Daily reminder for any military pilots:
Dont piss off the guys who have control over whether or not your bird is allowed to fly, we'll remind you who owns those birds every time- and we'll find every stupid excuse to down those birds.
Good friend of mine (now my Scout Troop's Committee Chairman) is an ATC. Actually he's now the senior Center Operator here in Yuma; but he used to be upstairs in the tower - even when he was a lowly 1LT in the Corps. He has a similar maxim:
"Don't pi$$ off the guys in the tower. Instead of telling you when you can go, they can always just tell you where to go"
"Nightmare 1, flight of three; hold on the apron until I finish my sandwich and make a head call
Isnt that like when maintenance tells us that we have a spare, but when we looked at it, it was on jack stands and didnt have any blades on it...One more: What's the difference between ATC and a pilot? If the pilot screws up, he will usually just kills himself. If ATC screws up, he usually just kills the pilot. That's bad, I know...
We downed a Cobra for a stripped screw receptacle. This comes the day we get chewed out (for the 5 day in a row) for not writing up every missing screw we find - thus why we got pissed off.
2nd Mustang said:
I grounded a B-52 once for a little hydraulic O-ring. Not having brakes or flaps is not a good thing.