... I have these questions reversed...oh well...

I mean...are predator drones taking any sort of "market share" away from the fighters and attack aircraft in theater?

Is there still a need for tankers to orbit some 30,000 feet above the Persian Gulf and refuel fighters?

I am ASSuming that predators and/or other drones have pretty good "legs" and there has been no need to make them air refuelable.
Did you sleep through your MAS or PMS or whatever the military studies classes were called back then? I would think tankers and airlift would have come up at least once.

Anyway: On occasion a cargo plane will need to refuel crossing the ocean. But generally not. The range is pretty decent. Dover C-5s would generally leave and fly off to Rota, Lajes, or Germany, land, refuel, maybe get a new crew, and continue on from there. When it comes to cargo, unless it's really really time sensitive (which I don't think I ever saw), the AF is pretty happy to let a plane land somewhere to refuel. I really don't know about crossing the Pacific though. I assume going that way they would fly from CA to Hawaii, then Guam, and so on. Also, sometimes our planes would go off to an army base (say Ft. Campbell or Ft. Polk) to pick up army crap, but instead of coming back through Dover, they would go through Westover or Stewart. Save our Mx guys from a little work, plus those two bases are that much closer to the European bases. Now, from Europe I know early on at least, they were deploying C-17s to Germany, then they'd take off, fly over Afghanistan, air drop some pallets, then return to Germany with at least one air refueling along the way. But aside from that, I didn't hear about much (not counting AR training flights).

Predators have good loiter time from what I understand. I'm sure google can give you a very good answer as to what exactly it is. A typical predator flight I'm guessing has them taking off and flying perhaps 100 miles to it's loiter area. No they don't do refueling, no real point to it. I know one of the Global Hawk demonstration flights had them fly one from Edwards down to Australia non stop.

I do not see our current drones taking away any "market share" from fighters/bombers. Sure, some have a few munitions, but it's not much. They are really just adding on to our capabilities. Perhaps they are taking away a little bit from our spy satellites. But then satellites are only over a target for a very short period of time. And if you ask an army guy, they would probably say that we can never have enough drones over head.

So, since fighters and bombers are still very much needed, yes, I'd say we still need plenty of tankers over the Gulf.

Re: Care package suggestions

Author: GreenSwitch
Forum: The Rumor Mill
Date: 2010-03-09

I scoped the dollar toy aisle of Walmart and filled a care package for a friend at the Deid. Toys, while juvenile, are always put to good use. Madlibs, Sudoku, crossword puzzles, etc are good for occupying the brain in a good way during down time.

Re: Care package suggestions

Author: Long Suffering Reservist
Forum: The Rumor Mill
Date: 2010-03-09

Girl Scout Cookies were really well received when the LSR niece was deployed. The Post Office has these pay one price boxes in two shapes, rectangular and cube, that are the best way to mail. We'd use Jolly Ranchers (impervious to heat) as filler. A well protected bag of Zapp's Chips (a Louisiana potato chip company that is dead solid perfect. They even have a crawfish flavor) was eaten, the bag sliced open and licked. Living in LA, Mrs. LSR and I always packed Community coffee and various spices you can't easily buy elsewhere. I imagine New Mexico has similar things with Mexican food, chilies, etc. Mrs. LSR would also toss in "girly girl" stuff like fancy ass shampoo, soap, etc. Probably not a factor with your old roomate unless the military has REALLY changed since my day.

We're glad she's home, but we kinda miss coming up with new stuff for the packages.

Re: Care package suggestions

Author: Immortal_One
Forum: The Rumor Mill
Date: 2010-03-09

snacks like individual bagged cookies, gun, candy. Chocolate should be ok to send until about april, after that it melts too much. Magazines are always good too, it's ok if they are a couple months old too, they always get read.

Lots of people send tissue, lotions shampoo, little toothpaste tubes. Personally I never really used those although the small bottles of hand sanitizer was useful.

Re: Northrop dropping out of tanker bidding

Author: ticktockman6
Forum: The Rumor Mill
Date: 2010-03-09

Here is the real question in all this: How many jobs will this create/save?