http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/08/military.jet.crash/index.html

Are you massassians in san Diego ok (dalf, etc.)?

Wow, that has to be a Navy jet...

I was listening about the event today.

I'm ****ing tired hearing about Top Gun the movie.

Watching CNN on this story right now. It's odd, you would think that CNN the tv station would have the same info as CNN.com, but on TV they aren't even sure if the pilot had ejected, never mind making it to hospital.

Hopefully no one was harmed. So far it seems only one home was hit by the crash.

Well I just learned that supposedly the Marines have their own pilots... and their standards are lower, so maybe it wasn't Navy.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7772344.stm


Anyway the fact that it was a marine doesn't have anything to do with it. They still freaking fly Jet Fighters, so that alone makes them incredibly qualified regardless of what branch of the military they were from.

They generally don't let idiots fly multi-million dollar machines.

Lower how so?

Perhaps the Marines as a service have lower entry qualifications, but I doubt the pilots do. They generally fly the same planes as the Navy pilots with the exception of a few.

The F/A-18A-D is an older model than the still in-production E/F. There are a lot of reasons besides pilot error it could crash.

You know, three people died, and they were described in the article. Way more people die in traffic accidents every day, so it seems like a silly question to ask.

And, yes, this is sad. I actually saw several FA-18 fly in today to land at the airport beyond the university campus. I wonder if they were grounded due to this incident.

I'm fine. It happened near MCAS Miramar and both home and work are considerable distance away.

What the serious ****? Veger has absolutely no idea exactly where in San Diego County I live and it's a sizable county.

I think what he meant was that you might as well ask the question every day, and it wouldn't be different, because this crash, like car accidents, killed a few people randomly.

Oh how little you know about our military... :p

Oh I wasn't trying to imply pilot error (though it very well could have been), I was just mentioning the Marines lower standards offhand. Specifically, my understanding is that the Marines allow certain enlisted personnel to be pilots. The navy only has officer pilots. Also, Navy pilots are literally among the best in the world. They do stuff that Air Force pilots would crap bricks just hearing about... In a minute I'll post some links.

(Also, Blue Angels. Nuff said.)

I thought the blue angels were full time demonstration pilots who never really went into combat. Unless I'm wrong, they can hardly be used as a demonstration of the overall skill level of the pilots. Unless all the blue angels are fresh off the pilot training course.

I'm guessing they're a little like the "red arrows" in the UK who are more like stunt flying pilots than military ones.

Shouldnt the navy pilots get moved to the air force then? Thats like the whole point of splitting up the military. Navy dudes go in boats. Air force dudes fly. Pretty simple.

Sarn has a a bad case of "I'm in the Navy."

The Blue Angels are demonstration pilots; their techniques are hardly useful in combat. Also, there are Marine Pilots in the Blue Angles (at least 1). Combat pilots are all subjected to rigorous physical and skill requirements. If the pilot in this case screwed up, it's probably due to the fact that MCAS Miramar is a training school. It's not likely, however; the cause was most likely mechanical.

Navy pilots are distinct from Air Force pilots in that Navy pilots begin and end most combat missions from naval craft. Air Force pilots begin and end on a ground runway.

Haha you would think. Fact is the air force is a mostly useless service that should be done away with entirely (or focused more specifically on space travel perhaps). I'm not 100% sure, but iirc, the navy actually has more pilots than the air force. And they're definitely playing a bigger role in Iraq than air force pilots.

Anyway, I couldn't find any cool links, that have a real comparison of the training programs (probably cause most of it is likely classified) I'm still looking though.

And to point out also... Top Gun program is navy.

And, Oxy, Blue Angel pilots are real, actual Navy pilots. The best of the best apply for Blue Angels (there's perks involved in being a Blue Angels pilot). It's done the same way that any Navy personnel would apply for a specific posting. They serve (I think) 2 years and then go on to a new posting. But the point is, they're real Navy pilots trained for combat just likre any other. Not stunt pilots.

(Hombre's probably right though about me being a bit biased.)

Though I've never heard anything about Marine Corps pilots being Blue Angels. Not saying you're wrong, but if anything, I bet its more like the Marine corps pilot/s flew with the Blue Angels... Like as special guests.

But who knows... Marines are just navy grunts anyway. :p

i call terrists

I work for them as an engineer. I've seen things treated in a less than intelligent manner, agreed. Sorry if I got a little defensive, but I don't think the Marine aviators deserve any comments about their skills.

You're right, sir. I didn't mean anything specifically derrogative. That was a communication failure on my part. I apologize.

My apologies as well, not used to work following me home.

Wow... was that a pun? I don't think you meant it to be... but... damn that's funny.

I wish.


Damn it :argh:, I don't see it.

Jeez, I'm not sleeping enough, it only just hit me this morning. I had already considered it involved the username last night and still didn't catch it.

Generally speaking all of the services have nearly the same standards for entry of enlisted personnel. What changes is to what extent they are willing to waive their standards. When I was an Army recruiter the Marines used to send people our way that they couldn't work with. People we couldn't work with we sent to the Navy. These reasons were based on education levels and/or ASVAB scores. The need of each service to fill their quota drives what level of qualifications they require from applicants.

A very similar situation exists for officers. The need of each service to acquire and retain officers for individual fields are going to drive the standards that are applied.

Now, making any assumption about an aviator being less qualified based on the service he joined seems asine to me.