General Edward Rice, commander of the Air Force Air Education and Training Command, has made (the foreseeable) statement that UAV pilots will someday outnumber all other pilots in the Air Force.
Of course, the birth of the nuclear age foretold the end of the fighter pilot era, and the demise of the dedicated close air support aircraft has been predicted (and proven false) repeatedly. The future is anything but entirely certain.
Marc Knapp was sentenced to 46 months in prison for trying to sell an F-5 and various F-14 parts to Iran.
Prosecutors said Knapp…was motivated by both greed and a hatred of the United States. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Hall said Knapp told an undercover agent that he was starting to hate America and wanted to “level the playing field” with Iran.
Defense attorney Christopher Koyste said the statements Knapp made were “puffery.” Read more
General Norton Schwartz, Air Force Chief of Staff, has indicated the F-22 grounding will be lifted as of tomorrow. The jets have been largely inactive since the fleet was grounded in May over concerns about life support systems.
Though at one point it was maligned for publicizing its Christianity, optical sight maker Trijicon has consistently been praised for its world-class rifle sights.
More to the point, a recent US Marine recruit training company graduated having qualified using only Trijicon’s AN/PVQ-31 Rifle Combat Optics, as opposed to the “iron sights” traditionally used. The result?
“I can tell you Bravo Company had 30 percent more Read more
Two Russian pilots were reportedly killed when their MiG-31 Foxhound crashed in the Perm region of Russia. The crash apparently occurred immediately after takeoff; Russia grounded its MiG-31 fleet while it investigates the cause of the crash.
In one of the many reports on the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, the Washington Post recounts the story of two F-16 pilots from the 121st Fighter Squadron of the Washington, DC, Air National Guard, who were some of the first to respond to the attack. As also reported at MSNBC.com,
the F-16 jets they were rushing to get airborne were largely Read more
Many people are familiar with the “Dear Boss” letter from a fighter pilot in the Air Force to his “leaders,” decrying the loss of focus (or downfall) of the traditional Air Force. It was a response to a survey on fighter pilot retention in the late 1970s. The letter has circulated so long because it resounded with so many people. (It was also published in the October 1978 Armed Forces Journal.)
Apparently the letter was “updated” in 2009. Though some of the terminology changed, the concepts behind it remain essentially the same. The letter is at times cynical and negative, at others pensive and truthful. It is certainly a perspective on life in the Air Force (as a fighter pilot). One worth joining? That’s another debate.
This letter was actually revived by the Air Force itself. It was sent out in an email from the USAFE Commander in a plea for feedback as to why fighter pilots aren’t staying in the Air Force (even in a down economy, including turning down the bonus).
The full text of “the letter” is below. Read more
US Army Specialist Benjamin Halbert recently said
If you can play Xbox, you can fly a Raven.
Unfortunately, that kind of attitude is ultimately how you run airplanes into each other.
The Raven is a rucked-in, hand-launched UAV with a four-foot wingspan. Halbert’s point is probably that it is not complicated to fly — which is true.
But physically flying the UAV is only one Read more