Pelosi One

[Flash]

I've seen a Marine Corp General fly coach in uniform. Nobodys telling Pelosi that she can't fly on military aircraft, she's just peeved that she can't take her entourage with her.

You obviously know little about executive transport in when it comes to General and Flag Officers in the US military. Three stars and above almost always rate a military executive transport. VR-1 exists almost solely to transport the SECNAV, CNO, CMC and other very high ranking Navy types around and the USAF has dozens of C-21's stationed around the world to transport guys with stars on their shoulders around, and that is just to name a few. Catch a clue.......

 

[HH-60H]

This is a quote from the Washington Times article at the beginning of this thread.

"Mrs. Pelosi wants a larger aircraft that can fly to her home district of San Francisco nonstop. She also wants to be able to ferry other members of the congressional delegation, family members and her staff."

If her "entourage" consisted of the people that you listed, I'd have no problem with it.

To add on to what Flash said.... Do you think the Admiral/General always leaves his wife at home? Not quite, they sometimes fly "family members" (at least wives) around also.

 

[usmarinemike]

You obviously know little about executive transport in when it comes to General and Flag Officers in the US military. Three stars and above almost always rate a military executive transport. VR-1 exists almost solely to transport the SECNAV, CNO, CMC and other very high ranking Navy types around and the USAF has dozens of C-21's stationed around the world to transport guys with stars on their shoulders around, and that is just to name a few. Catch a clue.......

I can't wait...:icon_smil. I was just hoping for my own Huey when I got a star, but a jet further up the line is just too much!

 

[Flash]

I can't wait...:icon_smil. I was just hoping for my own Huey when I got a star, but a jet further up the line is just too much!

I have some first/second-hand experience with this, VQ-1 had two VP-3A's that flew around C7F and a couple others when I was in the squadron. While it was not as slick as Jay-Z's ride it was not bad.

And there are legitimate reasons to have sch transports, commercal air often does not go to locations where Gernerals and Admirals go when they need to go. Unless they do something pretty egregious, the VIP plane treatment is not really going to be questioned.

I never had the privilege of going on one of these boondogles, one of them needed a Nav (who used a handheld GPS and a single INS, fun times), but a lot of the guys in the squadron did. It was basically up to theADM if the trip was a 'good' one or a 'bad' one. Most of the trips were not real boondgles but one ADM liked to take a little too much time flying to places in Australia and Malaysia where he really did not need to go but there were good beaches and places to shop for his wife.

So I think it is necesary to have these transports, but they are something that can easily be abused by unethical people.

 

[JIMC5499]

You obviously know little about executive transport in when it comes to General and Flag Officers in the US military. Three stars and above almost always rate a military executive transport. VR-1 exists almost solely to transport the SECNAV, CNO, CMC and other very high ranking Navy types around and the USAF has dozens of C-21's stationed around the world to transport guys with stars on their shoulders around, and that is just to name a few. Catch a clue.......

Maybe I don't know much about executive transport, but I do know the uniform of a Marine General and he was sitting 2 seats away from me on a 757 from New York City to Chicago about 3 months ago.

 

[dustydog]

I was just recently an Aide to a 3 star and from experience I can tell you that mil-air for a 3 star and below is not guaranteed. There has to be a reason that comm air is not acceptable and then it has to be vetted through the JAG and in the case of an OPNAV Flag, DNS has to give the final approval. 4 stars and their equivalent have to fly on mil air for other reasons. That being said, it is not hard to justify mil air travel for a 3 star in CONUS and they almost always get mil air once overseas. With my last Boss, we always flew over to the desert comm air and then used mil air once in theater. The use of business class or first class for comm air travel is a whole other ball of wax that requires certain criteria in order to get and it is a pain in the ass. Most Flags, non 4 stars who have a requirement, actually like comm air because they want the mileage. It really depends on how senior the Flag is. We were usually the only Navy 3 star flying out of Andrews on one of the C-21's. The AF on the other hand seemed to work the C-21 VIP schedule a little bit better. 3 stars almost always get C-21's or C-35's for CONUS travel. FWIW, the Marine C-35's were the nicest planes to fly on by far. Once, JOSAC sent a C-9 to pick the 2 of us up without any other pax's. It all depends on JOSAC at that point and their plane availability.

 

[Flash]

All of our inconus travel was Comm air, as was travel to from CONUS. Anything else was pretty much MILAIR and we always got our own plane (then again Europe is a little different than the states). We still had to run our MILAIR requests through JAG and the 4 star as well.

It seemed like all our 3 star flew in CONUS was a military jet, I guess there might be security concerns with him though.

 

[othromas]

As opposed to secretly pro agenda yes...

Who has a secret agenda?

Absolutely. That way you know what you are getting. Trying to get news thats purely objective is impossible. The writer is going to interject their opinion on the matter regardless of how impartial they try to remain. Simply by omitting certain details they have judged what the reader needs to or should know.

When a newspaper or any media outlet is openly biased the reader doesn't have to stop and wonder how much of a slant there is.

The last statement I totally disagree with. Once someone puts a slant on something, how do you know when it stops unless you check it against something else? Goes right with what FLASH said.

I don't plug into the news as much as I should, but I'm with FLASH on this. My mom is a kneejerk liberal, and my dad is more libertarian in his views. As I've read things on this site, listened to the news and talked to people who know what they're talking about, I have been finding myself swaying more and more to the "right" -- a term I don't particularly like--especially on national defense and security issues. I never thought that'd happen five or six years ago, but it has since I've been trying to keep an open mind, just not so open it falls out. The more sides of something we can see, the better we can understand it.