Blues Pilot Preemptively Seeks Hegseth Blessing

The USN appears to be letting the team CO handle the situation, with the debrief items remaining in the debrief room where they belong. And the CO is taking it seriously based on his few remarks. I’d heard the flight after this one was a 5-ship versus the normal 6-ship, so that might say something.
 
Hegseth will put them up for the congressional medal of honor without any concept that we have particular rules for very important reasons.

View attachment 90315


Blah blah blah, “warrior spirit” blah blah blah “low testosterone” blah blah blah “DEI” blah blah “who thought they’d close the Strait of Hormuz” blah blah blah “That is NOT scotch in my coffee cup”…
As our parents and grandparents say; “they don’t think fat meat is greasy”. When you turn the other cheek at non standard behavior it’ll happen sooner or later.

Crazier part is at some point some of these same individuals may make their way into the 121 world. I feel for the LCP, CP, etc who has to deal with someone that hasn’t been truly checked about their non standard behavior.
 
Hegseth will put them up for the congressional medal of honor without any concept that we have particular rules for very important reasons.

View attachment 90315


Blah blah blah, “warrior spirit” blah blah blah “low testosterone” blah blah blah “DEI” blah blah “who thought they’d close the Strait of Hormuz” blah blah blah “That is NOT scotch in my coffee cup”…

I remember the whole vid.

Human chunks everywhere.
 
Funny, just a few days ago I saw our local milbros swearing up and down that having the SecDef run cover for this kind of behavior definitely wouldn’t encourage it.

Of course one of those guys also said that ending flu shots for the military wouldn’t result in more military getting the flu so…

The dude f***ed up. He knows he did, and he is on the record now explaining how it happened. He didn’t • up because he intended to, he executed the show profile incorrectly. You can very clearly see that he missed his run-in for the bridge pass, which has become a “thing” in the last 5 years or so in this demonstration. If you really want to get granular, everyone on the team has less than 1500 hrs total flying time, other than the boss and #6. That isn’t a selectivity issue, it’s now a fundamental problem we have with active duty folks. They walk away from their first tours with comparably many fewer hours after their first tour than guys of my generation or previous did. I’m sure that played into it. Also not seeing any impact at all to the force from the flu, if you want to cite anything more serious than a flurry of clickbait articles in the immediate aftermath of the vaccination policy announcement. I guess we can revisit that in the fall if you’re that concerned
 
Chris Stricklin (the T-bird pilot that misjudged his loop and shares a name with my brother) spoke at an event I was at. Seems like a good guy, but crazy to me that fusging up can lead to a book deal and speaking career. For reference, also see the P-3 pilot who turned his plane over to the Chinese and the sub skipper who killed a bunch of Japanese teenagers.

FWIW the daughter of that sub skipper was a JO WSO (junior back seater) in the 2-seat squadron in my first air wing. Believe she was a USNA grad, but dont quote me. Anyway, i remember when that book came out, it was a big mind f*** because he wrote about how he considered killing himself and his family in the book (apparently). One of the co-pilots of the P-3 was also one of my instructors in T-34’s. I’ll just say they didn’t hold Shane Osborne in high regard.
 
The dude f***ed up. He knows he did, and he is on the record now explaining how it happened. He didn’t • up because he intended to, he executed the show profile incorrectly. You can very clearly see that he missed his run-in for the bridge pass, which has become a “thing” in the last 5 years or so in this demonstration. If you really want to get granular, everyone on the team has less than 1500 hrs total flying time, other than the boss and #6. That isn’t a selectivity issue, it’s now a fundamental problem we have with active duty folks. They walk away from their first tours with comparably many fewer hours after their first tour than guys of my generation or previous did. I’m sure that played into it. Also not seeing any impact at all to the force from the flu, if you want to cite anything more serious than a flurry of clickbait articles in the immediate aftermath of the vaccination policy announcement. I guess we can revisit that in the fall if you’re that concerned
Well, maybe yall need to spend that trillion dollars a year more wisely.

Still waiting for your explanation how a) Hegseth knows vaccine policy better than infectious disease docs and b) ending mandatory flue vaccines magically won’t increase flu transmission and decrease troop readiness due to sickness.
 
I saw a video of the CO essentially admitting that a mistake happened, and that they are addressing it. I was so happy to see this. If he had tried to tow the party line, I think it would have been a huge loss of confidence in our military leadership. This is the most corrupt, morally bankrupt, and incompetent administration (other than closing the border and operation midnight hammer) that I’ve seen in my life time. You just hope that there are competent honorable military leaders doing what they can to keep the military an honorable organization until these idiots are voted out of office.
 
The USN appears to be letting the team CO handle the situation, with the debrief items remaining in the debrief room where they belong. And the CO is taking it seriously based on his few remarks. I’d heard the flight after this one was a 5-ship versus the normal 6-ship, so that might say something.

This is how it should be, and I don't have a problem with that at all. I have seen the CO basically contradict Hegseth publicly and say that this was a problem and that it will be handled. Does the guy need to have his wings pulled? Absolutely not. Slap on the pee pee and move on, but don't dismiss the safety violation either.
 
This is how it should be, and I don't have a problem with that at all. I have seen the CO basically contradict Hegseth publicly and say that this was a problem and that it will be handled. Does the guy need to have his wings pulled? Absolutely not. Slap on the pee pee and move on, but don't dismiss the safety violation either.

Both the SECDEF and the SECNAV are not aviators, so i take their comments on this as i would a spectators comment. The CO being allowed to handle his in house, working the professionalism of his unit is indeed proper, as i’ve said all along about these units. And this dispels the idiotic running line of those here who think that the SECDEF himself somehow controls what happens with stick and throttle movements in the cockpits of individual aircraft.
 
Both the SECDEF and the SECNAV are not aviators, so i take their comments on this as i would a spectators comment. The CO being allowed to handle his in house, working the professionalism of his unit is indeed proper, as i’ve said all along about these units. And this dispels the idiotic running line of those here who think that the SECDEF himself somehow controls what happens with stick and throttle movements in the cockpits of individual aircraft.

Well, I think it speaks to how this administration presents and runs itself in the public eye. You have the top civilian politicians in control of the military, actively speaking out on social media regarding these issues. It severely undermines diciplanary process within the military. It also reshapes operational constraints and guidelines. Pilots will see how this is not only made ok by people like Hegseth, but it is also encouraged.

Maybe because I am no longer in, I don't see how the inner circles view people like Hegseth. Maybe when the doors are closed, he is mocked and ridiculed to no end (which he should be), and the COs of these units are handling this as if Hegseth never opened his stupid mouth. Clearly, the Blues will handle this regardless of what he says, but what does it show a RAG that has a demo team like VFA-125 or 122? If Hegseth just tweets "hell ya brother" every time somebody buzzes a crowd, it will absolutely send the wrong message to the lower ranks.
 
Well, I think it speaks to how this administration presents and runs itself in the public eye. You have the top civilian politicians in control of the military, actively speaking out on social media regarding these issues. It severely undermines diciplanary process within the military. It also reshapes operational constraints and guidelines. Pilots will see how this is not only made ok by people like Hegseth, but it is also encouraged.

Maybe because I am no longer in, I don't see how the inner circles view people like Hegseth. Maybe when the doors are closed, he is mocked and ridiculed to no end (which he should be), and the COs of these units are handling this as if Hegseth never opened his stupid mouth. Clearly, the Blues will handle this regardless of what he says, but what does it show a RAG that has a demo team like VFA-125 or 122? If Hegseth just tweets "hell ya brother" every time somebody buzzes a crowd, it will absolutely send the wrong message to the lower ranks.

yup, and i’ve also said how it’s inappropriate for the SECDEF to be inserting himself or commenting one way or another, on an occurrence so far down the chain of command from him, other than due to it being a very public occurrence, to where he should just say it’s being reviewed at the proper level.

CO of any flying unit should treat it the same way as it comes to flying ops, reinforcing standards. Though as a separate subject, i’ve never really thought squadron level single ship demo teams, or two ship in the case of the Growlers, were worth having. There’s already the official demo teams in existence, who do demo and only demo, and train only to that. Leave the Ops squadrons to doing Ops squadron stuff, like the actual combat mission.
 
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