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Air Warrior’s Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)

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Air Warrior’s Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)
AIRWARINST 3710.7A
16MAR2009

PURPOSE: This post serves as the forum rules and general guide to being a member and posting on Air Warriors. In order to keep the forums running well and to prevent problems, please follow these simple rules for the forums here. If you have any questions or problems, please feel free to contact one of the Administrators or Moderators.

  • WARNING: Your postings on this public forum will become public. Your text will be available to anyone with an internet connection.
  • CAUTION: This is NOT an official Navy web site. AirWarriors.com is an independent site developed to provide information only. All opinions and statements are exclusively those of the authors and do not reflect the views of the Department of Defense or the United States Navy. Although extreme care has been made to ensure accuracy, the authors do not assume any liability nor responsibility for any impact reliance on information provided in this web site may have.
  • NOTE: The simplest way to bring a website problem to the attention of all the admins and mods is to report a post. If the subject of the report is not a specific post, report any post and in the comment block state the reason of the report and that the post itself is not in question.
  • NOTE: Lurk before posting. By doing this, you can get an appreciation of how this forum works, and how to interact with the rest of the users. Before posting, please ask yourself the following question: "Am I making a post which is original, informative, or interesting on any level?" Before replying, please ask yourself the following question: "Does my reply offer any significant advice or help contribute to the conversation in any fashion?"
MISSION STATEMENT: Air Warriors is a website that has been created to help promote a career as a Naval, Marine or Coast Guard Officer, specifically for pursuing a career in Naval Aviation. In addition, the website provides an avenue for military members to network and discuss military and aviation topics of interest. Finally, the website is here to support both parents and significant others with the demands placed on them while their loved ones pursue their training.



ABOUT AIR WARRIORS: Air Warriors was created in March of 1999 as a simple html website to update family and friends on the status of two SNAs going through flight school. Over the years it has expanded in size and scope, and now encompasses over 22,000 registered users, 30,000 threads and approaching half a million posts. Thanks to the participation of many of you, the website is doing well and continuing to expand. Welcome to all the new members. We have had some excellent, and well thought out first posts lately. And quite a few members (active and retired) sporting the Wings of Gold are now added to our ranks. A hearty welcome aboard Air Warriors, we are glad to have you here.

  • College students, Middies and hopefuls. Keep those questions coming. The Search function is always handy, but some of the material changes and your question may help yourself and many others out. Keep charging towards those goals, and as Wink would say "cut that cord!!".
  • SNAs and SNFOs. Unless you are in an A or C pool, what the hell are you doing on the website right now, you should be studying or drinking some beer!! Seriously, you all are the life blood of this website, and why we are here. You have the most up to date knowledge on getting into Flight School, and what is currently happening there. If you have the time, take a moment and help those college students trying to get to where you are at.
  • Salty dog retirees, stinky reservists and fellow active duty warriors, damn glad to have you all here, mentoring the next generation and swapping tall tales.
GENERAL RULES:
  • While debating and discussion is fine, we will not tolerate rudeness, insulting posts, personal attacks or purposeless inflammatory posts. Our decision is final in these matters.
  • Please refrain from posting meaningless threads, one word (or short) nonsense posts, or the such.
  • Multiple or repeated posting in order to increase your post count is not allowed.
  • Advertising, spamming and trolling is not allowed. This includes using the forum, email, visitor messages, picture comments and private message systems to spam other members.
  • Please wait a reasonable amount of time before bumping posts.
  • Discussion of illegal activities such as software and music piracy and other intellectual property violations are not allowed.
  • Each member is allowed one login account. Registering with multiple accounts is not allowed. If you wish to delete or combine an old account, or change the user name, please contact an administrator.
  • We reserve the right to remove offensive posts without notice.
  • This forum will permit posts only in the English language.
  • Also while these rules cover most common situations, they cannot anticipate everything. Consequently we reserve the right to take any actions we deem appropriate to ensure these forums are not disrupted or abused in any way.
  • You cannot post any affiliate or referral links, or post anything asking for a referral. Such posts will be subject to removal.
  • You cannot post advertisements or notices for contests.
  • We also reserve the right to ban anyone who willfully violates the forum rules.
RULES FOR SUCCESS: (THREAD) (REFs: Message to Garcia and Taking care of monkeys)



  1. The wings by users' names are not some made-up website award. They indicate that this individual has earned the right to wear the real thing. Keep this in mind when interacting with them.
  2. This is not Facebook or MySpace. You will, in some cases, be interacting with people who will be far senior to you if you have the privilege of serving in uniform. We strive to keep this a laid-back environment, but blatant disrespect to senior officers or enlisted will not fly. This is a public site, and what you post here can be seen by all who visit and can have real-world consequences regarding your application or future reputation. ADMIRALS HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO LURK AND POST HERE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
  3. As an aspiring officer, you are going to be expected to display personal initiative. Your mother should not be running down your paperwork, and we are not going to waste our time answering simple questions which have been answered many times in one of the many threads created in the 9 years this site has been online. USE THE SEARCH FUNCTION. If you still have questions, then chime in and we would be happy to help.
  4. As an aspiring officer, you are expected to have a decent command of the English language. u r not txting ur buddy; if you haven't learned halfway decent grammar and syntax in 12 years of school, and whatever college experience you have, God help you.
REGISTERING: To post on Air Warriors, you need to register a user account. It is a pretty simple procedure, that has a couple verification steps involved due to the high number of spam bots on the web that create fake account. Here are a couple things to consider when registering:



  • EMAIL ADDRESS. Provide a valid email address for the website to send you a verification email. Make sure that the verification email that Air Warriors sent you didn’t get put in your SPAM folder if you have one running on your email. Until you click on the link provided in the email to verify your account, your registration is not complete, and you will not be able to post. If all else fails, email the webmaster.
  • USER NAMES. It does not need to be YOUR name. If you are about to go to OCS, or are concerned about having your personal information on the web, make something up. If over time you wish to change your user name, that is possible.
  • USER PROFILES. Take the time to fill it out. It doesn’t have to say exactly who you are, or any information that is too personal for the web, but at least provide some information about what you are doing (college, flight training, Fleet, retired, etc) and what your goals are for posting on the website. Many of the questions a user might ask have different answers depending on what point you are at in life/training, and it helps to have a profile with at least some basic information for other users to gauge how to reply. Myself and many of the Winged Aviators on this website will ignore questions by individuals that have not filled out their profile. If you don’t take the time, why should we take time to answer your questions?
FORUM POSTING: (THREAD)



  • WARDROOM RULES. No politics, no religion and no wives...but girlfriends are fair game. To keep this website from being diluted, and on topic... Posts in the public forums need to be in some way connected to Naval Aviation, Marine Corps or the military in general.
  • FIRST POST. Introduce yourself to the forum and contribute something to the discussion. If you have a question, point out any searches you made, and what the particulars are of your specific question. Don't machine gun multiple questions in the first post, and do not post the same question in multiple threads across the website.
  • BASIC POST. As mentioned above, lurk before posting. By doing this, you can get an appreciation of how this forum works, and how to interact with the rest of the users. Before posting, please ask yourself the following question: "Am I making a post which is original, informative, or interesting on any level?" Before replying, please ask yourself the following question: "Does my reply offer any significant advice or help contribute to the conversation in any fashion?"
  • LOW CONTENT POSTS. Please do not make posts containing no content (ie, "first post," "hello, I'm new here," etc.). These just litter up the forums. If you do not like a thread, then just vote it a "1" and move on; replies consisting solely of trolling fall into this category. As a general rule, write as if you were speaking in real life to another human being. Do not use any catchphrases, memes, internet slang, or any other crap that makes you look like a 12-year old.
  • WORTHLESS POSTS. We do not care if you are drunk; please do not inform us of either. Please do not register gimmick accounts and make posts as a gimmick, as they are not funny.
  • CROSS POSTING. Posting a thread in more than one forum is annoying and thus not allowed. Just post it once in the correct place.
  • OFFENSIVE CONTENT. Material that is sexually or otherwise obscene, racist, or otherwise overly discriminatory is not permitted on these forums. This includes user pictures.
  • WAR ZONE. This is the catch all forum for any discussion the members of this site want to discuss. If the post is not in keeping with the site, or does not contribute to a discussion, then expect it to be deleted and for you to be ridiculed. All users are encouraged to post in this forum, though Pill_Hacker is prohibited from starting ANY and all threads.
  • DELETED POSTS/INFRACTIONS. Some of the tools at the disposal of the moderators (yes, yes, some of them are O4s)... But the other tools are either a deletion of a post or giving a poster an "infraction" to notify them of what they did wrong. "Sally" keep your skirt down, and don't get bent out of shape if we delete one of your threads OR the infraction. The moderators discuss posts, and what we need to do to keep the website on track. Infractions mean nothing in the real scheme of things, and won't help you get that mocha at Starbucks, they just help us run and keep track of this website. If you have a problem, report a post to get it flagged for all moderators to see it and your comments. Or PM any of the Admins to assist. Granted, we all work for the man, so give us time to look into it, and answer the question.
  • YOUTUBE. Good god, resist the urge to increase your post count. The occasional one is fine and dandy, but some of you out there live to post these videos, restrain yourself lest we do it for you.
  • SIGNATURE. Keep in mind that everybody on the forums has to see your signature file over and over every time you post. Please make your sig file under 30k in size with less than three lines of text.
  • FONTS. Members should post in a way which is consistent with "normal writing". That is users should not post excessive numbers of emoticons, large, small or coloured text, etc. Similarly users should not SHOUT or use excessive punctuation (e.g. ! and ?) in topic titles or posts. Users consistently abusing this will be warned.
  • HOT LINKING. Members should respect the bandwidth of other users and sites. The use of inline (
    ) image tags pointing to data stored on third party systems for which the user has not received permission to link to may be removed.
  • NOT SAFE FOR WORK (NSFW). Many members work in the military or in the corporate world where certain posts or threads might not be approved of. Any links or posts that are questionable shall have the NSFW in the title, or next to the link. As a general rule, ask yourself "would my mother and boss be comfortable viewing this image?" when posting.
  • POST COUNT. War Zone posting does not count towards your post count.
  • EDITING POSTS. Users have 24 hours from the creation of their post to edit it. After that time period, the user must ask a mod or admin to make any changes.
  • RESPECT THE MODERATORS. The moderators are here to keep the forums on track, sane, and secure. If they ask you to refrain from a certain behavior or posting habits please support them. Do not harass or intentionally annoy the moderators, if any conflict should arise, please contact the webmaster via private message.
  • GOLDEN RULE. aka EXCEPTION TO ALL ABOVE... If you can pull it off, or in some way can present something else in a humorous or off handed way, go for it. As in any wardroom, humor and timing are EVERYTHING. But be prepared to get your ass handed to you.
  • ARTICLE 88 (Contempt Towards Officials). For those active duty, read and heed.
MEGA THREADS: (REFERENCE)


Quite a bit of information keeps getting asked, over and over again. And the new user/poster may feel intimidated with the defacto response "use the search function". To forestall the flames that sometimes occur when it's the same question that has been asked weekly since the dinosaurs roamed, the various "Stupid Question/Mega-threads" were introduced to allow newbies or as it has turned out, anyone including Mods to ask burning questions that Mods feel should be captured in these "learning/reference" threads. The intent is to also provide protection from flames as the "Stupid question" threads are sanctuary from same by definition (ie there are no such things as a stupid question). Their popularity has spawned other Mega-threads.

BACKGROUND: We have found over the years that new posters to Naval Aviation are very curious and tend to create threads faster than a M16 in full auto and the temptation to ask the verboten "What are my chances?". That said, the practice of push back on certain questions is generally no different than what you'll experience in any Ready Room. In that fashion, AW serves a "Virtual Ready Room" or rock tumbler to smooth some of the rough edges on a newbie's quest to a cockpit.

NOTE: Many users fail to note that besides using search function, vBulletin has a nifty feature that does an automatic search for you in every thread you look at and it's sitting at the bottom of every page. It uses the key words in the title of the thread (that's why Mods will modify title of threads to not only better "advertise" the content of the thread, but give the automatic search a better leg up in finding and displaying similar threads. If you have never scrolled to bottom of page, try it on a few threads. If you are starting a thread, check it out as well as it will clue you in as to whether you really started a unique topic (if not, Mods will be along soon enough and merge it if warranted). Here is a list of current Stupid Questions and Mega Threads:

OPSEC/INFOSEC/CLASSIFIED INFORMATION: (THREAD) Air Warriors is a publicly accessible forum, with a user base comprised mostly of military personnel, both active and retired. Users need to be careful not to post any information that would fall in any of these categories. If in doubt, do not post it! We take a very conservative view regarding OPSEC and INFOSEC here on this website, and will delete posts if there is any question about its content. Please reference the thread for more information. Also, this website will take any and all steps to cooperate with any outside authorities if a user inadvertently or intentionally poses a security risk here on the website.



MILITARY AIRCRAFT CRASH: If there is a crash of any military aircraft, Air Warriors will not allow posting or discussion of that mishap. Mishaps involve a very specific set of actions, that unfortunately over time it has been shown on this website that over eager users have posted information that was not released yet. The following items shall not be posted on this website, and depending on the situation, may result in the banning of your account:

  • Privileged information. This information should not make its way onto this website, such as SIRs. Other information that could be privileged might involve word passed out at the Squadron where the mishap occurred.
  • Names of personnel involved.
  • HAZREPs.
  • Mishap photos.
S.E.R.E. TRAINING POSTS: To preserve the training value of this course, all posts on SERE school that in any way disclose the course of material or any gouge will be deleted.



GOUGE: Across this forum there are a variety of gouge files and threads providing information on training. You should always reference your course instruction material FIRST, NATOPs and applicable publications as your source document. Many gouge files can be out of date, or not all inclusive. "Live by the gouge, die by the gouge"

UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR: (THREAD) There are a couple of items that will immediately get your account tagged for banning and deletion, and what is basically considered unacceptable behavior on the website.

  • SPAMMING. Advertising of any commercial product or service on these forums is not permitted. Chain letters and pyramid schemes are similarly prohibited. If you are interested in purchasing advertising on the website, please contact the webmaster via email or private message.
  • FLAMING. Any material which constitutes defamation, harassment, or abuse is strictly prohibited. Use common sense while posting.
  • SOLICITATION. We do not allow people to post threads or to send private messages or emails to users here that advertise or solicit any products, services, funds or donations. Explicit advertising and solicitation in signatures is also prohibited.
  • IMPOSTORS. We have caught a few individuals posing as military members with Wings and various awards. In the end, we always catch them through their ignorance, or the pure fact that Naval Aviation is a small community. We will find you out eventually, ridicule you, and ban you. Be warned.
POSTING ARTICLES/COPYRIGHT INFRINGMENT: (THREAD) If you find an interesting article, post a link to it, not the whole article or document. The majority of websites have copyright rules regarding their content, whether it is a picture, video, or text. Reference their rules on what they will allow users to do with their content. When in doubt, ONLY post a link. Second, do not post a link, and ask “What does everyone think?”. That does not contribute anything to a decent thread discussion. Take the time to pose a question, or what originally got YOU interested in the article. Finally, if you continue to break copyright rules, you will be initially warned by private message, with your post being edited by a moderator. If you continue to disregard, expect that you will have your account temporarily banned.



COMMON QUESTIONS: The following are a few examples of questions that are no longer funny, and will generally result in you getting made fun of:

MENTORSHIP: What makes Air Warriors such a great forum directly relates to the amount of free time users that have “been there, done that” (BTDT) take to answer questions, and mentor the next generation of Naval Aviators. These mentors could be fresh of flight school, an Officer Recruiter, a retired Aviator or an Admiral. We identify these members with Wings under their user name, and many of them have quite extensive profile fields with background information on what they have done over their varied careers. As in any community of professionals, these are the authority figures that speak with the most weight in any discussions on this forum. For those new users coming to the website to seek help, guidance, and assistance in making your goals a reality, we here at Air Warriors will do our best to help mentor and give you the best advice or insight possible. Conversely, that offer of support is a two way street, and common courtesy, respect for the hard years of work to get where we are at is what we require in turn.



NOTE: If you're not going to take the advice, don't ask for help.

WINGS ON PROFILE: (THREAD) To continue the mentorship idea, and establish who has "street cred," those who have earned the right to wear Naval Aviator wings or Naval Flight Officer wings are identified by having those wings on their profile. Moderators will do due diligence to ensure all who make this claim are indeed entitled to wear them. If you have earned wings, and want them added to your profile, you can do so by requesting to join the appropriate user group through the user control panel.

SEARCH FUNCTION:

  • GOOGLE WEBSITE SEARCH: On the forum home page, you can scroll to the bottom left and in the box Google Search, you can use the Google search engine to specifically search Air Warriors.
  • FORUM SEARCH: It is simple, use it!
  • BEST THREADS: Review this list of historical Best Threads to see if your question has been asked before. This website has been around for over 9 years, and many of your questions may have already been answered. The users here are happy to help, but are tired of hearing the same questions over and over. Please search first, so you don't get made fun of for asking a common question for the umpteenth time.
MODERATORS: The forum has been so successful due to the time the moderators and users have spent in keeping the website on topic, and troll free. While some have accused us of being thread delete or "ban happy", the overwhelming support we have gotten via PM and email has been very supportive of the way we run this website.



Moderators are denoted by orange stars under their user name. They have site wide access to prune, delete, edit, merge and move threads. In addition to banning troublesome users. Moderators have a private forum, where reported posts are discussed, and before any banning of a user occurs, a consensus is taken.

Although the administrators and moderators of Air Warriors Forum will attempt to keep all objectionable messages off this forum, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the author, and the owner of Air Warriors will NOT be held responsible for the content of any message. By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violative of any laws. The owners of Air Warriors Forum reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason.

Here are some other topics:

  • REPUTATION POINTS: (THREAD) Is a forum feature that allows all users to give either positive or negative reputation along with a reason to another user. Reputation should be used to reward users for informative and insightful posts. It should not be used to reward jokes, and pointless trolling. If you see that someone has been repped multiple times in one post, think hard about repping them again. Go find another user to reward. There are many contributing users to the forum who still have a low reputation.
  • REPORTED POSTS: This allows regular users to report a post which they feel is inappropriate. The post will be brought to the attention of the moderators, who will deal with it as necessary.
  • INFRACTIONS: If you break the rules or otherwise irk the moderators, you'll get one of these. It doesn't do anything outside our little forum, and the mods don't get their jollies handing them out. It is merely a tracking tool for the moderators, so we can keep an eye on problem users who collect multiple ones. If you get one, think of it as a "shot across the bow," and please cease and desist whatever it is that got you the infraction.
  • BANNING: If you flagrantly violate the rules or provoke other users, your account will be banned. At moderator discretion, this may be a temporary ban, or a permanent one. IF YOU TRY TO GET AROUND A BAN BY RE-REGISTERING, YOU WILL BE PERMANENTLY BANNED. DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT.
  • LOCKED POSTS: If the moderators feel that a discussion has irretrievably gone downhill or is otherwise detrimental or useless, it will be locked. Only moderators may post in locked threads.
  • STAFF DISPUTES: Any disputes with the staff of the Air Warriors Forums will be handled in private through the Private Message System. If you wish to escalate any issue with staff then please contact the Webmaster.
PRIVATE FORUMS: There are several private forums available for different user groups. You can request access via the User Control Panel, then Group Memberships. The Private Naval Aviators forum is open to all SNAs, SNFOs and Winged aviators.



ADMINISTRATORS: Admins are denoted with red stars beneath their user name. Currently there are only four Admins on the forum (Webmaster, Gatordev, Machine and Steve Wilkins). Admins have final say on any disputes, and are the only ones capable of the following actions. If you require any of the following, please contact an admin via private message with your request:

  • USER NAME CHANGE
  • ACCOUNT DELETION
  • MERGE ACCOUNTS
PRIVACY POLICY: We will not release any member information unless under court order to do so. We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.



CONTRIBUTORS: If you like this website, and would like to give something in return, you can make a donation. Your donation will be used to pay for hosting service, domain, & maintenance costs only! You can click on this link to the front page of the website. There on the bottom left is a PayPal donation logo that will take you to the website to make the donation. For those making a donation, you will be added to the Contributors user group, and will not see any Ads on the website.

DISCUSS: You can discuss this page in this thread.
 
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