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Marine Jets: The Good, Bad, and Ugly.
- Thread starter Ave8tor
- Start date
Huh? This happened for the past 15 years... Using OCO funds to pay for new shit - you know, mixing pots:
"After years of operating in Iraq and Afghanistan, the distinction between OCO and base budget began to blur. In 2009, lawmakers tried to use OCO to acquire eight new C-17’s, which former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates did not want, and to procure more F-22’s, even though the plane had never been used in Iraq or Afghanistan. With such light oversight of the OCO process, people jokingly started calling it “budget crack,” because it was too addictive and too easy to use."
Good luck! Who knows what will happen by the time you complete flight school and get to the fleet. If you do get your number one- you'll love your time flying the T-45.
Midstage bouncing was some of the most fun I've had in a military airplane. You're good enough that you're signing for a jet solo, and heading out to orange grove with 5 or 6 of your best friends. You're too young and new to understand how dangerous this is, and you're still in your invincible stage, and you don't have an IP in your backseat, just a chill paddles teaching you how to fly the ball at the field. Debriefing usually occurred over beers at the bar.
Got Jets in Kingsville, so Orange Grove hops will be in my future.
¿Qué? If it were dangerous, Paddles would have downed you and not let you fly solo. Driving your car is dangerous, too, if you make it dangerous. Same principle. It's only dangerous if you don't have the ability to navigate to and from the field, and do 6 landings on a stationary runway. If you can't do that at that point in the syllabus, then you're probably going to get attrited if you haven't already, because midstage bouncing is not the most demanding thing you've been asked to do solo at that point.
It's not in the instructors' interests to let their students get away with dangerous things. Demanding? Sure. Dangerous? No.
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Ok, so dangerous may not be the right word. More risky? That part wasn't really the point of the post anyway.
I think he meant that more generally. I know in RAG CQ I didn't realize how scared I should've been. I realize that now with hindsight (I should've been shitting my pants). A bunch of solos going to the OLF is definitely not as intense, but I get his point that at that level you don't realize how hazardous it is.
Marines are selecting F-35 out of flight school on a somewhat increasingly regular basis. First selections started last fall.
I believe there has been ten so far. Six from Kingsville and four from Meridian.
It may eventually pay off well for them. In the meantime, I sense a lot of time at a duty desk in their futures.
Having been a V-22 guy in the early days, I have a feeling that the bulk of what will be initially limited training hours will be devoted to building an instructor cadre, vice giving those hours to 1st Lieutenants and junior captains.
