Weasel Keeper

I felt it in Ft Wayne, IN twice. Once in the morning when I awoke to my TV on the dresser rattling and my bed shaking, and then about 11:30am I felt about the same sized aftershock. I lived in California for 4 years and a quake in Needles (6.0) in 1986 was one of the largest I've felt. There was another big one around 1989 that rocked L.A. that I felt pretty good too. We usually had a handful of smaller quakes every year in Cali so this morning's here in the midwest I just told my wife that it wasn't our big dog moving around the room...he was still sleeping and just woke up...it was an earthquake and I went back to sleep. :) The wackos in central Indiana are blaming the mysterious booms (my unit's F-16s accidently breaking the sound barrier) they heard a couple nights before on making the earthquake.

Might as well throw a few in here... Me and my baby at home Me and a Russian baby (IL-76 in Iraq) ;) "Hero" shot in Iraq Get Some! (broken AA gun, Iraq) Not much to do while gassing (Iraq)... Wish you were here! (Iraq) Break time..."Hadji Dew" (Iraq)

Silly mechanics running jets. ;) I ran the jet I work on last Friday...but didn't play with the avionics. This guy should have installed his LOX convertor, or at least pulled the OXY QTY C/B so the lox quantity indicator wasn't clocking...like our job guides say you have to do. :yes:

Had the original Joes...three of them I think (two white guys with different colored fuzzy buzz cut hair and beards and a black guy with the fuzzy hair and beard). Also had the frogman with sea-sled, and a mobile command post truck with spotlight or radar antenna (interchangeable), and the 6 wheeled ATV. After the 12" dudes I just couldn't get into the little guys or the silly COBRA cartoons. Don't hate me...I just didn't follow the "new" GI Joe stuff. It was too fantasy for me when the original Joes were warriors and weren't so unbelieveable. ;) Actually the little Joes came out about the time I was done playing with the big Joes so I was pretty much done with all of them by then...lol.

I watched it...very cool! I actually saw it a couple months ago but it was worth another look. :)

How long did it take you from San Antonio to Whiskey Falls? I hopped the bus from BMT to tech school and it took us about 8 hours. Texas is big!!! :) Vegas to Miami in 3 days...BAH! I drove Victorville, CA to Ft Wayne, IN (2,200 miles) in 39 hours straight through...with about a 3 hour nap at a rest stop in Oklahoma. I was on 30 days leave in the USAF (in '87) and didn't want to lose a minute of party time. ;) It was a drive I made round trip three times in the four years I was out there. I did do a 3 day Indiana to Vegas drive back in 01 but that was only because my wife had never been out west and we only drove during the day time so she could see everything.

That's easy if she does the bills. My wife looks over our bank account every day so she sees what I may have spent and where I spent it. No, she's not checking up on me...she's been in banking for 25 years and it's just her nature to make sure the accounts are good to go. This was especially sucky one Valentine's day. She was at work so I waited until she was close to getting off to come home to buy her flowers. Well, I bought them at 16:45 and she gets off at 17:00. She checked the danged account before she came home and wasn't surprised at all.

And even the ones that run like hell have already been spotted most of the time, followed back to their town by the eye in the sky, out of their car, high fiving thier friends...BLAMO! Hellfire from a Predator or 500lb'er from an F-16. Shack! 72 virgin men...

I thought you had to pass course 9 to make MSgt.

Way to go Dave! I know all about the crazy amount of studying that needs to be done. I was just awarded my 7 level for Fighter Aircraft Maintenance Craftsman (2A373) in September. This is the second time I've had to do it since I took an 11 year break in service and had to start back at 3 level in 05. Now, do you have your course 09 done yet? I'm taking a break from all the studying and holding off on the course 09 for now. Congratulations man.

Wait a second...now that you mention it there was a scratch on mine. About a week after I got to Iraq my jet came back after a long flight and the pilot was a little nervous about a possible "boom strike", but said everything was working fine. The first thing I looked at was the VHF antenna right in front of the slipway door. Sure enough it was cracked almost in half. I'm sure it wasn't you, and it was a quick fix...just change the antenna and she was back in business. Kind of weird, I'd almost forgot about that with all the stuff that's happened since then. We did get to keep a tanker in Moron Spain with us for about 5 days. Something broke on it's boom and we needed it for the piggyback home.

Holy SHI... Small world bro! I was in the sand when you took those pics (FW & VT F-16s). 236 was a POS, glad to see a picture of it flying...220 was a good jet. I'm in the 122FW, IN ANG and just returned home a couple weeks ago. I crewed FW 84-1238 (dropped a few on the dumbass badguys...shack!). Glad we're back. :D

That's like the classic actual write up..."IFF doesn't work in the OFF position" "Turn it ON".

Rest in Peace. http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123057370

Yowsa! I wasn't aware you could have hot seats...but maybe just because of all the red tape. Thanks for the info.

I don't believe you can have a "hot" ejection seat as a civilian. Definately agree on the costs of maintainance and flight. The guy here in FWA who owns one of each is Tom Kelly...who used to own Kelly Racing in the IRL. He and his family also own a few car lots and golf courses here. He has two new Gulfstreams and uses a Hummer to tow them. I've never seen the T-38 or F-5 fly...and I work at the airport. I have however seen a privately owned F-100F fly last fall. Man that was awesome to see and hear.

Maybe a slight possibility...it could have been privately owned? There's a guy in Fort Wayne who owns a Canadian F-5 and a T-38. I think the only way you can buy military jets is from other countries...I don't think the US sells them to the public. There aren't a whole lot of F-5s left out there other than aggressors.

Sweet video, well done! Here's another Dos Gringos song if you haven't heard it.

Looks like an ill tempered Sea Bass since we can't get frikken lasers...

BTDT too! I'll throw another in that we use sometimes for quick turns... "It flew in alright!" That's when we do a quick look-over, check the oils and fluids, tires, O2 and kick it out the door. :yes:

Been thinking about doing a road trip to Chitown to take my daughter to the museums...now's the time to go. :yes: My parents took me to all the museums there when I was a kid, and I've also been through the U-505 a couple times in the late 70s.

Jane's USAF has a couple pretty good campaigns right out of the box. Complete with limited amounts of stores and aircraft. I think you're allowed two resupplys, but you have to defend the supply aircraft because if they get shot down then you don't get resupplied. You can fly them solo or coop. I used to have a lot of fun with them. :yes:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2005Jan28.html Scroll down for the wmv link.

"I put a bitchin' Poulin chainsaw 2 stroke engine in her...they say you have to mix the oil and gas mixture." *shake shake shake (gasp) shake shake (pant) shake* Okay, that was weak. It would have been better if he was wearing jeans and a trucker hat. How about "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" instead of us acft lovers... "Nice panthssssss!"

Fates, I'm almost with you. Not knowing the outcome of the accident or more details from their debrief, if my nose gear collapsed I probably would have ridden it out. I've personally seen two "no NLG" landings with F-4s and the aircrew walked (well ran...) away. However, at a 45 degree roll upon touchdown, pull the pretty handle! The cool thing about modern ejection seats is you can punch out at bad angles (and even on the ground) and the seat will right itself, giving you plenty of altitude with the rockets to deploy the chute and sit down safely. They're nothing like (going back to the mighty F-4) the old Martin Bakers that fire you out in whatever straight line you were angled or just enough rocket juice to clear the acft. Glad the crew made it out okay! *edit* One thing got me wondering...the aircrew were already scheduled to fly the next day after the accident???