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i got word a few minites ago that i have a couple of 1/48 F-35B's ready to ship

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thanx Glen Coleman

www.KittyHawkmodel.com

Holy! That is a lot of F-35Bs, I am going to have to pick up a couple of these! Looks Good!

cheers

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A few points.

First, thanks for not throwing the AF in the Navy pile. Our enlisted guys are getting sucked in theatre for fun stuff like convoy duty so the Army guys can get up closer and personal with bad guys. Convoys get lots of negative attention. Our officers pretty much can count on a year long paid vacation if they get promoted to field grade. And while our air crews generally are safe on base, barring random rocket attacks or an Afghan "friend" shooting them off duty, there is a reason they carry blood chits and have Ravens on board.

So maybe being there, in the fight, and living with the guys you saved or paying respects to those you didn't on a daily basis alerts the POV compared to bitching about the lack of decent movies on a 6 month cruise.

Not saying the Navy doesn't suck in its own way, it does. But there is a lot less sand and dust to deal with, and I'm thinking the flies aren't as bad either.

Apparently you don't know anything about the Navy's Inidividual Augmentee program. The Navy has had pretty constantly around 9000 sailors individually deployed in "non traditional roles" (read Army) since the conflicts ramped up. This is of course seperate and additional to all the other normal Navy deployments. Say what you want about crappy Navy procurement proceedures and lack of pespective, but you can't claim that senior Navy leadership is not trying to build its war on terror street cred on the backs of junior officers and sailors.

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i got word a few minites ago that i have a couple of 1/48 F-35B's ready to ship

thanx Glen Coleman

www.KittyHawkmodel.com

Glen, do you have a warehouse in the US? Or you are waiting for shipment from China?

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Not only do I disagree with this so called noise environmental impact study but I also disagree with them making our pilots stick to a certain modeled flight profile just to please the people who think the aircraft is to noisy. Personally I think if its too loud then move away because 70% of the Military bases on US soil were built before your house in the first place. I just dont think for the sake of noise that we should make our pilots fly a certain modeled profile and risk a crash because some pencil pusher thinks that dropping throttle 10% will lessen noise levels.

Working under the 90 for RWY 6 @ Pax, I can vouch for it being the loudest thing on the ramp there. By a lot. Also, one of my reserve squadron mates lives in Burlington, VT and he was just told that he is now in the high-noise zone when JSF arrives. Which means his home value just went down even though he could care less about the noise.

Also, all airliners fly departure profiles, that usually include a rapid climb to 1500' AGL then a power reduction, just for noise...in addition, in the military we all learn "course rules" from Day 1 covering departures and arrivals because it's efficient and safely separates aircraft. We're doing this today, at every base. You just don't hear about it.

Spongebob

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Apparently you don't know anything about the Navy's Inidividual Augmentee program. The Navy has had pretty constantly around 9000 sailors individually deployed in "non traditional roles" (read Army) since the conflicts ramped up. This is of course seperate and additional to all the other normal Navy deployments. Say what you want about crappy Navy procurement proceedures and lack of pespective, but you can't claim that senior Navy leadership is not trying to build its war on terror street cred on the backs of junior officers and sailors.

Thats 9,000 out of 321,000 active sailors. Its not going to be enough for a cultural change. And its still not "Big Navy" Happy for those sailors, but the USN is not in that business, and even if it was all that awesome infantry experience won't be making any big command decisions and seeing stars until decades from now. Even then, they will probably pick someone from a a frigate first.

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Thats 9,000 out of 321,000 active sailors. Its not going to be enough for a cultural change. And its still not "Big Navy" Happy for those sailors, but the USN is not in that business, and even if it was all that awesome infantry experience won't be making any big command decisions and seeing stars until decades from now. Even then, they will probably pick someone from a a frigate first.

I'm not trying to suggest that the IA sailors are going to foment cultural change within the Navy, but instead directly counter the assertion that the Air Force is picking up the slack in the ground fight where the Navy is not. How many Airmen are engaged in "non-traditional" roles, augmenting Army units? I'm going to venture it is probably a similar number to what the Navy does. If so, the previous comments by MarkW were colored by lack of information, which I attempted to correct.

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That's 9,000 at any given time; they are year tours and in the past the number was much higher. It's very, very hard to find someone that's been in for more than 4 years now that hasn't done one, and I have several friends that have been tagged twice....one who's just heading out on trip #4 - and he's a reservist.

Ever since 2003, the US Navy has been very much in the business of augmenting the Army....to the point, 2 of my Navy pilot counterparts spent a year each dodging IED's in Iraq as convoy commanders. Another was the XO of a prison....mayor of a village in Afghanistan...E-2 and Helo guy's being sent out as JTACs...need I go on?

Will that change anything? Probably not. The numbers are neutral as to an effect on whether people stay in or not. It's equal parts good to be doing something "important", sucks because it's something that you didn't sign up to do...pretty far from it for the most part. More importantly, the lack of "honest", knowledgable leadership (all meanings of it) at the upper levels back in the US Navy is driving people to take their skills elsewhere rather than spend 20 years in the clown show....if anything, the IA's highlight this lack even more. Looking at the current squadron department head select list, the going opinion is that they had to dig pretty deep into the bench to get enough bodies.

Just my $.05.

Spongebob

Edited by Spongebob
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I've got a friend out at Lemoore that IA'd for a year. They promised him he could pick his next assignment. He got to...kind of. He wanted to continue to fly, so they shipped him out west from VA Beach. But, he got to fly. Sponge, if you could explain something for me. He's a dept. head at -41. After he's done with this upcoming cruise, he's going to do some post-grad work. Not knowing the workings of the Navy, is he in line for an XO position?

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Separation of aircraft and safety of flight are obviously the prime considerations when designing any arrival/departure procedure, but noise abatement plays a part also. Plus there are always the possibility of additional rules/restrictions as to when an aircraft can do practice approaches. After a certain hour, aircraft are often restricted to a full-stop landing or in some cases, a straight in full-stop. This all works pretty well for IFR landings & takeoffs and the transient aircraft that shows up at 1700L on Sunday afternoon.

But...

I'm telling ya, when that loud SOB starts cranking some g's in the VFR pattern, the noise rules are gonna go right out the window. Also, if you really want some awesome jet noise action, add a 5,000' deck of stratocumulus overcast!!!

Edited by Shawn C.
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After he's done with this upcoming cruise, he's going to do some post-grad work. Not knowing the workings of the Navy, is he in line for an XO position?

He's probably competitive. Most important is getting the #1 of X DH's fitrep...that's your ticket to play at the board. He'd be in better shape if he was headed to a Joint job.

My timing got dorked up (the H-60 to E-2 transition immediately before 2 wars was unkind timing wise) and I wasn't going to have a ticket in time for the board. All the detailer offered was Strike Ops (think ship's company, air wing skeds-O) for 3 years...opted out of that BS.

HTH

Sponge

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Even then, they will probably pick someone from a a frigate first.

The beauty of the IA is that they don't pull you off a sea tour for it. They take your shore time away from you to do them. As for value...you're seeing now in the boards (CPO, O-4/DH and higher) that you need at least one IA to play...two or more is better. They're even factoring in a "quality" (read "extra points for extra suck") factor to them. CENTCOM Tampa - not so much. IED tripper - bonus.

Edited by Spongebob
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The beauty of the IA is that they don't pull you off a sea tour for it. They take your shore time away from you to do them. As for value...you're seeing now in the boards (CPO, O-4/DH and higher) that you need at least one IA to play...two or more is better. They're even factoring in a "quality" (read "extra points for extra suck") factor to them. CENTCOM Tampa - not so much. IED tripper - bonus.

Amazing but totally predictable. You have to endure the hardship to have a shot and even then there are no guarantees. I never made CPO in the Navy. I did back to back sea tours because of broken service, did an instructor tour, went overseas for six years, then finished up back in Jax in an operations staff job. I essentially dodged the boat during the second half of my career, and that combined with the Clinton era drawdown scuttled my promotion opportunities. That's okay. I knew it up front when I made those duty choices. I had young kids and was not willing to leave them for deployments. Of course there was no war going on. It is completely different now.

Edited by DutyCat
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>>> Article <<<

Lockheed Martin Aeronautics is looking to its employees -- some of them, anyway -- for a few good ideas on how to cut the cost of developing and producing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

Lockheed has launched a monthlong program called the F-35 Affordability Challenge. Using a special computer program called Brainstorm, the project asks salaried employees to submit ideas for cost-saving techniques that can be analyzed.

"Since we launched the program Monday morning, we've already had about 30 suggestions," spokesman B.J. Boling told staff writer Bob Cox.

The F-35 program was initially sold to the Pentagon and Congress as a low-cost way to provide all three U.S. military services with new-generation combat jets. But costs run amok.

As a result, the Pentagon, Congress and outside critics are making noise about program costs and hammering on Lockheed to make the aircraft more "affordable."

Lockheed will pick the most promising ideas and have them reviewed by its in-house experts to see if they can be implemented. Employees with the winning ideas will be recognized by the company.

"Hopefully through this filtration process we'll get a few ideas that come out the other end that will result in real affordability gains," Boling said.

-Gregg

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What is absolutely stunning to me is that a major U.S., or for that matter, any modern manufacturer, is boasting about implementing a basic TQM sort of practice at this very late date.

It's like your 21 year old coming home from college and expecting a gold star sticker for how good a job they did crayon coloring a picture of a wagon...

:rolleyes:

Edited by MarkW
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He's probably competitive. Most important is getting the #1 of X DH's fitrep...that's your ticket to play at the board. He'd be in better shape if he was headed to a Joint job.

My timing got dorked up (the H-60 to E-2 transition immediately before 2 wars was unkind timing wise) and I wasn't going to have a ticket in time for the board. All the detailer offered was Strike Ops (think ship's company, air wing skeds-O) for 3 years...opted out of that BS.

HTH

Sponge

How much time do you guys spend dealing with BS like this? I'm way past my prime to sign up but reading posts reaffirms my choice to go with another branch.

From an aviation standpoint, is there any chance someone could enlist out of college and spend their entire career flying? If not, what would the percentage be between being an aviator and flying a desk over a 20-year career?

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Actually, a lot of good ideas can come from the folks that are fabricating and manufacturing the aircraft ...

-Gregg

I think you are missing my point. Asking workers for input to improve processes started under Demming in the 1950s when his methods were used to rebuild Japanese auto industry. That's why Japanese cars have consistently done so well since the 1980s, through TQM, Lean Six Sigma, and other manufacturing/organizational continual process improvement schemes. Employing TQM is what turned Harley Davidson from leaky crap to primo top notch built bikes.

This would have been news in 1980, now it's just embarrassing they are beating their chest for being so far behind the times.

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Mark, I agree that is is long overdue to implement something that should have been in place YEARS ago ... Who knows, maybe it wouldn't be so far behind as it is if they had done so much earlier ...

-Gregg

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