Blues Pilot Preemptively Seeks Hegseth Blessing

Roger Roger said:
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.
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i see our usual mil-jealous complainer showed up here. Do we know yet whether this was intentional or a misjudgment? Either way would be bad, as someone at the level of the Blues should know better. Just as someone at the level of the T-Birds should know the top altitude for a loop looks wrong before committing down the backside. The Blues and T-Birds are professionals at their craft, but professionals aren’t infallible to errors. Even more rare for someone who would have a habit of breaking rules, to actually make the team through all the hiring wickets. My bet would be this same thing would’ve happened at the time it did, be it a misjudge or intentional, whether Hegseth was in office or not.
 
MikeD said:
i see our usual mil-jealous complainer showed up here. Do we know yet whether this was intentional or a misjudgment? Either way would be bad, as someone at the level of the Blues should know better. Just as someone at the level of the T-Birds should know the top altitude for a loop looks wrong before committing down the backside. The Blues and T-Birds are professionals at their craft, but professionals aren’t infallible to errors. Even more rare for someone who would have a habit of breaking rules, to actually make the team through all the hiring wickets. My bet would be this same thing would’ve happened at the time it did, be it a misjudge or intentional, whether Hegseth was in office or not.
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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.
 
Murdoughnut said:
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.
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Taking responsibility when things go south is newsworthy these days, maybe book-worthy.
 
MikeD said:
My bet would be this same thing would’ve happened at the time it did, be it a misjudge or intentional, whether Hegseth was in office or not.
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Or more likely, knowing that there are no consequences for this behavior makes it more likely to happen.

At the end of the day, this just makes our jobs as instructors that much harder.
 
MikeD said:
i see our usual mil-jealous complainer showed up here. Do we know yet whether this was intentional or a misjudgment? Either way would be bad, as someone at the level of the Blues should know better. Just as someone at the level of the T-Birds should know the top altitude for a loop looks wrong before committing down the backside. The Blues and T-Birds are professionals at their craft, but professionals aren’t infallible to errors. Even more rare for someone who would have a habit of breaking rules, to actually make the team through all the hiring wickets. My bet would be this same thing would’ve happened at the time it did, be it a misjudge or intentional, whether Hegseth was in office or not.
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It kinda looks like he’s playing catch-up and overshot a bit. Heck, weeds to water is less than a hundred yards, he didn’t miss by much.
 
Murdoughnut said:
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.
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drunkenbeagle said:
Or more likely, knowing that there are no consequences for this behavior makes it more likely to happen.

At the end of the day, this just makes our jobs as instructors that much harder.
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it is odd indeed that a screwup can lead to a book deal. My only point is that teams like the Blues and T-Birds aren’t normal line squadrons, they’re specialized air demo squadrons….loops-to-music squadrons, basically. Because that’s all they do, the precision it requires, the major things that can go wrong when that precision isn’t met, and because they publicly represent their respective services in a very high profile manner; the chances of a rogue pilot making it through the tight vetting process for these teams, is very low. Not impossible, since nothing is impossible, but very low, as the team pilots wouldn’t tolerate someone like that since it affects and reflects on all of them both publicly as well as professionally. Much higher chance for an error or misjudgement in trying to put on a good show. Not impossible to be some rogue person, but it would be extremely unusual.

Both teams have had a good number of accidents during their existence, both fatal and non-fatal, and both in front of a public audience during a display as well in routine practice. Hence why I don’t think one particular SECDEF has any bearing on what they do or don’t do. Their margins for error or misjudgement are tight, and even if it was some rare rogue aviator move, he/she just terminated their team time, and likely their tactical aviation career. Versus if it was a misjudgement, that could potentially be saved, (but usually aren’t….not many second chances when it comes to incidents on these teams). That would be up to the service command, and shouldn’t be under the purview of any service secretary, which i still feel is inappropriate meddling.
 
Seems to me that the expected actions that would be taken by a highly vetted by-the-book team and pilot would be a public apology for endangering anyone, and a team meeting to discuss what went wrong and how they are going to mitigate that in the future, and probably a written procedure or note of some kind.

Not an immediate appeal by the pilot all the way up to the secdef to avoid consequences.

Rot starts at the head.
 
Fixtur said:
Seems to me that the expected actions that would be taken by a highly vetted by-the-book team and pilot would be a public apology for endangering anyone, and a team meeting to discuss what went wrong and how they are going to mitigate that in the future, and probably a written procedure or note of some kind.

Not an immediate appeal by the pilot all the way up to the secdef to avoid consequences.

Rot starts at the head.
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Safety stand-down. No apologies. The issue is violating unit standards. There’s a big gap between failing to maintain a safety standard and endangering the public.
 
Ok potato/potato. But point being appealing all the way up to the top isn't a typical strategy. In fact, I'd think most officers would be doing what they could to stay off of senior leadership's radar.
 
Fixtur said:
Seems to me that the expected actions that would be taken by a highly vetted by-the-book team and pilot would be a public apology for endangering anyone, and a team meeting to discuss what went wrong and how they are going to mitigate that in the future, and probably a written procedure or note of some kind.

Not an immediate appeal by the pilot all the way up to the secdef to avoid consequences.

Rot starts at the head.
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Was there an immediate appeal from the pilot to SECDEF? All I saw was a verbal defense of the event by Hegseth and his criticism of the investigation (which is itself inappropriate, as it’s clearly undue command influence), but not the pilot running around layers of chain of command to Hegseth. Did i miss something?

Because doing that, isn’t a good look, either chain of command wise, or if one is trying to claim a mistake.
 
MikeD said:
Was there an immediate appeal from the pilot to SECDEF? All I saw was a verbal defense of the event by Hegseth and his criticism of the investigation (which is itself inappropriate), but not the pilot running around layers of chain of command to Hegseth. Did i miss something?
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I find it hard to believe that the officer in question would do anything other than discuss with his skipper.

#5 and #6 are both O-4’s, they should know what to do to preserve their CO tracks.
 
Pilot Fighter said:
I find it hard to believe that the officer in question would do anything other than discuss with his skipper.

#5 and #6 are both O-4’s, they should know what to do to preserve their CO tracks.
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if the pilot in question ran around his CO…and several levels of command above him….to appeal directly to the SECDEF, that’s not a recommended technique to remain in the COs good graces. Like i said, on those teams, what one does, immediately reflects on and affects, the other team members.
 
MikeD said:
if the pilot in question ran around his CO…and several levels of command above him….to appeal directly to the SECDEF, that’s not a recommended technique to remain in the COs good graces. Like i said, on those teams, what one does, immediately reflects on and affects, the other team members.
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True and unlikely. I wouldn’t be surprised if the skipper scrubbed the season and retired if SECDEF screwed team CoC. Skipper says, screw this, I didn’t really wanna be a CAG.
 
Disregard all.

I don't know where I got the notion that the pilot had made the appeal, and not the secretary swinging his dick in places it didn't need swung.

Mea culpa.
 
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