BUT I PAID FOR ABOUT 1 ATOM OF THE STEEL USED IN THAT JET'S CONSTRUCTION!!!!!11

I demand a ride.

[Edited on December 12, 2008 at 10:03 AM. Reason : *]

12/12/2008 10:03:07 AM

Quote :

"Awesome! Glad the taxpayer is getting to pay for flare fireworks and "raging around the desert"."

Way to be that guy.

12/12/2008 10:16:19 AM

for reals

12/12/2008 10:57:20 AM

Quote :

"I've come in to land here numerous times at 20k' or more just a few miles from the runway, then rolling inverted, pulling 60-70 degrees nose down, and screaming into the landing pattern at 500+ knots. I know one guy in another squadron who came in at .95 Mach. Noise abatement and FAA regulations are not limiting factors here."

I've thought about joining just so I could completely ignore the FAA like that.

12/12/2008 12:04:36 PM

DO IT

Selling your soul to Uncle Sam is fun!

12/12/2008 12:20:27 PM

Sounds fun, our chain of command is a bunch of nazis (Inf Bn..) I got in trouble for "autographing" a picture of Muqtada Al-Sadr and hanging it over an Arabic soldier's bunk.

We also got in trouble for passing out "My other Car is a VBIED" stickers to locals, as well as wearing fake mustaches on patrol.

12/12/2008 1:37:44 PM

^^ Nah, already been screwed by a recruiter.

Besides, I hear that they make you get up wicked early.

12/12/2008 3:25:51 PM

lol at JTBucky

LOLZ GUISE CAN I RIDES IN UR JET???!

12/12/2008 4:23:32 PM

^^^lol, that sounds hilarious

12/12/2008 4:34:51 PM

12/12/2008 4:35:01 PM

Quote :

"We also got in trouble for passing out "My other Car is a VBIED" stickers to locals"

No shit you got in trouble for that one. I'm usually the one doing the mischief, not the one bent out of shape about it, but really...what in the hell were you guys thinking?

Quote :

"Awesome! Glad the taxpayer is getting to pay for flare fireworks and "raging around the desert"

In addition to the fact that we were going to dump the fuel anyway (and the fact that we dispense 2 sets of flares every time we take off to test the system), we did start being more frugal with the flare dispensing when we learned that it costs a few hundred bucks every time we hit the button.

You will also be pleased to know that we're about to strike one of our five $60,000,000 aircraft from the books due to structural damage.

and one of the cases for one of our jamming pods just sustained $20,000 worth of damage from getting bumped by a flightline tug.

Operating aircraft like this is wicked expensive...but still a drop in the bucket compared to other stuff in the DoD (and even compared to certain other aircraft...see if you can look up the fuel capacity and burn rates of a B-1 or a B-52, for example...or google the picture of the B-1 --which prob costs TRIPLE what a Prowler does -- that the pilot landed with the landing gear up a little while back).

Quote :

"I've thought about joining just so I could completely ignore the FAA like that."

I think we get away with little things here and there that they wouldn't tolerate from civilian aviators (and we get to fly really low and really fast on MTRs and in MOAs), but we don't get to just ignore the FAA. The "tactical arrival" would NOT be ok in CONUS...sometimes we break the 250 kias <10k' restriction, sometimes by a wide margin in/near tower airspace at military airfields, but the reason we are doing stuff like that is because it's Iraq, not because we're military.

Oh, and we came into the break at 530 kias on NVGs the last couple of nights.

12/12/2008 8:41:10 PM

Yeah, that was a bit of an overstatement on my part.

I was hanging out with a buddy last month who was telling stories about tactical descents in some of the large cargo planes that sounded just unreal.

12/12/2008 10:11:41 PM

^^ Somebody lost his wings over this one:

12/12/2008 11:29:48 PM

thats a sweet picture

12/12/2008 11:35:15 PM

^^ DOH!

Here's a series of pics of the recovery. http://www.ravenware.com/factand/nofic/b1pics/gurec/

12/12/2008 11:57:59 PM

Quote :

"Quote : "We also got in trouble for passing out "My other Car is a VBIED" stickers to locals" No shit you got in trouble for that one. I'm usually the one doing the mischief, not the one bent out of shape about it, but really...what in the hell were you guys thinking? "

My enchantment with the locals ended long ago; several of our "informants" were implicated in an IED ring, one of our National Police counterparts' weapons turned up hot on a ballistics match for a bullet that wounded my roommate, and one of our longstanding terps was rounded up after a screening uncovered he had ties to Jaish Al-Mahdi. My professionalism hasn't suffered, but I'm ready to leave here next month before I completely lose all faith in the Arab populace.

[Edited on December 13, 2008 at 7:46 AM. Reason : ing/ed]

12/13/2008 7:46:15 AM

yeah, a lot of that shit goes on, and you don't have to like the locals or the country, but giving out stickers like that is counterproductive.

12/13/2008 8:01:08 AM

damn that is one beautiful aircraft

12/13/2008 8:47:59 AM

A few from my last trip:

12/13/2008 12:52:20 PM

...so we have a whiteboard in every room of our plywood HQ building (and several in the ready room). The latest fad is to write "cock" on the boards in discrete places. You erase a noun in someone's sentance and replace it with "cock"...kinda like Mad Libs when you were a kid.

Cock has also been added to lists for mission planning. It's showed up on the week-ahead scheduling outlook as an extra aircrew on a couple of flights.

My two personal favorites are the two I've done:

The major controlling agency we contact when airborne to coordinate all of the airborne assets from mission to mission has the callsign of "WARHAWK". There was a note about them on one of our boards--I changed it to "WARCAWK."

Also, we have 4 vehicles for our squadron--the CO and Sgt Maj each have a car, and we have a little Nissan euro-van for the aircrew, and one of our Majors ("Whack", so named for an episode where his room was entered at an inopportune time) rescued a Ford Focus from the junk pile, which we fixed up and got running (which we call the "Whackmobile", or sometimes the "Fuckus"). The location of each vehicle is written on one of the ready room boards. Beside "CO:", I wrote "CK".

Oh, and this latest round of childish humor was instigated by our lone female aviator, The Count (so named because she looks like the Sesame Street character).

1/12/2009 11:45:30 AM

Haha. Nice.

1/12/2009 11:57:01 AM

There is a river that runs about 15 miles from the base, with a pair of bends that make a nice visual checkpoint that we refer to as "the ballsack". We were coming back in from a flight today, and the pilot said "field in sight." I replied "Roger...got the ballsack on the nose."

_______

1/12/2009 12:35:45 PM

it's about safety, man....


think about your personal value...and then think about what it would cost if they lost you...

1/12/2009 12:38:09 PM

On my first Med Tour, our FCO (Fire Control Officer) used to always have those tubular cans of cheese balls by his console. You weren't supposed to have food in CIC (Command Information Center). During his watch one night, he stupidly left his open can of cheeseballs on the floor to go take a piss and wonder around for a while.

When he left, an FC2 Dietz who was also standing watch, took the can of cheeseballs, dumped the cheeseballs out onto papertowels, took a shit in the bottom of the can and then dumped all of the cheeseballs on top. He then placed the cheeseballs back beside the FCO's console.

FCO returns, gets settled in and goes for the cheeseballs. As he cracks the plastic lid like he had so many times before...

"what the fuck?"

"GOD DAMN WHO TOOK A FUCKING SHIT IN MY GODDAMN CHEESEBALLS?"

1/12/2009 12:45:02 PM

10/10 thread, will read again

1/12/2009 1:02:18 PM

Oh, you guys are gonna like this one...

So, there's another Prowler squadron out here besides us...they are about to be relieved by a Navy squadron. Well, a couple of days ago, we had our squadron deployment photo taken. We had one of their guys stand watch at our duty desk for about a half hour, so we could get everyone in the picture.

Well, since our squadron nickname is the "Playboys", we have a 3' tall stuffed rabbit dressed like Hugh Hefner that we take around with us as our mascot. As long as there have been fighter and attack squadrons, those squadrons have had mascots, and other squadrons have tried to steal them. Occasionally they'll be kept, but more often, a ransom is charged (either a ridiculous act of some sort, or kegs of beer, or both). I'm sure you're doing the math on your own from here--while we were outside doing the photo, the other squadron took our mascot.

The next day, another guy and I went to their HQ and tried to steal their unit flag...then we'd have a strong bargaining chip. Due to some bad luck and unfortunate timing, we got busted and didn't manage to take it.

Last night, however, we struck back.

One of our night crews had a mission that ended early, so they got back and staked out the other squadron's HQ, with our aircrew van parked out of sight nearby. To make a long story short, they abducted one of the other squadron's pilots. They took his pistol, and he's been under watch at our HQ ever since. They also made a flag with our playboy bunny logo on it, and filmed a ransom message that they sent to the other squadron (it has their pilot kneeling in front of that flag, reading a message from a script, with one of our masked aircrew standing on each side of him).

1/30/2009 11:09:56 AM

I can't wait for the video to show up on Fox News.

1/30/2009 11:11:43 AM

I have the video, but I'm not gonna be the first one to put it on the internet.

1/30/2009 11:13:44 AM

I will remember you enjoy making videos

1/30/2009 11:14:26 AM

We were out at Cape Lookout one summer and saw a B1 fly over. It was flying down the island then the pilot banked hard towards the ocean. The wings swept forward and then he punched it and the wings swept back again. It was probably one of the coolest fly-overs that I've ever seen.

1/30/2009 11:25:14 AM

that last story seems a bit extreme

1/30/2009 11:28:49 AM

apparently about 10 of their guys came by at an odd hour last night when there was only one guy in our ready room. they asked for their pilot back, and we returned him.

That's why I suggested that we should hid his pistol, preferably disassembled and in a couple of different places, but oh well. More shenanigans are almost certainly on the way.

1/31/2009 5:06:36 AM

Keep em coming dude! Glad to hear you and everyone there are ok.

1/31/2009 12:37:32 PM

Well, more retribution against the offending squadron was made.

a stencil was made of our squadron logo, and one of their jets was decorated (using the proper aircraft paint and everything) the night before they left to go back to the states.

Not everyone found it humorous...and by "not everyone", I mean their commanding officer and our commanding officer. Hopefully nobody gets in too much trouble over it.

2/8/2009 12:31:13 PM

Quote :

" That's why I suggested that we should hid his pistol, preferably disassembled and in a couple of different places, but oh well. More shenanigans are almost certainly on the way."

i'm not familiar with the inner shenanigans of the military. would he really turn his weapon against fellow soldiers over a prank? seems a bit extreme.

2/8/2009 12:43:02 PM

haha, no.

but it's serialized gear--it's a really big deal to lose it. in other words, it wouldn't matter if he escaped (he never tried...he pretty much just hung out with us in our ready room for a day and a half. we brought him food), or was "rescued", or whatever. It wouldn't do any good without that pistol.

2/8/2009 12:46:38 PM

oh, i see. without his pistol, you basically have him by the balls.

2/8/2009 12:50:02 PM

We have a refridgerator in the ready room that we keep stocked with drinks from the chow hall. Every couple of days, everyone grabs some cokes or gatorades or whatever to bring back to the squadron.

Well, we have one guy who was adamant that he really hates Diet Coke, and only likes Diet Pepsi...so one of our other guys sent out an "all-aircrew" email, with that one guy's name deleted from the list, directing everyone to only bring in Diet Coke, "heavy" Cokes and Pepsi (his word), and Mountain Dew. If you see a Diet Pepsi in the fridge, you are to remove it.

Well, last night, we went one step further. We took a hammer and nail and punched a hole in the bottom of a Diet Pepsi to empty the can, then refilled it with water. We then repressurized the can as best as we could with canned air (like you clean electronics with), then sealed it back up with bubble gum. We then left it in the fridge as the lone Diet Pepsi.

3/4/2009 8:23:42 AM

You should have set up a hidden camera.

3/4/2009 9:10:57 AM

haha

there's actually another recent story that involves something to that effect, but it's more involved, and i don't have time to type it all out right now.

the scheduler (the Diet Pepsi guy, for that matter) scheduled me either to fly or stand duty every day except one for 3 weeks in a row. He finally hooked me up with a few days (4/5) unscheduled, so I have a lot of work to do in terms of catching up with my ground job and some studying.

3/4/2009 9:16:59 AM

pics:

3/9/2009 1:17:15 PM

3/9/2009 1:54:33 PM

Quote :

""GOD DAMN WHO TOOK A FUCKING SHIT IN MY GODDAMN CHEESEBALLS?""

lmfao

3/9/2009 2:41:56 PM

linking to your email account = fail

3/9/2009 3:35:56 PM

This is great stuff

U.S. Armed Services, they bring the tuff.™

3/9/2009 4:06:35 PM

so two of our Majors switched jobs about a week ago, and therefore switched offices. One of them--while normally a pretty cool guy--commandeered a couch out of the morale room. Some of the Captains thought that was kinda screwed up, so a few guys went in there and took it back to the morale room (that's where the Marines can go to make phone calls home, play on the Nintendo, read, etc when they have some down time).

Well, the Major in question then went to the logistics office and took their couch--they, of course, promptly stole it back.

After he went home that night, some of the Captains went into his office and rearranged EVERYTHING back exactly like the previous Major had it set up. They then put a sign on the door of the morale room that said "WE'RE WATCHING YOU. DON'T STEAL ANY MORE COUCHES." Someone had a dummy, battery-powered surveillance camera that they mounted on the wall and aimed at his door--it had a blinking LED, and even a motion sensor so it would scan back and forth if you got close to it. Finally, a couple of days later, he apparently got an unrelated email back from someone back in the States that closed with "...AND DON'T STEAL ANYMORE COUCHES."

3/9/2009 4:28:15 PM

which is higher? major or captain?

3/9/2009 4:51:28 PM

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=marine+ranks

3/9/2009 4:54:44 PM

In the Navy, the Cap'n rules:

3/9/2009 5:01:41 PM

set em up

3/9/2009 5:50:51 PM