Viggen

Back in the saddle.

I've found myself reading to make this deployment go by faster. Unfortunately I only have a few books. Any of you guys know of any books with a feel similar to Red Storm Rising? I've read the majority of the other Clancy novels and want to branch out some.

I presume then that this means we can't get ships to launch countermeasures?

Destroyers sure have come a long way. Trying to picture the Zumwalt engaging in a Red Storm Rising style engagement against 180+ cruise missiles.

I'll take the Fitter. It's probably on its third or fourth owner now, but at least its garaged. The photos show some paint wear, but the tires look good. Hopefully the GSE is included. Sure, those swing wings are waiting for the right moment to give you an issue, but it'll still look good in the driveway. Nice price! ...Ok I've been looking at cars too much lately.

I'm a Chinook guy. It's only the best helicopter ever, of all time.

Last night, I had the opportunity to go up with our UH-60 flight company on a training flight. I was the sole passenger on the flight; guess it pays to become friends with pilots. The crew, that is the pilot, co-pilot, crew chief, and gunner all had night vision goggles. I didn't, which is what I wanted anyway; my eyes adjust to light changes and darkness fairly well. When we first took off, it became quite apparent just how busy KAF is, even at night. No shit the base is a city of its own. Bright spotlights pointed outwards toward the empty desert. Busses, MRAPs, and Tata pick-ups their headlights creating a path in one of the few dark areas, the roads. The darkest area on the base is the runway and taxi-ways. I couldn't even tell there was a C-17 on the taxiway until I picked out the silhouette of the tail. Once we were up at altitude, probably six to seven thousand feet, what really became noticeable was what Afghanistan looks like in the dark. Aside from the giant air base, there's really few lights out there. A village or two near the mountains to the north west, and a small village to the north east were the only lights that were noticeable. Kandahar City is tucked in behind the mountains, but a slight glimmer of light can be seen from it. In the sky, only the flashing strobes of the early warning and observation blimps* could be seen. Even the civilian aircraft turn their lights off here, whether it's an Il-76 or MD-87. Out to the east it's nothing but darkness. It's eery, really. Looking out towards the east and the southwest and seeing nothing at all. No lights, no civilization. *Those blimps. My first morning here I looked out my door and that was the first thing I saw. All I could conjure up was "The fuck? Is that a blimp?" Anyway, just felt like sharing.

Don't be that guy. Probably the best weekend safety brief I ever had.

Despite being in the middle of the desert, flying around Kandahar is pretty cool too. Mountains, dry river beds, and the red desert. I'll post some pictures eventually. I admit though, Bagram has all the cool scenery though. Almost makes me wish I was up their instead.

Red Storm Rising is my all time favorite book. RIP

The captain I talked to said it varied by unit and depended on how much money said unit had. There's some still tan flight suits around.

Was wondering if someone could repaint one of the modern Air Force pilots and a modern helicopter pilot with multicam flight suits. Army flight crews and Blackhawk and Chinook maintainers wear two piece multicam flight suits out here in Afghanistan. So do the majority of the Air Force pilots I would imagine since the majority of the Air Force officers I've seen here wear them too.

Latvian Mafia?

That's going to take a while to get used to.

Which of the DCS products would you all recommend? I've got Blackshark and A-10C. The Mi-8 is in my shopping cart. Do I need any previous versions of LOMAC to run Flaming Cliffs 3?

It's Formula 1 in the 1970s. It's fast, dangerous, and the word "safety" is only starting to become a part of a driver's vocabulary.

Meh none of the TVs at KAF ever show American sports.

Need some help with the ground campaign. That's always been my issue with campaign building.