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Dropped off my two oldest kids today for a week at National Flight Academy here in Pensacola. They both applied for and were awarded scholarships to it. Sorry for the livejournal post but I thought my fellow aviation
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Aug 4, 2014 07:49
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It's the most important time of the year for the RAF, the 2014 photograph competition! http://www.raf.mod.uk/news/archive/raf-photographic-competition-2014-01082014        
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Aug 4, 2014 13:21
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted:It's the most important time of the year for the RAF, the 2014 photograph competition! http://www.raf.mod.uk/news/archive/raf-photographic-competition-2014-01082014 Clearly the dog one wins, it looks so happy
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Aug 4, 2014 13:52
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Flikken posted:Clearly the dog one wins, it looks so happy Also one of the few pictures with something airborne in it.
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Aug 4, 2014 14:14
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Someone please tell me they have a larger version of the Spitfire picture so I can set it as my desktop.
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Aug 4, 2014 14:17
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Tell me they have one that's not all HDR'd and strangely post processed.
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Aug 4, 2014 15:02
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Lightbulb Out posted:Tell me they have one that's not all HDR'd and strangely post processed. yeah that's some gross HDR overprocessing right there. I know that's a  thing with some photographers, but speaking from the depths of sucking at photography: I do not like it. Stop that.I also vote for the dog photo. Second place to "hey look at these afterburners" because I'm a sucker for that photo angle.
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Aug 4, 2014 16:43
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Psion posted:yeah that's some gross HDR overprocessing right there. I know that's a It's pretty bad, sorry if it hurts your feelings but whether it's hdr or just desaturating + cranking the clarity slider it's still a lovely technique. Just look at how terrible the sky is in that picture, when you start having artifacts and pixelation because you're throwing sliders around willy nilly it turns into a lovely picture.
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Aug 4, 2014 17:15
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Wait, what? RAF dress uniforms come with swords? I know an officer and a gentleman and all that, but really?
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Aug 4, 2014 19:05
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lol if you've never stepped out on the wing to fence with a Nazi
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Aug 4, 2014 19:36
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Deptfordx posted:Wait, what? RAF dress uniforms come with swords? Swords never really went away. Even the US Army, Navy, and Marines have them, but they're not provided. And they're not cheap. The Air Force regs don't address it either way except for honor guard stuff.
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Aug 4, 2014 19:43
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Oh, I know it's traditional and all that. Archaic traditions in the Army/Navy don't bother me. But the RAF didn't exist till 1918, and the current design was adopted in 1925. I'm just amazed at no point in the process somebody didn't put their hand up and say "Uhm, Swords? Really? Isn't this kind of dumb".
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Aug 4, 2014 19:56
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quote:Nice, mismatched socks. edit: I really wanna hug that dog. It looks like he's flying at me and smiling.
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Aug 4, 2014 20:02
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Deptfordx posted:Oh, I know it's traditional and all that. Archaic traditions in the Army/Navy don't bother me. But the RAF didn't exist till 1918, and the current design was adopted in 1925. I'm just amazed at no point in the process somebody didn't put their hand up and say "Uhm, Swords? Really? Isn't this kind of dumb". In the Army's defense, they do have some really sharp dress uniforms. 
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Aug 4, 2014 20:03
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CharlesM posted:Nice, mismatched socks. You don't suppose there's some significance to having a red toe on the left foot and a green toe on the right? 
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Aug 4, 2014 20:06
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CharlesM posted:Nice, mismatched socks. Sainsburys socks, at that.
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Aug 4, 2014 20:18
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Deptfordx posted:Oh, I know it's traditional and all that. Archaic traditions in the Army/Navy don't bother me. But the RAF didn't exist till 1918, and the current design was adopted in 1925. I'm just amazed at no point in the process somebody didn't put their hand up and say "Uhm, Swords? Really? Isn't this kind of dumb". I can tell you from the cold war thread the Royal Navy resisted the adding of PALs (Permissive Action Links) on their nuclear weapons until the 1990s because they found the idea that a RN officer would do anything dishonorable insulting
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Aug 4, 2014 20:43
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holocaust bloopers posted:In the Army's defense, they do have some really sharp dress uniforms. Sick break on those pants lol.
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Aug 4, 2014 21:09
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holocaust bloopers posted:In the Army's defense, they do have some really sharp dress uniforms. Really, you went there?
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Aug 4, 2014 21:19
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hobbesmaster posted:Also one of the few pictures with something airborne in it. RAF.txt
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Aug 4, 2014 21:54
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iyaayas01 posted:RAF.txt More like FleetAirArm.txt (hey bros, nice planes)
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Aug 4, 2014 22:05
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Flikken posted:Really, you went there? Glorious isn't it?
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Aug 4, 2014 22:08
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SybilVimes posted:More like FleetAirArm.txt (hey bros, nice planes) Well we said "one of the few pictures with anything flying in it"...that implies owning at least a few airplanes capable of flying. Unlike the FAA.
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Aug 4, 2014 22:37
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iyaayas01 posted:Well we said "one of the few pictures with anything flying in it"...that implies owning at least a few airplanes capable of flying. Literally the RAF's fault.
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Aug 4, 2014 23:41
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Literally the RAF's fault. Tell them the same thing the USAF told the Army* after the C-27 debacle: Only one service gets to fly fixed wing, and it ain't you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqcLjcSloXs * ignore the veritable plethora of fixed wing ISR poo poo that the Army flies
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Aug 4, 2014 23:51
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iyaayas01 posted:Tell them the same thing the USAF told the Army* after the C-27 debacle: As an adjunct question, how schizophrenic is the AF leadership getting in regards to pilot slots becoming drone
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Aug 5, 2014 00:16
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The whole C-27J thing still mystifies me. We bought them and then couldn't decide who was going to use them and then just threw our hands in the air and said "gently caress it?"
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Aug 5, 2014 00:23
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StandardVC10 posted:The whole C-27J thing still mystifies me. We bought them and then couldn't decide who was going to use them and then just threw our hands in the air and said "gently caress it?" #usaf
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Aug 5, 2014 00:25
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MrYenko posted:As an adjunct question, how schizophrenic is the AF leadership getting in regards to pilot slots becoming drone 18X's are a thing, so not very I would say. I mean there is now a full blown officially approved and sanctioned career field for pilots who will never fly a manned aircraft their entire time in. That's not to say that there still isn't TAMI-21 style buffoonery going on, because manned pilots are still being shanghaied into drone slots, but that is slowly going away. Between the 18X career field standing up increasing manpower and the demand for drone CAPs stabilizing (at least in total number) reducing thrash in the community as a whole, things have gotten a little less chaotic than the c. 2007-08 "holy poo poo throw everyone that can fly into a GCS and ship literally every single Pred downrange now, worry about the consequences later" mentality. Bob A Feet posted:#usaf DoD as a whole bears a lot of the responsibility for that debacle...the whole reason JCA got started in the first place is because in the middle of the last decade everything in DoD had to be relevant to fighting a couple pointless low-intensity wars in a couple of shithole third-world countries, everything else was a non-priority for reasons...which meant the Army got to call a lot of shots they otherwise wouldn't have normally gotten to call. The USAF had just gotten done getting hammered by everyone for not doing enough to support said pointless low-intensity war, so we were more than happy to do whatever OSD said, and then as icing on the cake throw in the fact that Congress saw the JCA as an attractive option to use as replacement aircraft/mission in ANG units that were losing their Herks due to BRAC. For all those reasons, JCA happens as opposed to being aborted like it honestly should have been. Fast forward a couple years and cuts in the program put the ANG portion at risk...so Congress intervenes to force the Army to give up their portion in favor of handing the mission wholesale to the Air Guard (meaning the USAF now drives the train), with the understanding that they would be intended for support of the Army as a primary mission. Fast forward a couple years past that and we've (mostly) stopped fighting those pointless wars, which meant the requirement for intra-theater airlift (the niche mission of the C-27) was much lower, also DoD is facing some serious budget crises meaning niche capabilities are no longer a thing we can afford. C-27 goes on the chopping block because (similarly to the A-10) it's either that or we start making horizontal cuts to less niche capabilities (C-130s in the C-27s case) that will even further degrade our warfighting capability. The Air Guard (and by extension Congress) started freaking the gently caress out, because cutting the C-27 meant shuttering Air Guard units (all the RPA slots had already been snapped up by States with halfway intelligent Guard leadership). Congress getting involved meant drawing out the process, that combined with the idiotic way DoD writes contracts meant that we got into the situation of having aircraft delivered that we no longer wanted...thus the "who wants them?" firesale to the Coast Guard, Forest Service, and SOCOM. iyaayas01 fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Aug 5, 2014 |
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Aug 5, 2014 00:25
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My favorite part about reading the interservice safety magazines downrange is the inevitable war story from Major Smith, USAF, qualified in the F-15D and the MQ-1B. Well, that and fighter jet stories about experiencing a compressor stall on one engine and being frighteningly unable to maintain 24,000 feet. 
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Aug 5, 2014 00:40
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iyaayas01 posted:18X's are a thing, so not very I would say. I mean there is now a full blown officially approved and sanctioned career field for pilots who will never fly a manned aircraft their entire time in. quote:"A significant difference and the reason why we can teach someone how to do this that doesn't have any prior aircraft experience, is because they will never come in contact with the Earth with the aircraft. For RPAs, we have a mission control element and a launch and recovery element. The only portion we control here and train to do here is the mission control element." "Fly? Yes! Land? No?
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Aug 5, 2014 00:44
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Space Gopher posted:"Fly? Yes! Land? No? Doing things this way actually makes sense given the way the USAF operates RPAs with remote-split ops. I won't sperg out about it but the tl;dr is there really isn't any reason for the majority of RPA pilots to be LR qualified because most of them will never fly anything other than MCE and adding in LR qual would just unnecessarily add time, complexity, and cost to the training pipeline.
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Aug 5, 2014 00:50
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Ambihelical Hexnut posted:Well, that and fighter jet stories about experiencing a compressor stall on one engine and being frighteningly unable to maintain 24,000 feet. When I read about this kind of thing, it gets me thinking how incredibly ballsy pilots were back in the second world war. Your plane is just a couple of wings and a tail with some machine guns stuck on wherever they fit, and a giant engine built with 1940s technology crammed on the front and pushed so hard that its lifetime is measured in hours. You fly the thing with arm power and cables while trying to get a hundred yards behind another plane going three hundred miles an hour so you can shoot out his oil cooler, while shells the size of your forearm are exploding all around you. And thousands upon thousands of people did this.
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Aug 5, 2014 00:55
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iyaayas01 posted:Tell them the same thing the USAF told the Army* after the C-27 debacle: Not my job, actually. What happened was that the British government was looking for cutbacks, and set their eyes on either the Tornado or the Harrier (which was shared between the RAF and the FAA). Now, before finances went south the plan was to keep the Harrier in service to fly from the new carriers until the F-35B entered service around 2020 or whenever the gently caress LockMart said it would enter service back in the mid-2000s. Why the F-35B, you ask? Because the design phase of the British carrier project was a long, drawn out clusterfuck that started with the ships being CATOBAR (the same configuration, basically, as every last goddamned  carrier since the Langley: flat deck, catapults for shooting planes into the air, wires to bring planes to a halt on landing) until some brilliant mind decided to buy the F-35B because OMG STOVL (short take-off, vertical landing), so the carriers were redesigned to have a skiramp in front like the Kuznetsov. Of course by the time they realized this was a stupid loving decision, the ships were already under construction and it was so late in the day it would cost like $10 billion or some horrendous figure to rework them into the sort of carriers that God intended navies to use.So basically for the Fleet Air Arm it was a case of either keeping the Harrier and sharing them with the RAF, or having no fixed wing air whatsoever. It's not just a question of the pilots not having toys to fly around, either. The maintenance and flight deck crews would be standing around with their thumbs up their asses without the Harrier. Which is bad for keeping up efficiency and competence at doing basic carrier operation stuff. The Fleet Air Arm really, really loving needed the Harrier. And the government was looking at retiring the Harrier or the Tornado. Now, guess which aircraft the RAF brass hats all flew for most of their careers? It wasn't the Harrier. This was around 2010, and the Tornado fleet was at a point where they needed major rebuilding and overhaul, with the sizable price tag such things require. No problem, said the RAF, rehabbing the Tornadoes isn't nearly as expensive as we said it would be. No, really, would we lie to you? Oh gently caress yes. The British Cabinet buys the rubbish the RAF tells them hook, line, and sinker. Goodbye Harrier. The last ones are sent off to be sold to the Indians or whoever else flies them something like a month before the Arab Spring kicks off, and the British find themselves with no naval air capability but some Apaches. I heard all of this when I was still an American doing grad school abroad. Got it second hand from my thesis advisor who heard it from the muckity-mucks in the RN.
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Aug 5, 2014 01:08
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Sagebrush posted:When I read about this kind of thing, it gets me thinking how incredibly ballsy pilots were back in the second world war. Your plane is just a couple of wings and a tail with some machine guns stuck on wherever they fit, and a giant engine built with 1940s technology crammed on the front and pushed so hard that its lifetime is measured in hours. You fly the thing with arm power and cables while trying to get a hundred yards behind another plane going three hundred miles an hour so you can shoot out his oil cooler, while shells the size of your forearm are exploding all around you. Greatest generation greatest generation. My paternal grandfather was a glider pilot in WWII. A good use of resources: train an officer to be a pilot intensively for a couple of years and then have them crash a plane and become an infantry officer. hobbesmaster fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Aug 5, 2014 |
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Aug 5, 2014 01:09
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:so the carriers were redesigned to have a skiramp in front like the Kuznetsov. Of course by the time they realized this was a stupid loving decision, the ships were already under construction and it was so late in the day it would cost like $10 billion or some horrendous figure to rework them into the sort of carriers that God intended navies to use. Hey, I love the ski ramp. It's such a delightfully Russian solution to the problem. "Catapult? Steam machine? No, is too much. I show you what to do. I put ramp on front of boat. Plane go off ramp, vvsschhhh, fly away. Is easy, less money. No problem." The Russians maybe aren't elegant about the way they do things but they sure are effective. More people have gone into space in Soyuz capsules (the Chevy Cavalier of spacecraft) than any other type.
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Aug 5, 2014 01:17
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Powercube posted:That's assuming USFK and ROK forces haven't noticed the 1950's style mobilization tactics DPRK uses- found out it was for real this time, and waltzed in with tacit air dominance to take them out on the ground. Hey, hey, Annushka is far from obsolete, just like the DC-3. Hell, US special operations forces still use (turbine converted) DC-3's.
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Aug 5, 2014 01:19
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The WWII glider badge is the chest-hair-havingest of aeronautical ratings.
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Aug 5, 2014 01:21
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Sagebrush posted:Hey, I love the ski ramp. It's such a delightfully Russian solution to the problem. We should launch Chevy Cavaliers into space. Not to actually go anywhere with them, but just because the world would be such a better place without them on this Earth.
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Aug 5, 2014 01:31
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| # ? May 23, 2024 13:30 |
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YF19pilot posted:We should launch Chevy Cavaliers into space. Not to actually go anywhere with them, but just because the world would be such a better place without them on this Earth. Hey. They're more reliable than the f35.
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Aug 5, 2014 01:58
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