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The MC-130Js will be there when you wrap up in Germany. You'll have more operational experience and be better prepared for the MC-J's mission when you get ready for your next assignment. And no one I have ever talked to would trade a tour in Ramstein for one in Cannon.

64-0523, MC-130E, Cannon AFB. Thanks I'll add it. Bob

Awesome news! Glad to see her finally getting properly tended to.

Well, I can't speak for the AMC or J-model side of the house, but in AFSOC, the vast majority of the mass CDS drops during deployments were manual gate releases. Had to be in the windows, anyway, so why bother with a static line retriever cut?

Towed Paratrooper Retrieval System. When it first came out, I knew it as the "Canadian Sling." Basically, a pulley attached to two straps which you hooked to the anchor cable (hooks when aft of the center anchor cable support bracket) and a strap you could attached to the retrieval cable and wrap around the static lines. Made for a smoother recovery because it kept the static lines in the center of the paratroop door opening and put less strain on the winch.

I learned Form Fs "öld school" and it has come in handy; batteries do die at the worst possible time. But the ability to correct an error or load change on a Form F in about ten seconds is awesome.

Is this an Argentinian Herk? Some mod they threw together during the Falklands War?

I don't know of very many offensive actions the NVAF bubbas undertook. I have heard of a few attacks against the Navy while they were shelling the North's coastal assets, a helo incursion here and there, but no organized campiagns, nothing like what we were doing to them. I always figured the NVAF was used as more of a point defence asset than anything else. Some of you folks were there; was that the case? Or were there more incidents, just nothing really to talk about?

They shot the snot out of it, but they didn't shoot it down. I can't remember how many died, but there was at least one. The aircraft was forced to land in Peru, if I recall correctly. That incident is why all the slicks carried a full-color American flag on the tail for a while.

I haven't been on a gunpigs for a long time, and those were A-models, so I trust you know what you're talking about. Technology, tactics and times do change and this is not Iraq of the 1990s we're talking about--but daylight loitering just doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

Yeah . . . but in a classic 'more with less' case of mission creep (not to mention more than a little intraservice rivalry), they also want them to start flying in the daylight. Standoff range is great so long as the only guys shooting back at you are the ones you're actively engaging. We've played the "let's fly gunships in the daylight" before and it didn't work out so well for us. Do we really need to learn this lesson twice? http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/11/gunships-daytime/

The SAR AFSOC has done has be mostly opportune efforts--they were there and ready, so they took the mission. We rarely sit as dedicated CSAR (though it does happen) primarily because our main mission is supporting the bubbas downrange. We can't do that if we're tethered to a strip alert somewhere. That's not to knock the CSAR folks in any way; we depend on them as much as anyone else. They couldn't do their mission if they were out on a supporting a TIC when the call came in. Better to have them seperated from AFSOC so as to ensure they're not retasked at the wrong time. Just my two cents, mind you, but that's the way I see it.

Not anymore. "Global Strike Command" has taken the nuclear mission from ACC after several bouts of buffoonary. Only problem with putting the rescue assets within AFSOC is that AFSOC will use them--and not necessarily the way ACC wants them to. The Rescue mission can easily be seen as a special operation, and I don't want to take anything from it, but AFSOC does a lot more with their tanker and vertical lift assets than CSAR and you can bet that won't change just because of where a given asset came from. If you want a dedicated CSAR unit, it needs to be under a command that's not going to do use those assets for anything other than CSAR.

No, not a way I want to see any of these birds go.

Courtesy of the crew chief who was there.