air force ??

opus

ledhed wrote:

According to Alex Trebek last night, the Airforce uses more fuel than all the other branches combined. I would think that means they have the most aircraft.

WINNER, winner, chicken dinner. I think that is what prompted him to call and ask .

Send George a fifty for me will ya?:D

MikeC78

George Grand wrote:

The Army doesn't own or fly any C-130's, so even though they are far from personal, you're far from correct.

The Air Force probably uses the most fuel because it's the only service with multitudes of 4 engine aircraft that guzzle up to 10,000 pounds of fuel per hour at cruise. Fighters burn more while in afterburner, but rarely operate in that realm. JP-8 jet fuel (the industry standard) weighs anywhere from 6.4 -6.8 lbs. per gallon, this being the fuel "density" and is dependent largely on ambient air temperature.

The Air Force operates a small fleet of ships for water survival training if nothing else.

The The Navy operates a couple of C-130's for logistical support, and in support of The Blue Angels aerial demonstration team. The Marines have a couple as well for logistical support. The Army operates a couple small twin-engine Fokker aircraft (I believe they are Fokkers) in support of their Golden Knights parachute demonstration team.

Don't mess with the old crusty military folks, they will put your **** in check real quick!;)

Hell, I even think George is a Sergeant Major??

Mike

George Grand

My present rank is Master Sergeant. I like to think of myself as a Master of Sergeants. I was promoted to this rank twice, once in 1989, and once in 1996. Being promoted to this rank is not nearly as much fun as being demoted from this rank.

HEAVILY crusted and lightly salted I might add.

MikeC78

Jstas wrote:

I build the Navy/Coast Guard and I deal with officers all the time. You may not care but they do and unless the know me real well and know I'm kidding, I can piss off a customer and that's a bad thing.

Yep, I pissed of many officers to include many Army Colonels to be exact.

Proud to piss people off, NO... When my **** is on the line in a war zone, I don't give a FU**!!!:mad:

I was a explosive K9 handler in Iraq for 3 tours since 04', I've ran into a buttload of Officers who thought they could tell me how to do my job, and compromise your safety along with thousands at the same time! Let's just keep it at that...

Mike

MikeC78

George Grand wrote:

My present rank is Master Sergeant. I like to think of myself as a Master of Sergeants. I was promoted to this rank twice, once in 1989, and once in 1996. Being promoted to this rank is not nearly as much fun as being demoted from this rank.

HEAVILY crusted and lightly salted I might add.

I salute you George / Master Sergeant, I love you old crusty/salty military people!;)

Mike

Bill Ayotte

George Grand wrote:

The ARMY has no fixed-wing aircraft. We only trust them with helicopters. They may have one or two small personal transport prop-jobs, but nothing fixed-wing that can drop anything or fire guns. Much too dangerous in the wrong hands.

We do have some fixed wing, but you are right in the way of anything that can lay down firepower. They have me for that.:cool:

MikeC78

Bill Ayotte wrote:

We do have some fixed wing, but you are right in the way of anything that can lay down firepower. They have me for that.:cool:

You guys always made me feel better when you would do "flyby's" or circle when we were on mission.:)

Usually I could take a take a deep breath and relax for just a sec, and THANK GOD I'm from the USA!!!

Jstas

George Grand wrote:

The Army doesn't own or fly any C-130's, so even though they are far from personal sized, you're far from correct.

How could I be wrong when all I did was ask a question? I didn't state any thing as fact except that C-130's are fixed wing and not small.

George Grand

You "thought", and that thought was wrong. hence, your thinking was wrong, which in my world means the opposite of right, which in my world means "incorrect" or diametrecally opposed to being "right" which is as far from correct as one can be. HOWEVER, you did add a question mark at the end of the sentence, even though the sentence wasn't in the form of a question, it was in the form of a statement. A thousand pardons. No, TWO thousand pardons. I'm wrong. I'm ALWAYS wrong.

MikeC78

George Grand wrote:

A thousand pardons. No, TWO thousand pardons. I'm wrong. I'm ALWAYS wrong.

Damn you Master Sergeant!:mad: I skip you right over First Sergeant and I promote you to Sergeant Major immediately!!:D

ND13

What happened to the Army's A-10s? I could have sworn they had some when I was in the Air Force.

George Grand

The A-10's that the Army never owned or operated? Are those the ones you're talking about? OOPS, I see the question mark at the end of your sentence, so you can't be wrong. You must be right. I'm wrong AGAIN!

A-10's were solely assigned and operated by the active duty Air force, the Air force Reserve, and the Air Guard, with the emphasis on the Guard.

ohskigod

love those A10's, allways one of my favorite aircraft.

MikeC78

ohskigod wrote:

love those A10's, allways one of my favorite aircraft.

AKA, "Warthog". A bada** aricraft.

I think they are phasing them out as they are old as heck, but yet they still seem very effective today.

I know George will straighten me out.

Mike

Jstas

A thousand apologies.

SLOCOOKN

As far as the a-10 goes I agree. It is a wonderfully designed aircraft!
I live in Missouri. We have a farm that is not far from Whiteman AFB. When we bail hay in the summer they will fly over really low and get right on top of you and open it up and scare the **** out of you. They have a bast doing that!

We also get a chance to see the B-2 quite often!

petrym

dragon1952 wrote:

I was a computer operator and I wouldn't know a B-52 from a BM :rolleyes:

They're the same thing...

cfrizz

Hey, hey, hey! Stop pickin on us poor civies! How are we supposed to know?

Now tell me something else. Why is there a Secretary of the Navy but no Secretary's of the Army, Air Force, Marines, or Coast Guard?

And what color is the beret that a Special Forces (AKA Green Beret) soldier wears & what branch of service? The one that John Wayne wears looks black!:D

MikeC78 wrote:

I still find it quit hilarious that the general population thinks that every plane is owned by the Air Force, and that every ship/boat is owned by the Navy.

Fact is the Navy has MORE planes than the Air Force, and the Army has MORE boats than the Navy!:eek:

Mike

Disc Jockey

There is a secretary of the Army, Air Force and Coast Guard. The Marines are part of the Navy.


Special Forces are part of the Army and wear green berets, airborne wears maroon, rangers wear tan, and all others wear black

MikeC78

cfrizz wrote:

Hey, hey, hey! Stop pickin on us poor civies! How are we supposed to know?

Now tell me something else. Why is there a Secretary of the Navy but no Secretary's of the Army, Air Force, Marines, or Coast Guard?

And what color is the beret that a Special Forces (AKA Green Beret) soldier wears & what branch of service? The one that John Wayne wears looks black!:D

1. Don't know, don't care.

2. Army are Green Beret's. They usually wear the same uniform as the rest of the Army, with the exception of some sort of insignia on the uniform that George can probably explain better than me.

Some of the special forces wear the old school uniform with usually no name tapes, depends on the unit. I usually only worked with SEAL's, Ranger's or Marine Recon, never worked with the wussy Green Beret's.:p

Opps, sorry Disc Jockey answerd your question. I thought you ment what uniform they wore in combat, not what color the cover was. I have post tramatic stress disorder from Iraq, leave me alone!

Mike

George Grand

There are no plans to phase out the A-10. There WERE plans to do that, but they have been shelved. They are now in the process of upgrading the radios in the aircraft so that they can talk directly to the grunts. The Iraq "War" saved the demise of the A-10. From MY professional prespective, I hate that airplane. "Dragging" A-10's (providing them with aerial refueling over large distances of land or water) can turn a 5 hour mission into a 10 hour mission. They cruise at 250 knots, and we can cruise at over 600. They aerial refuel at 220 knots IF they are not too heavy. The heavier they get, the slower they fly, and we have to perform a "toboggan" manuever where we refuel them in a shallow descent just so they can keep up with us. If we are heavy as well, we are right at our stall speed when we refuel them. Almost every other fighter has a refueling speed of 320 knots. The A-10 is a very stable receiver though, once we get them on the boom. All that wing surface that they have keeps them fairly well parked, except when they start to get heavy with fuel, then they starting drifting backwards and here comes the toboggan.

The A-10 was the first aircraft to be designed around a gun. The GAU-30 Gatling cannon was designed first, then the aircraft was built around it. It was almost entirely conceived to counter the Soviet tank threat during the Cold War. The Soviets could field 55,000 tanks in Europe, and NATO could field about 6,000. We would never produce enough tanks to counter that threat, so they developed a weapon system that would eat tanks.

And that's a fact jack.

Every swinger in the ARMY is now authorized to wear a beret. this was instituted (in my opinion) to allow individuals with low self-esteem to think they were a winner. Many, myself included, feel this was a slight to the guys (living and deceased) that EARNED that beret. Que Sera, Sera. The Green Beret are the only individuals authorized to wear that color beret. Most of the ones I see here around the Fort Dix/McGuire AFB area are maroon.

ohskigod

glad there not phasing them out. it still does the job so effectivly, why bother replacing it?

didnt even think of the logistics of refueling a plane designed to fly at such a low speed (cool info George).

man, think of the A10 pilot, how long does it take to fly a plane from any other continent to Iraq........eeeesh

billbillw

Interesting read George. Most people never think about the difficulties involved with air to air refueling. I really questioned the Jeopardy answer the other night. Its hard to believe that all those ships (minus the nukes) in the Navy along with all their aircraft don't use more fuel.

EDIT: found this interesting document
http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/fuel.pdf

Page 20 talks about how estimates are not accurate due to the Air Force providing refueling to other branches during deployment. Also the fuel used to trasnport army troops (via Air Force or Navy transport) does not factor into their bottom line.

[Deleted User]

Hello,
The A-10 was built with the Russian ll-2 Shturmovik in mind, according to one of the developers, here's an interesting site:
http://www.vectorsite.net/avil2.html
It was built to kill German tanks in WWII
Regards, Ken

jeremie

I agree that they are not phasing out the A10, its one of the planes that gets the most kills in the middle east. My brother does mid air refueling for the Air Force and has lots of pics and movies of them.

www.kcboomer.com

cfrizz

I personally prefer the caps with the visors. Those look sharp.

What's the deal with some of them having a design on the top of them?

George Grand wrote:

Every swinger in the ARMY is now authorized to wear a beret. this was instituted (in my opinion) to allow individuals with low self-esteem to think they were a winner. Many, myself included, feel this was a slight to the guys (living and deceased) that EARNED that beret. Que Sera, Sera. The Green Beret are the only individuals authorized to wear that color beret. Most of the ones I see here around the Fort Dix/McGuire AFB area are maroon.

George Grand

I've been a boom operator for 30 years. How about your brother? Never mind, I just checked his website, and it looks like he's not quite 30 years old. Thanks for agreeing with me on the A-10 non-phaseout. I was starting to doubt my own credibility till you chimed in.

Nice of you to post his website for us......for the second time. Seriously, I love The Gucci Boys, and you can tell him I said so.

Sistuh Cathy, if you mean the silver embroidery on the visors, that is to denote that the head underneath the cap belongs to a "0" (an officer, pronounced ZEROES!). If you're talking about medals and stuff, I don't know. hell, I don't know what half the ones I have to wear on my dress uniform were awarded to ME for. Not that it matters, the Air Force hands those things out like candy. Hell, they'll give you a medal if you show to work on time for a week straight. The Marines and the Army EARN those things, and should wear them proudly.

Ken, great read on the Shturmovik! I built a model of one of those when I was a kid. Lit it up and threw it off the roof of an apartment house on my block.

cfrizz

George you are too funny! I wouldn't mind seeing a pic of you in your dress uniform & medals!

MikeC78

George Grand wrote:

The Marines and the Army EARN those things, and should wear them proudly.

Army earns medals?;)

Really though... When I was at Camp Bucca, Iraq back in 05, the Army was handing out Bronze Stars and Comms for **** who did absolutely nothing but sit their **** on camp the whole deployment! Never even came close to seeing the wire, if they did they would probably **** themselves!

I know this doesn't apply for the majority of the Army, just preaching the way I saw it that year. Hell, the only way I got a Commedation medal was for my end of tour award for completing 3 straight deployments in a row.

Good read for the rest though George!:)

Mike

MikeC78

George Grand wrote:

the Air Force hands those things out like candy. Hell, they'll give you a medal if you show to work on time for a week straight.

Isn't that the damn truth! I think they issue out a full row of ribbons just for completion of boot camp, what a job well done!:rolleyes:

I remember back in 03 when I was at Lackland AFB for K9 school(that is where AF boot camp is located), those guys were all eating at Burger King, wondering around the PX/BX store like it was no ones business!

What a joke... Not to make it sound like Navy boot camp is tough or anything, but heck I sure in hell didn't see any civilization for the 9 weeks or would even think about eating BK for crying out loud.

Mike