True on promotions Elwood…

As for pre-flighting weapons; didn’t matter if Ogre did them or not…it was in the checklist to check the pylons and check the warheads. And for that matter the bomb bay too (as much as possible). Even with ACMs, one could check them – had two slits underneath to view them…any moron could read & see the serial number! No excuses…just plain laziness with a carefree attitude about Nukes in a conventional world of fighter jocks.

O’well, it’s late and I need my beauty rest…

Cheers,

Andy

You’re right, Andy, the nav’s did get stuck with a boat load of paperwork, but PFPS and MPS seemed to cure a lot of that—if you put the right stuff in. I remember a student crew did the flight plan on a KBAD student sortie, I reviewed the fuels to make sure they looked ok, which they did. I had a 2-copilot crew, so one copilot did the 175 as well. Talk about letting your guard down—they had used NDB’s as nav points. ATC accepted the flight plan since we filed RNAV, but we had no way to back up navigation on a third of the turn points. Talk about re-kindling your attention. Anyway, you guys did get the short end of the stick on promotions compared to pilots, but you did do better than non-rated, at least up to a few years ago.

Jim

I probably shouldn’t comment here . . . but the nav-v-pilot promotion in the 1950-1990 Air Force is a dead horse.

I wonder if the world would really be a better place with more Colonel Dijibuti-types as commanders. I won’t be surprised when I hear Jar-Jar Binks or that clueless goof who used to be DOT in the 11th, are making heir way to those positions . . .

Now those are some bright shining examples of excellence in the new system of target arms . . .

I’d like to think I would have noticed something irregular about actual nuclear missiles hanging under the wings of my aircraft, but hey, I was drinking idiot-Koolaid during my last year too, so who knows . . .

An idiot pilot used to filtered out early because he could make you a smoking hole on a bad day–bomber crews could figure them out on one sortie–however, a retard nav doesn’t go through that same kind of filter, and in the last 15 years they’ve been able to court their way to positions that might leave giant smoking craters down here . . . .

The Air Force Times has a two page spread on the nuke issue . . . but they don’t pick on the “system” . . .

Besides . . . a Major (O-4) outranks 96% of the people in uniform in the US military. Whoever said you had to make it to be one of the less than 400 Air Force generals in order to say it was a successful career? I’ve heard people comment about guys that retired as a 3-star that he couldn’t make the cut . . . using that same logic, anyone who wasn’t Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs had a failed career. Bull-dooky, a veteran of one enlistment is a hero compared to most of the popluation, and guys that can serve long enough to retire with a pension are super-heroes . . .

As always, it’s not the patch or the badge that makes the man, but the one that has the best written evaluations. I couldn’t usually get anyone to write a decent OPR on myself, and I certainly couldn’t J

Once upon a time, the idiot wing commander at Minot (the only one during my time there that I considered an idiot, who shall remain un-named, irrelevant to the story…I digress) asked, in an email to several of us Lt Col and Col OG types, what we thought of Weapons School. I answered that if I could have a whole squadron of them, I would, and I meant it. The knowledge level would be invaluable. Eventually, several patch dudes came up later and said thanks for standing up for them. I said no problem, now get back to work. It’s what I didn’t say, because I thought it was dumb asking something like that in an email. A leadership school? NOT! I left that part out, because WS is not a leadership school, at least in my mind. At least at the bomber WS, it was not staffed by what I would consider leadership trainers. I learned a lot about tactics when I did that SAC/TAC exchange program, but everything I learned about leadership came from being a maintenance officer and an aircraft commander and, believe it or not, squadron officers school. Had a blast there, along with a pretty good mustang (prior enlisted, hence older) Captain section commander, who gave me some good feedback.

The other problem is we don’t have bomber crews any more. No unity of command, maybe some artificial chain of command with pseudo-flight commanders and assistant ops officers galore. Individuals are held accountable, but there’s hardly a chain of command, even among the support squadrons, anymore.

Ain’t nobody treating me like a super-hero, so I think I’ll go to bed.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come across to hard or non-caring…everyone is probably over worked and tired.

Wow, a lot of good comments. it really is great to have this blog as a way to communicate! Way to go Chuck! Well the only comment I have on this subject is that it was evident that general knowledge about the aircraft and mission (especially nuke) was in rapid decline since around 1998. When Candidate A/C’s came to CFIC and could not tell me ops limits, I knew we were in for some hard times. I remember the day I had all the candidates in a classroom and we were talking about teh aircraft in general, and I asked the EW’s what the climb speed was from takeoff. None knew. I asked the Radar Candidates, and not ONE of them could tell me! I was in shock. I think people could hear me down the street as I tore all of them a new asshole. The pilot’s also. At that point, it was obvious that crew members were not being prepared properly to become instructors. Our job just became that more difficult. The instructor force was becoming a group of people who did NOT know everything. Like the instructor crew who, while returning from a training mission at the UTTR had a fuel leak in outboard tank and emptied both of them into the wrong tank, causing the CG to go beyond CHARTED flight limts. They didn’t realize it until I was called in, in the middle of the night to help the SOF (who was clueless). Fortunately we got the gas moved around and they didn’t try to land with the trim almost to the back stop.

OK I am just rambling on, but we should go back to the days where crews knew their aircraft AND the misson, and instructors took pride in being the go-to person whenever they were needed.

Later everyone!

JB