It’s Friday! Yeah!
Wait – I’m on call through the weekend.
Crap.
Yesterday I escorted a journalist on a flight that, while routine for my wing, kind of struck me as ironic. We were on a U.S. plane, launched from a WWII-era RAF base, refueling German fighters… over France. It’s sometimes strange to think that just over 60 years ago, when those Box D tails met up with Luftwaffe fighters in that very same airspace, they weren’t stopping to gas up…
What’s also ironic is I seem to fly more for Public Affairs than I did as an aircrew member.
Hey everyone, thanks for all the great ideas yesterday! See y’all on Blues Monday!
-Farva
Ah the joys of reading in Japan- As soon as colors sounds…check the strip!
cool day for you Farva!
I predict Barbie starts turning red soon! hoo-boy!
@wpngjstr: Amen to that!
Hey Caveman, you know you can reply directly to their comment now instead of typing @ xxxxxx
I did realize that, but old habits die hard. Thanks for embarrassing me into compliance!
Copy that. Moving on, my work here is done.
It’s so easy even a caveman can do it
Thanks! I just spewed my morning Monster all over the keyboard!
So to speak?
i think it warrants a STS
You three just made my morning. Don’t know why that tickled me that much, but it did!
So to speak.
“Don’t know why that tickled me that much, but it did!”
…that’s what she said…
Apparently not in this case…
thats just salt and whiskey in the wound right there but barbie’s face is priceless
Worn? I could never wear it. It’s a shrine! Yeah, that’s it, a shrine
Speaking of shrine, there’s a Kansas City BBQ place in San Diego that friends of mine stumbled upon two weeks ago, that has the piano and all sorts of crew/cast pictures up from the bar scene where Goose and Maverick sing Great balls of fire. Outside the building it has painted “sleazy bar scene, Top Gun.”
Ain’t no crew rest for PA Farva
like the gravatar. somewhere I have the full picture, had it since the 70′s. Sleep Well, your Air Force is awake! yahoo fail, had one link to the guy from 3 years ago, gone now.
I found the picture on Google images
Offtopic…slightly…
Found a video of a real backseat screamer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h32oUZP2Yo&feature=related
Don’t think she said OMG enough…
4:00 love how she passes out then at 4:14 comes to and says “did we do it?” (STS)
THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is proper STS usage.
ROFLMAO! Blondes.. and what did I say in the past about negative G’s makes them go GEE!!!
I like when she recovers from GLOC with the mike boom up her nose!
She’s a local morning show sidekick (102.5 FM KZOK / Bob Rivers Show) in Seattle.
That was a media flight at Boeing Field (KBFI).
Too bad my ANG squadron left there last year to relocate to Camp Murray. Seeing the Blue Angels practice and perform all week was effing awesome.
haha awesome, i cant believe he didnt wear it just because it was from her. glad i took my hour break from WAPS testing to come home and read the comic, but now its time to go back!
or, maybe, Top Gun was USN, Barbie is USAF? Is there a well worn Iron Eagle shirt in Barbie’s closet?
well if you dig back into the archives you may remember that Barbie is obsessed with Top Gun so i think its just that he didn’t want to the thing to be soiled, faded or worn out because is like the holy grail of barbie things
That may be the FIRST Top Gun item Barbie hasn’t worn out.
Funny
Barbie if careful COULD play this right!
Has Barbie EVER played anything right?
more bait for me? not doing it!!!
Question is: can Barbie have a relationship with anybody that’s a better pilot than him? (Well, maybe she’s not necessarily a “better” pilot, but she’s his IP anyway!)
That, and I think Darht has DOR on Barbie.
Busted!
NNNNooooooooo!!!!!
I can’t wait until Monday for the next update!?!?!?!?
here’s to hoping for a special weekend update probably not likely on account of his being on standby
I’d expect a special weekend update, but only on account that tomorrow is Mom’s Day.
looking foward to it
It’s not mother’s day in england
we have it in March
its not independence day on 4 jul in britain but we still celebrate that. we can just have two moms days here
I think they have “Two Moms Day” in San Francisco.
Thanks. I’ll be here all week. Try the veal.
how about two dad’s days?
@Farva Ok now that is alot more ironic than celebrating the 4th of July on a WWII era RAF base WITH the English. Cuatro de Julio?
It always seems strange, but then the English celebrate a guy who tried to blow up their government. The place is all kinds of strange.
Technically, they don’t celebrate the man Guy Fawkes. Traditionally they burn effigies of him, so they are celebrating his failure to blow up parliament. Still a strange holiday, regardless.
They celebrate to remind Parliament that it wasn’t entirely a bad idea.
and they do it by blowing off fireworks. Guy Fawkes day is a noisy event hard to sleep through. but then again half the things the brits do doesn’t make sense
When I was a kid in Uk, I was living in a catholic family, they were celebrating the execution of Guy Fawkes as some sort of martyrdom, and the anglicans were celebrating bonfire day as an anti-catholic event… a lot of noise for an old story anyway.
A Brit friend of mine always says that Guy Fawkes was ‘the only man to enter the parliament with honest intentions’.
You didn’t hear it from me, but AAFES is planning a military appreciation day. Bring your valid armed forces ID, or DD-214, or even CAP ID, everything in the stores will be 75% off, and also buy one, get one free, on Thursday, June 31 only. Trying to clear the excess Ed Hardy stock out to make room for new stuff.
IMHO.
O_o
Would that include electronics as well?
Wait when?
31 June Maj.
Is that a test to see if you can say anything you want as long as it says I(Y)HO?
Ahhh, good ol’ June 31st. I love that day. Thats when the unicorns come out and play!
Hey, I was born on June 31st. It’s also the only day you can find Elvis in the old clocktower at half past nine, doing lines of powdered sugar off Mr. T’s chest.
Assuming you’re serious… does this include ALL AAFES locations (ie. overseas, etc…)?
LOL. Check you calendars people. JUNE the 31st?
Hence the seriousness part
One must play along with the illusion, lest others catch on
Seriously though, my brain read July, so w/e
june 31st is just july 1st
if you want 75% off of AAFES overseas shop at walmart.com
I knew you were full of it when you said “AAFES is planning a military appreciation day.”
Actually today, events for the military spouse appreciation were going on.
See you at the BX 31 Jun!
June 31st, the one day of the year the Air Force uses logic.
I love how many people didn’t pick up on the June 31st thing…
I saw the date and i was really confused, but still took it seriously. Obviously I didn’t use logic, because AAFES and Appreciation can’t be used properly in the same phrase.
AHA! You figured it out! Yay Maj!
Ok, the June 31st joke stopped being funny about 4 replies in. >.<
Out of curiosity… how many people visit here daily?
On average, 10-13,000 unique visitors daily, with about 30,000 page hits.
hmmmm. more than the 6271 friends on AAFES facebook.
IMHO.
That’s not your humble or honest opinion. It’s a fact.
Haha, that Top Gun shirt. I have bought one similar to that a couple years ago at Oshkosh 2008 and I’m guilty of only wearing it on special occasions, so it looks like it’s never been worn… LOL.
… Dhart should be glad that she got Barbie a gift that he really treasures.
ooooo… you said Oshkosh!!! 11 weeks until OSH 2010!!! Year of the Piper Cherokee, and DC-3/C-47/R4D! See you there!
I can’t wait to see how this unfolds…
Has anyone else noticed that Dhart said she got the shirt for Barbie five years ago? That would mean that was prior to Barbie’s commissioning date…
No it wouldn’t.
Didn’t Barbie just put on Capt? I think I may be getting timelines screwed up now… O_o
the great thing about comic strips is that time is altered from real time each day’s peice of the story arc might only be a few minutes or a few days but then when he starts a new arc months or years can go by. he can even do time travel with it if he wants
That was August ’09. He’d had both lieutenant bars on for two years each, meaning he came into the service in ’05 (technically ’01 when he went to the Academy.) They were at pilot training together, which was in ’05.
Oh God I just imagined Barbie with eagles on his shoulders for some reason…
It was scary.
Hey, if you’re around the Air Force long enough, you’ll get to meet Barbie with eagles on his shoulders. Or silver oak leaves, anyway. . .
imagine barbie as AF Chief of Staff he would ban UAV’s, AWACS make sure that CAP wasn’t the official Aux of the AF we would only fly fighters and maybe tankers to keep the fighters up there longer
Wow! You’re good. That some serious attention to detail!
Gyah, seems like Barbie just put on captain this year. Didn’t realize it’s been almost a year already.
Haha well I’m hoping for that ROTC money and my butter bars. But another two years of JROTC is gonna drive me nuts…
It was so bad this year with all the fraternization and favoritism that I literally just stopped caring after our first promotion cycle.
Guess who got promoted, XO’s boy and friends. Not only once, but twice. I earned my five stripes I didn’t eat anything for them…@any other cadet don’t say so to speak!
get used to it if you wanna make any further than LT Col. you gonna have to be on some generals good side. being a pilot helps too not too many non rated DV’s out there
Farva, on my base (in France) we have an RAF Liaison Officer and a USAF Liaison Officer. Their offices are just in front of the Luftwaffe Liaison Officer’s one. They seems to be good friends. Same kind of situation, and quite reassuring…
I’m taking the AP Euro exam today and I can’t help but smile at the history between those three countries, props to France for being the most confused and troubled state in the history of mankind
In the same boat man. Yeah it’s friday but on call for the weekend.
So he’s never worn it in five years…but he’s held on to it for five years? Hmm…
I have shirts like that because I feel bad about throwing them out, having never been worn… then forget that they’re in the closet…
I’m actually on extra duty atm, so Friday doesn’t really mean anything to me…
“Well, you see… what had happened was…”
Farva, sent you an email with a comic edit I did
, hopefully you get it (was to your mil account cause I didn’t know how to attach it via the “Contact Farva” button).
I love the look of regret on Leia’s face.
Off Topic but love the AF toons, blue screen of death strikes again.
Is that a perscription of Fukitol in your pic?
Yep, it required where i work
I’ll be sure to have the CP call you hourly, you know…morale checks
plus traffic and wx updates
it looks like Barbie is about to rip a nervous fart!
Hold on, Top Gun shirt, and he DIDN’T wear it? Man, he must REALLY not like Lawn Dhart at all…
off topic for this comic but not off taopic for AFBlues fans. for those of you who have TomToms you can now have Darth Vader give you directions just watch this video
http://www.eternalfun.com/videos/show/Darth_Vader_On_Your_TomTom/1080/
That Darth Vader outtake trailer is hilarious. I hope they make one with Yoda!
i know they are releasing the yoda voice for tom tom in july but don’t know if they’ll do a funny video about it but that would be cool
Off Topic, but does any one know why the A10′s name was changed from Warthog to Thunderbolt? Just curious.
it was officially named the thunderbolt II but the nickname by pilots and maintainers was “warthog” another bit of trivia the other jets made by republic also had nicknames with hog in them read up on it at wikipedia
It may not have been worn but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been used, it is a Top Gun shirt after all. Let your imaginations roll with that
VD
El Farva-eeno,
Take a look at the countryside next time you are in the air, there are still some large bomb craters visible from the dust up. Also some shrapnel/bullit damage on the O’Club on Mild, and last (and I will shut up) have you gone down and checked out the Eagle pub?
VD
gone down (STS)
Ohmigosh, she IS crazy! Did she go through his closet?! Searching for it?!
I knew Barbie seemed to be getting off too easy here… kinda lame for payback, but in blonde payback (maybe for the, “maybe you’re not that good a pilot”?) pales in comparison for redhead payback. I suspect Willows will get hers.
“I knew Barbie seemed to be getting off too easy here…”
(STS)
Let me guess, Dhart didn’t buy the copy of Top Gnu that rides in the survival kit…
Farva — your comment reminds me of the story about a Lufthansa flight to London in the late 40′s. As the plane was making its approach, all the lights in the city went out. The pilot made the following announcement: “Ladies and Gentlemen, do not worry. There are no pilots in the world with more experience flying over a blacked-out London than the German pilots of Lufthansa.”
OK, it’s probably apocryphal, but it’s still funny…
wow.
tell me that’s true.
or the one about the Lufthansa pilot in germany calling ground in german, told to speak English, he says I am german, in germany, in a german aircraft. Why must I speak English?
unknown pilot “Because you lost the bloody war!”
or the American pilot chastised for not being familiar with the German airport, and he says I have only been here 5 times, and I only dropped something off and went home.
A C-17 pilot saw a read streamer in the nosewheel well of a Lufthansa airline. Instead of calling the tower, he called the Lufthansa aircraft on the tower frequency. After several failed attempts, the Lufthansa pilot called the tower. “Tower, please let the American aircraft know that the professional pilots of Lufthansa do not engage in conversation on tower frequency.”
To which the C-17 replied, “Tower, please let the professional pilots of Lufthansa know they forgot to remove their nose gear pin.”
i trump all you all with the true story of a Blackbird smack down:
http://www.econrates.com/reality/schul.html
“We listened as the shaky voice of a lone Cessna pilot who asked Center for a read-out of his ground speed. Center replied: “November Charlie 175, I’m showing you at ninety knots on the ground.” Now the thing to understand about Center controllers, was that whether they were talking to a rookie pilot in a Cessna, or to Air Force One, they always spoke in the exact same, calm, deep, professional tone that made one feel important. I referred to it as the “Houston Center voice.” I have always felt that after years of seeing documentaries on this country’s space program and listening to the calm and distinct voice of the Houston controllers, that all other controllers since then wanted to sound like that and that they basically did. And it didn’t matter what sector of the country we would be flying in, it always seemed like the same guy was talking. Over the years that tone of voice had become somewhat of a comforting sound to pilots everywhere. Conversely, over the years, pilots always wanted to ensure that, when transmitting, they sounded like Chuck Yeager, or at least like John Wayne. Better to die than sound bad on the radios.
Just moments after the Cessna’s inquiry, a Twin Beech piped up on frequency, in a rather superior tone, asking for his ground speed in Beech. “I have you at one hundred and twenty-five knots of ground speed.” Boy, I thought, the Beechcraft really must think he is dazzling his Cessna brethren.
Then out of the blue, a navy F-18 pilot out of NAS Lemoore came up on frequency. You knew right away it was a Navy jock because he sounded very cool on the radios. “Center, Dusty 52 ground speed check.” Before Center could reply, I’m thinking to myself, hey, Dusty 52 has a ground speed indicator in that million-dollar cockpit, so why is he asking Center for a read-out? Then I got it, ol’ Dusty here is making sure that every bug smasher from Mount Whitney to the Mojave knows what true speed is. He’s the fastest dude in the valley today, and he just wants everyone to know how much fun he is having in his new Hornet. And the reply, always with that same, calm, voice, with more distinct alliteration than emotion: “Dusty 52, Center, we have you at 620 on the ground.” And I thought to myself, is this a ripe situation, or what? As my hand instinctively reached for the mic button, I had to remind myself that Walt was in control of the radios. Still, I thought, it must be done—in mere seconds we’ll be out of the sector and the opportunity will be lost. That Hornet must die, and die now. I thought about all of our Sim training and how important it was that we developed well as a crew and knew that to jump in on the radios now would destroy the integrity of all that we had worked toward becoming. I was torn.
Somewhere, 13 miles above Arizona, there was a pilot screaming inside his space helmet. Then, I heard it—the click of the mic button from the back seat. That was the very moment that I knew Walter and I had become a crew. Very professionally, and with no emotion, Walter spoke: “Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check?” There was no hesitation, and the replay came as if was an everyday request.
“Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground.” I think it was the forty-two knots that I liked the best, so accurate and proud was Center to deliver that information without hesitation, and you just knew he was smiling. But the precise point at which I knew that Walt and I were going to be really good friends for a long time was when he keyed the mic once again to say, in his most fighter-pilot-like voice: “Ah, Center, much thanks, we’re showing closer to nineteen hundred on the money.”
For a moment Walter was a god. And we finally heard a little crack in the armor of the Houston Center voice, when L.A. came back with, “Roger that Aspen. Your equipment is probably more accurate than ours. You boys have a good one.” It all had lasted for just moments, but in that short, memorable sprint across the southwest, the Navy had been flamed, all mortal airplanes on freq were forced to bow before the King of Speed, and more importantly, Walter and I had crossed the threshold of being a crew. A fine day’s work. We never heard another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast. For just one day, it truly was fun being the fastest guys out there.“
and props to my Dad, one of the 92 to fly the Blackbird.
proud last year, he finally got in my Piper Cherokee, and flew a leg home from Oshkosh at Mach .020
correction mach 0.20
New Gravatar check
ops check bad
For some reason it won’t show my new gravatar…dunno what’s up with that.
hmm did you clear your browser cache?
Aha! Fixed.
“OMG!” “Did we do it?” “It will be cool to watch the videotape.” “I didn’t throw up!” Sorry, that was Friday night.
oooooh. speaking of Blackbirds, what’s the possibility that Badger Ops will have an F-12 laying around?
not calling you out.
You mean YF-12. (rest is up to Farva. SR-71, perhaps? YF-12′s long retired, and who knows in the real world? OPSEC.)
and, being bored.. from wikipedia.. and I find the last one funny!
F12, F.XII, F 12, ‘F.12 or F-12 may refer to :
F 12 Kalmar, a former Swedish Air Force wing
Fokker F.XII, a 1930 Dutch three engined high-winged monoplane airliner
Hannover F.12, a World War I era German Hannover aircraft
HMS Kashmir (F12), a 1939 British Royal Navy K-class destroyer
a function key on a computer keyboard
Factor XII, a coagulation factor
Farmall F-12, a model of Farmall tractor
Lockheed YF-12, a prototype interceptor aircraft first flown in 1962
XF-12 Rainbow, a prototype reconnaissance aircraft built in the 1940s
Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of cannabinoids ICD-10 code
YF-12 moderation test?
OK, got my IT hat on now, helping debug. I made a innocent posting at 0750 GDT. No links, no bad words, waiting moderation.
Canna…?
But, at 0800, I reply to same under moderation post, it is accepted.
wonder how this looks to other userids, Does RobM say only YF-12 test to Bob K, now, before moderated?
Dude, relax. I have a system in place that holds certain comments for moderation based on certain words, links or other criteria. I don’t know what it is in your posts that causes them to be held, but when you keep posting these “moderation tests” it makes you look more like a spammer than anything else. What it could have been was your list of unpunctuated, seemingly random phrases, often seen in spam.
Or maybe my system just doesn’t like smartass AAFES employees. Eh?
Holy crap I’m hungover…and coincidentally at work. Blahhhhhhhh.
hmm. BobM and RobM? new aafes slogan?
IMHO.
eh, not likely to have a “Y” prefix once it’s no longer experimental, NOW IS IT?
SR-71, perhaps?
definitely not. Badger may be black, but it’s fighter not recon.
YF-12’s long retired, and who knows in the real world?
*checks*
*double checks*
*triple checks*
nope. AFBlues don’t seem to be the “REAL WORLD”. *poke*
and besides, IF this was the real world AND the F-12 was still in Top Secret service … WOULD THEY TELL CIVVIES?
admit it, there can be only one “Bob M.”
Farva-
you got a smiley list somewhere?
and besides, IF this was the real world AND the F-12 was still in Top Secret service … WOULD THEY TELL CIVVIES?
Like one past CinC blowing cover on RS-71 and another compromising existance of NRO… depends on who’s playing the hand and whether or not they may be sure that the feed is going up to the bird when they announce, “the good news is you won’t have to worry aobut the Soviet Union anymore, the missiles are on their way” STS
Farva hasn’t seemed to touch on that anymore than a prime minister might tell an incoming successor about the ministry of magic, recalling some interchange between Conrelius Fudge and a muggle PM (STS).