Boris Badenov
Fortis Leader
I don't think that's how the scene ends in Max's mind, Dough.
F-15 Story in the news: super bummed pilot flys home on a commercial flight
- Thread starter BEEF SUPREME
- Start date
Maximilian_Jenius
Super User
(Top Gun NARC)
"Yeah, this is Cowboy... Doug just packed his bag, and called crew scheduling."
bunk22
Well-Known Member
About sums it up. Guilty till proven innocent is the military way.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
I think the entire basis of the complaint, that somehow the military pilot is going to go hotdog and not get punished in any way for it unless the public creates an outcry, is hysterical. Even some of the posts on here make it sound like military aviation is just one big ball of fun, out jacking around in government airplanes on government gas, Showboating at every possible opportunity just to feel cool.
The folks who say that and think that really have no concept of what flying for the military is like these days. Go back and read the posts from MikeD and I, you will see that the current military aviation climate is actually a witchhunt where even the suggestion that someone does something that is not the most conservative answer can be, and often times is, prosecuted with religious fervor.
The Air Force is actually experiencing a period where the most conservative answer, even in combat situations and to the detriment of the combat mission, is considered the correct answer.
I have been in the Air Force for 17 years, and strict adherence to flight discipline has always been a cornerstone of operating military aircraft -- if anything, over that time period, the screws have only been tightened down. I think people watch way too much Top Gun and think that Maverick's actions are more representative of the norm then they really are. While that movie might have been representative of Naval aviation culture in the mid-1980s, the current truth could not be further from that. When people see outliers like Bud Holland, or the football game flyby, or possibly what this pilot may have allegedly done, they tend to think that this is commonplace.
The reality I have lived in for going on two decades is a very professional environment with strict adherence to the rules, where those who scoff the rules or stupidly push the limits are ostracized and denigrated by their peers. Peer pressure is a remarkably good regulator of culture.
If you read any of the reports about this particular F-15 pilot, you will see that he was already grounded pending the outcome of some investigation. Based on what is found in that investigation there could be a lot more time grounded or no more time at all. But note in the meantime he is grounded.
The folks who say that and think that really have no concept of what flying for the military is like these days. Go back and read the posts from MikeD and I, you will see that the current military aviation climate is actually a witchhunt where even the suggestion that someone does something that is not the most conservative answer can be, and often times is, prosecuted with religious fervor.
The Air Force is actually experiencing a period where the most conservative answer, even in combat situations and to the detriment of the combat mission, is considered the correct answer.
I have been in the Air Force for 17 years, and strict adherence to flight discipline has always been a cornerstone of operating military aircraft -- if anything, over that time period, the screws have only been tightened down. I think people watch way too much Top Gun and think that Maverick's actions are more representative of the norm then they really are. While that movie might have been representative of Naval aviation culture in the mid-1980s, the current truth could not be further from that. When people see outliers like Bud Holland, or the football game flyby, or possibly what this pilot may have allegedly done, they tend to think that this is commonplace.
The reality I have lived in for going on two decades is a very professional environment with strict adherence to the rules, where those who scoff the rules or stupidly push the limits are ostracized and denigrated by their peers. Peer pressure is a remarkably good regulator of culture.
If you read any of the reports about this particular F-15 pilot, you will see that he was already grounded pending the outcome of some investigation. Based on what is found in that investigation there could be a lot more time grounded or no more time at all. But note in the meantime he is grounded.
bunk22
Well-Known Member
I would add on to what Hacker said but he left nothing on the table. I am at 19 years and 8.5 months in the military and I can assure anyone that if any SOP, regulation, rule, etc is broken or even if it's thought of being broken, not adhered to, etc., we are punished. I'll give an example, we had a pilot lead a division form back into the break at 6 knots fast, grounded for a week. The Skipper was in the flight. Not going to break the plane, but our SOP says 350KIAS and he went 356KIAS. Not kidding either.
Boris Badenov
Fortis Leader
If we're going to spend this insane amount of money we don't have (and, to be fair, I think we probably shouldn't) to put some dudes in ludicrously powerful killing machines, shouldn't we not only expect, but encourage a certain amount of "devil may care" silliness? Look at Frank Luke. 18 kills in eight days. All that is Man.
So, it's ok for us to blow up untold numbers of brown people to secure $2/gallon gas for Janet Sixpack to burn weaving around the interstate trying to kill me in her Navigator, but if one of the guys on the pointy end who has to do all this killing to maintain our absurd lifestyle is even suspected of possibly endangering her or her little diaper-pooping, underachieving, entitled hellspawn, the pilot must be cashiered post-haste? Absurd.
This is emblematic (IMHO) of why any free Republic ought to have a healthy number of Citizen Soldiers. Make sure the Outraged Classes have a iron in the fire before they start making Demands and waving their butthurt around.
So, it's ok for us to blow up untold numbers of brown people to secure $2/gallon gas for Janet Sixpack to burn weaving around the interstate trying to kill me in her Navigator, but if one of the guys on the pointy end who has to do all this killing to maintain our absurd lifestyle is even suspected of possibly endangering her or her little diaper-pooping, underachieving, entitled hellspawn, the pilot must be cashiered post-haste? Absurd.
This is emblematic (IMHO) of why any free Republic ought to have a healthy number of Citizen Soldiers. Make sure the Outraged Classes have a iron in the fire before they start making Demands and waving their butthurt around.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
This is the latest bit happening with the USAF that is emblematic of what you are talking about:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-parrish/air-force-sexual-assault_b_2129880.html
Boris Badenov
Fortis Leader
Killing a whole lot of people is patriotic, but trying to get laid by the people who voted for you to do it is offensive. Makes sense to me, you Neanderthal!
What's the other side to that story?
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
Well, I think that's part of the problem -- do we really know he did 'something dumb', any more than the guys in the pattern you describe did 'something dumb'?
ryan1234
Desensitized Member
Image is everything, results.....combat effectiveness? What are those?
There is much more to this chick's story than meets the eye. Grief over promotion... not particularly accurate stories, etc. Why did she keep a little black book for over a decade on people/things that had been sexually offensive? The truth and context matter less than the public's perception of it according to our leadership. I'm not sure why she joined the military if she cared about a 'hostile' environment. There are hostile environments everywhere in the military... as they ask their people not to lay down their lives, but to take lives.
How did they know he was 6 knots fast? I came up initial for the break in the 117 once at 510 kts and pitched out, just to beat a flight of ROK jets in before they came in and messed up the pattern. Of course, all that got me was an inside downwind pattern that a C-5 Galaxy pilot would say "wow, that's a wide pattern!" due to G limits in the break, but it was neat.
Qutch
Question everything
.
Just the flip side experience for me.
This wasn't recent, but I got into trouble twice over the same indiscretion at AF UPT. Refusing to follow the Teaching Syllabus exactly, refusing lawful orders, and instead radically tailoring my own lesson plans. Admittedly, a firing squad offense even then. I was Stan Eval'd once and sent up for an Article hearing. The Base Legal office got involved over a potential Courts Martial, but I can't recall now why they got involved at the beginning. I think I requested it and indicated my intention to demand a trial. I knew I was pushing it, willfully violating orders, but I felt strongly about what I was doing and broke the rules, expecting to face the consequences. I collected boxes of documentation cataloging student performance in anticipation of my hanging.
I declined counsel and made the defense in both cases that my actions were provably in support of the Mission Statement (training students to the highest standards possible). I argued that that should override our assigned Syllabus, which I maintained was substandard to the plan I was following. I maintained that my standards were higher than ATC/UPT, even though not standardized. I demanded much higher performance from my students than the AF did, much much higher. I was looking for a fight. In my 20s that seemed like a strong argument, but seems pretty risky to me now. Stupid even. I wouldn't advise others to try it, just something I had to do in defense of my students who I'd grown too close to perhaps. But it worked. The Stan Eval Major sided with me on my evaluation flight, and the following year the JAG prosecutors sided with me also and chastised my superiors for not telling them the entire story, focusing only on my refusal to follow orders and Syllabus violations. After that my superiors left me alone to do what I wanted to do.
My point is, my own experience with the UCMJ, JAG and the Air Force system made me a fan. They did the right thing in making me walk the plank for stepping out of line, but they also gave me a completely fair opportunity to state my case before the execution, in front of objective Officers. So, put me down, guardedly, as a defender of the system. They did not make it easy for me, but I've never seen a disciplinary system work better. Just had to say that.
.
Just the flip side experience for me.
This wasn't recent, but I got into trouble twice over the same indiscretion at AF UPT. Refusing to follow the Teaching Syllabus exactly, refusing lawful orders, and instead radically tailoring my own lesson plans. Admittedly, a firing squad offense even then. I was Stan Eval'd once and sent up for an Article hearing. The Base Legal office got involved over a potential Courts Martial, but I can't recall now why they got involved at the beginning. I think I requested it and indicated my intention to demand a trial. I knew I was pushing it, willfully violating orders, but I felt strongly about what I was doing and broke the rules, expecting to face the consequences. I collected boxes of documentation cataloging student performance in anticipation of my hanging.
I declined counsel and made the defense in both cases that my actions were provably in support of the Mission Statement (training students to the highest standards possible). I argued that that should override our assigned Syllabus, which I maintained was substandard to the plan I was following. I maintained that my standards were higher than ATC/UPT, even though not standardized. I demanded much higher performance from my students than the AF did, much much higher. I was looking for a fight. In my 20s that seemed like a strong argument, but seems pretty risky to me now. Stupid even. I wouldn't advise others to try it, just something I had to do in defense of my students who I'd grown too close to perhaps. But it worked. The Stan Eval Major sided with me on my evaluation flight, and the following year the JAG prosecutors sided with me also and chastised my superiors for not telling them the entire story, focusing only on my refusal to follow orders and Syllabus violations. After that my superiors left me alone to do what I wanted to do.
My point is, my own experience with the UCMJ, JAG and the Air Force system made me a fan. They did the right thing in making me walk the plank for stepping out of line, but they also gave me a completely fair opportunity to state my case before the execution, in front of objective Officers. So, put me down, guardedly, as a defender of the system. They did not make it easy for me, but I've never seen a disciplinary system work better. Just had to say that.
.
In the situations Ive seen, the initial parts of the system seemed to work well. IE- initial investigative boards, etc. The problem comes where the decisions of that board have to be ratified or approved by a Flag officer in the chain of command of the accused, normally at the Numbered Air Force level or sometimes at the MAJCOM level. This is where problems occur due to potential agendas of the particular Flag officer. If that officer doesn't agree with what the investigators came up with, regardless of if the evidence they've uncovered and validated fully supports their conclusion(s), that Flag officer can disapprove their findings, or even reverse them. That's where the problem comes.
Ive seen that same kind of issue in accident investigations. One of the accidents I was IO on, NAF safety didn't agree with a couple of my findings and recommendations and their people changed what I had already written and had already put my signature to on these items. I had found out from backchannels that this had been done, as they didn't even bother to inform me, and I raised holy hell about it. They claimed they were just modifying the format, but it actually changed the meaning of the information, which I know had been a point of contention with them, was a BS thing to do regardless. Plus, any changes have to be recommended through the IO who wrote the report, as his signature is on it; and it was eventually changed back, so far as I know. But this stuff does happen.....not by a matter of policy, I don't believe; but moreso by a matter of personal agenda and how the system itself allows the opportunity for those to be able to affect said situation.
Qutch
Question everything
You've seen far more of this than I, but I felt morally obligated to speak in defense here, based solely on my appreciation of what my prosecutors did for me, something I've never forgotten.
I was tempted, but did not explain this next part, which addresses your quote. I really give a lot of credit to Major Rick Current of Stan Eval who just decided on his own to back me in spite of regulations, and not let it go any higher. The safer thing for him would have been to just do his job, verify that I was in willful violation, and let me hang. But he put a stop to it at his level. So although I credit The System, I really think it was a shared passion for the Mission and our students that compelled him to protect me from higher authority. We had already lost one student, Dennis Ladd, in a T-38 fatality, and I refused to lose another....so I was driven on this.
Secondly, it was the JAG AF Officers assigned to prosecute me (who's names I unfortunately cannot recall to thank) who later took the same position that Stan Eval had earlier. They gave me a chance to come into compliance, but I made it clear that they would have to remove me, and do it by trial, no Article (if I recall the then procedure correctly). It was just personal commitment and courage on their part from what I could see. Sort of the MikeD thing to do. So, I think I was just lucky to get them. But I guess I still have to credit The System that allows a few of you to populate the machinery and make it work right from time-to-time.
.
Qutch
Question everything
(continued from above)
And the incident that you relate here is partly what was driving me. Why I refused to comply. The T-38 solo x-country student we had lost, Dennis Ladd, was lost largely due to our negligence. But the Air Force investigation blamed the entire accident (too low on final, clipped the trees on approach) on him. It appeared to me that they had altered the findings, coming up with an implausible explanation, sanitizing the testimony of witnesses, in order to make it "100% student negligence", and absolve his instructors of responsibility. We were also pencil whipping passing grades for some students who should have been failing.
After Ladd's death I decided that if the AF's accident investigation findings could not be trusted, resulting in procedural and policy corrections, then I would have to take greater responsibility for their training. And if the AF would not let me do that, then they would have to remove me.
.
And the incident that you relate here is partly what was driving me. Why I refused to comply. The T-38 solo x-country student we had lost, Dennis Ladd, was lost largely due to our negligence. But the Air Force investigation blamed the entire accident (too low on final, clipped the trees on approach) on him. It appeared to me that they had altered the findings, coming up with an implausible explanation, sanitizing the testimony of witnesses, in order to make it "100% student negligence", and absolve his instructors of responsibility. We were also pencil whipping passing grades for some students who should have been failing.
After Ladd's death I decided that if the AF's accident investigation findings could not be trusted, resulting in procedural and policy corrections, then I would have to take greater responsibility for their training. And if the AF would not let me do that, then they would have to remove me.
.