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There I was at 30,000 feet
I invited a few F-15 buddies to join me on Facebook, where I started a by-invitation group for current and former military aviators. For the past year or two I’ve been looking for the presence of other F-15 pilots on the net. Just did another quick sweep, and AFAIK I’m the only one. Although the […]
Some thoughts on Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ sacking of USAF Secretary Wynn and Chief of Staff Moseley: The nuclear weapons SNAFUs described in the linked article were too serious to excuse, and ample reason to replace senior leadership. I can’t say I saw it coming, but I did wonder, back in 1992, what then-USAF […]
Oh, my. One night in the squadron bar, another lieutenant colonel and I had a long, beer-fueled discussion about fellow F-15 pilots who’d died in crashes. The guys who didn’t eject in time. The guys who flew into the ground or water, or who were instantly killed in mid-air collisions. And we concluded that there […]
Boy, does this make me feel old: In early November 2007, the nose and cockpit section of a Missouri Air National Guard F-15C broke away from the rest of the aircraft during a training flight. The pilot ejected and survived. Here’s a simulation of what happened: Following the mishap, the USAF grounded its entire fleet […]
Gwen, one of my regular readers, alerted me to this story about Pentagon and pharmaceutical industry efforts to create a drug to suppress soldiers’ moral qualms over killing. Psychological Kevlar, in other words, to reduce or eliminate growing mental health problems in troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s the trouble with traditional methods of overcoming our aversion […]
Is air power the new face of successful war-fighting? Much to the dismay of the boots-on-the-ground zealots … the answer for today’s democracies may well be “yes.” During the summer, while U.S. ground forces in Iraq were distracted investigating potential war criminals in their midst, air power delivered a major success. … When thousands of troops […]
I came home yesterday and found a notice taped to my door: Weblog Protective Services says if I don’t hurry up and write some entries, they’re gonna take my blogs away and give them to Kevin Federline. So here’s what I’m working on: a letter to the authorities protesting first-class security screening lines at airports. The […]
Wow, the left side of the blogosphere is up in arms over this story, about the woman who demanded to be let off a departing flight after becoming frightened by Arab passengers she thought were acting suspiciously. Witness this blog entry, titled “racist hysteric apologizes for targeting DOD-approved swarthy people,” and particularly the reader comments below […]