US Herk

I believe both Boeing & Snow bid on the CWB replacement contract providing a spectrum of options from refurb to redesign... If what you say is true (Lockheed contracts out the casting & only does final machining), it\'s even more criminal that Lockheed has what amounts to an exclusive contract & is strangling the production rate for whatever reason.

HeyChief, No bashing taken - each of our perspectives is colored by the hat we wear, the seat we sit in, and the information available to us. I actually re-read the message just yesterday trying to figure out the numbers. You\'re 100% right - the FH/mo was a target, the \"thou shalt not surpass\" was the yearly EBH. I stand corrected - I misread it the first time. My little world gets hurt more due to a depot input this year, but that\'s just part of it & nobody\'s fault. What is subject to the blame-thrower is the fact the planes don\'t come out of depot on time because they decided to extend the depot cycles or skip them altogether back in the late \'90s. Probably seemed like a good idea at the time to someone, but we\'re paying for it now. That\'s mismanagement. As we\'re seeing now, the engineering models that dictate what we need to do to Herks when is fairly accurate... I stand by my statement that the great tail swap of \'04 merely kicked the can down the road. They (AFSOC & SOCOM) should have procured $$ to begin the CWB mods back then. They did not. The contract was not let until Aug. Three years is far too long. I know it takes time to get money, but there weren\'t even any discussions on it back then. And to only use one contractor to fix such a large problem one aircraft at a time is short sighted. That\'s mismanagement. Yep, it\'s going to be a T2 community effort alright...just not voluntary. There has been mismanagement of the AFSOC fleet (not just T2). AC-130U is not far behind T2 WRT CWB. Most of this is due to ongoing commitments downrange, but small fleet dynamics have really compounded other issues, but illustrates that this problem is bigger than just T2 & should have been attended to with more urgency. For example - in FY05 (latest year I have figures handy) T2 acft availability was 52% & mission capable rate was 73% - translating that into pure numbers - that means on any given day there were only seven (7) T2 available for 3 operational squadrons, 1 training squadron, & deployed operations. A significant portion of the aircraft availability portion was scheduling by LG. There were at least two major mod programs underway as well as depot. Plenty of fault all around for this one (XP, LG, AFSOC, SOCOM), but it still amounts to mismanagement. The root cause of all this, IMO, is that AFSOC is too big, too bureaucratic, & too slow to react anymore. Read the latest AF Times back page by Maj B. Braden - Process over Purpose. I\'ve been saying this for years in a different way, \"Process over product.\" With the bureacracy as thick as it is, we\'ve got to lead-turn the problems a lot earlier than we\'re used to. I don\'t think current thinking will allow that to happen though.

Rumint on the street has another tail shuffle between the groups in the very near future - not as big as the last shuffle. HQ LG has mandated management by tail# by flying hours/month. Which is still very short sighted as the EBH is figured after you log the time into aircat... EDIT: This is inaccurate - the FH/mo is a target only based on historical usage rates. The limits are annual EBH. Lockheed, meanwhile, has been awarded what amounts to an exclusive contract to fix the CWB one at a time...

And the first T2 (1212 I think) got Jockey 14\'s CWB - already bought & paid for. I was told Boeing, Snow, & others have offered (bid) to fab SOF-specific CWB, not just refurb, althought that was given as an option as well. I still maintain the great tail swap of \'04 was penny wise & pound foolish. It didn\'t \"buy\" us anything - it kicked the can down the road into an uglier baby. Instead of burning EBH on CWB incrementally, they moved low-time boxes to high-time flying units & vice verse virtually guaranteeing the current train wreck where they all burn out w/in 18mo of each other... Meanwhile, I\'ve just lost 175 hours for this year & am about to lose a tail for who knows how long? Train wreck worsened, but not caused by, mismanagement...

Well, if there ever was a reason to pure-fleet us, CWB is it. They could alleviate it somewhat by contracting for more than one company to do more than one acft at a time! It will drag out to 2013 at the earliest... We\'ll see. I don\'t think it\'s going to happen. I think the closest they\'ll get is centralized control of the tail number at Hurby so the tails will go \"tdy\" places so they can manage the fleet. Of course, these are the same folks that \"managed\" to get us in this predicament in the first place with the great tail swap of \'04 - instead of CWB burning out one at a time, they\'re all burning out at the same time...

Well, that narrows it down a bit! I did 27SOW/CC key staff crse a few weeks back - he doesn\'t think it\'ll happen, if at all, until 2011-13 timeframe. There is no money. AFSOC/CC can wish in one hand & crap in the other - see which one fills up first. The rapid deployment of wombat to CVS is indicative of someone running scared & trying to squat before it gets yanked... I also know Olsen isn\'t a fan of GSP in general & AFSOC\'s \"merger\" of GSP & Cannon in particular... We shall see...

I could very well be wrong - something I was told a long time ago, so secondhand info at best. Like your name - new name or new member? ;)

Current photo of week is, I believe, taken from the ramp of a Talon I over the English countryside on a Stalwart Friend Exercise...

Yes - I\'ve recently heard some of the particulars - if what I heard was true, could be a difficult time ahead for OC 47...

Seems short-sighted, actually. Doubtful AFSOC will ever see a bit of that development. It\'s been too slow & newer, classified technology has made any thought of TF-ing with the 241 obsolete. Unless I misunderstood & big blue is funding radar development for MAF... 241 is a great radar. Unfortnately, by itself, it isn\'t a TF radar because it can\'t multi-task. Would\'ve been great - the logistics alone made it very desireable... Problem with \"other\" programs out there is they were banking on computers/displays from AMP/CAAP (SOF version), so it delays fielding of the next generation radar because we can\'t support it with current acft/avionics architecture...

TalonOneTF wrote: I thought AFSOC issued a \'stop work\' order to Boeing in April for AMP...In fact, last I heard, there\'s a push to go a different route for AFSOC - they\'re also waiting to see what happens with their desire to purchase J-models.

Sadly, I believe that XV205 was the one lost in the RAF\'s most recent landing mishap. Excellent pic of her - I\'ve got a couple hours in that one I think...

If you\'ve got a camcorder that does digital, you can usually take a feed off your VCR output jacks to the camcorder, then transfer to computer with video capture features of Win media player

C\'mon, Dan - the shado community has been cross-dressing for years! ;)

What I remember from all this, all of the MC-130E were modified in the late \'90s with what they call \"white windscreens\". I was told at the time that it was a production run change at some point & only replacement glass available would be the new windscreens. For example, if you cracked a center windscreen, you had to replace all three. I don\'t know how true all of this was, I got most of this from Max DlaRotta when he was with the 919th/711th. But I\'m pretty confident at least the T1 have it. I first read about it, I think, in the AATTC newsletter in the late \'90s - that\'s why I talked to Max about it, because he used to be there at ATTC. No real clue if any of the other herks got it...

Online with the new site...looks \"cleaner\" than the first one