Political & Elections

cat, the real reason why is that these planes are filled with classified information, plus there are other issues. Military members and their spouses/dependents do hitch rides with the AF(C130's) at a significantly reduced cost, but it is an interesting system. It is called Space A (for available).

Many military members do not use this perk because it is a hassle due to the procedures.

Priority goes to AD members on PCS orders.

Than to AD members on leave
--- cannot sign up for a flight until you prove you are on leave
--- cannot book a return flight when you sign up.
~~~ I can't tell you how many people I know who did this landed up getting stuck there and had to buy a 1 way ticket back.

Than to AD dependents
--- If the AD member is stationed overseas they are allowed to place their college age dependent 2X a yr above the AD member on leave. That means May and August are the times that fill up quickly

Than to retirees.

The AF actually has a book of the traditional travel routes, and the days they fly out. It is not as if every base has airframes that start with the letter C (cargo). This means if the base doesn't have the airframe, you must drive to the base that does and wait to get your name called.

In the 20 yrs that Bullet served we never ever traveled Space A. I only know maybe 5 people that did and the ones that did were people without young children!

busdriver,

A lot has changed in the last few yrs regarding these airframes and how they use them now. Bullet right now is somewhere over the Pacific flying commercial coach with 30 other guys and @ 10 of them have several stars of their shoulders. It is an international conference regarding the 35 ---basically every country buying the 35 will be attending it in Australia. They do this conference yrly, ly it was in Italy, but the AF due to costs did not attend.

When he was at the Pentagon back in 04 they took an AF plane for @ the same amount of people to do a visit certain bases. They went to St Louis, Randolph, Hickham (HA) and Ramstein, Germany. As you know in the AF this would have been considered a good deal TDY.

Good deal TDY's are gone now.

I fault Panetta for being out of touch with the troops, but not for abiding by the regs set forth for an SOD. What I mean by that is don't get on the tv, beaach about how the budget will mean that branches will be cutting troops, and next generation hardware, but come every Friday get on a plane that costs $$$ which comes out of the DOD budget. If you are a true champion of how badly this will impact our military forces, prove it! You are a multi-millionaire pay for your family to fly to DC! Yes, it is pennies, but he is holding the checkbook, just like we do in our own personal lives. He has bills to pay, and places he can save a few bucks. Don't tell the troops to do more with less when you are unwilling to do it yourself.

Not to trivialize Panetta's need to get back home, since even the wealthy and well-connected can occasionally have family emergencies, but.... if these planes and pilots have to fly why can't they occasionally do a little charitable work and carry somebody who'd actually find it a blessing instead of a perk?

I don't know, pima, how wasteful it is for Panetta to be taking all those trips to California. I'm sure he schedules the trips to the military bases on the way home for his own convenience, and the sake of time. Who knows, does he need to visit those bases, what does he do when he's there, is it an excuse to get the plane out halfway to his home so it looks better? I don't know. Are the airplanes he uses designated just for him, or do other dignitaries use them? Once again, I don't know.

But the reality is, yes, the pilots would be paid whether or not the planes are flying. But they can get far better training if they need to, to fly some locals. Uses less gas, you can get a ton of takeoffs, landings and approaches in just an hour. Now that is useful for proficiency. Droning 5-6 hours to California for one takeoff and landing? Expensive, and really, spending that time drinking coffee and reading the paper just doesn't do much for your proficiency.

The problem is, these guys have always considered military aircraft to be like their own personal jets. From Pelosi, to the first lady, to the senators. They always manage to find a way to mix a little business in with a lot of pleasure. Amazing how many vacation/garden spots I flew generals/senators to. Funny how their business rarely ended up in North Dakota. At least I'm glad they seem to be watching gas a little better than they used to. Once, on the C-5 (which burns an incredible amount of gas), the schedulers built this trip that was purely a trip for training, that went to Hawaii, Australia, etc. Really? 9 days just as a "training" flight. What it had more to do with was that our squadron commander needed us to burn much more fuel so we'd get the same allotment the next year. Talk about waste.

Thanks Prima. 

Use it, or lose it. 

??You didn't explain what a KC-135 has to do with Panetta. I thought the airplane he flies on is more like a Gulfstream. Not that it means it's okay to fly home constantly, at mostly taxpayer expense. I mean, he doesn't have little kids at home, does he? Nor does he have to be home to represent his district. He is purely commuting home because he can, and he's not footing most of the bill.

My husband flew KC-135 (tankers) and EC-135 (Looking Glass, was airborne to launch the nukes if everything else was taken out on the ground). That was over 20 years ago, and even back then those planes were old, old, old. I can't believe they aren't just falling out of the sky.

Its a good idea but really not very reasonable. 

Recently, I discovered that our KC135 air tankers (modified 707) are still very much in service and only to begin phase out in another 10-15 years. (2020+). That's a service life of 50+ years. So what does a KC135 has to do with Peneta? You have to have that plane and qualified pilots whether you use them weekly on just 2x year. Further, the usage of the KC135 is not like a commercial plane with 10K+ landings and 100K+ flight hours. 

 

Panetta, as Defense Secretary, is not allowed to fly commercial.  The cost of each flight he takes is exponentially more expensive than those flights of MOC. 

Oops. Deleted that part without reproofing. 

USA got a plane for the Sec DoD. It's sitting on the ground most of the time, along with its pilots. The ongoing costs is maintenance whether or not the plane is in the air or on the ground. Probably a bit more maintenance if its in the air but you still got to have trained personnel.. The variable cost is the fuel. The fixed cost is written off at purchase since that cost is based on technology. 

I was told that Government equipment do not have amortization, so equipment is held on the books at asset cost and can only be written off when it's scrap. If this is true, Is it better to scrap Sec DoD plane based on air hours  or based on hours sitting on the ground? 

-- Edited by longprime on Monday 23rd of April 2012 11:36:02 PM

catahoula wrote:

 

($38,000 wouldn't cover the bar tab for one of the green energy companies on that list, romani.)

---

 but it would cover a weekend flight home for Panetta... which he apparently takes every weekend.  Guess when you are big cheese it is acceptable to work in DC while you live in California, and have the taxpayers foot the bill.

cat: "...but we can't all be Harvard grads."

we will, whoever wins in Nov. 

He wants a lot of things but most of all he wants to be re-elected.

Can't see how pandering to the select group of donors he enriched with that stimulus giveaway or GM workers, with a Volt they can't give away, is gonna do it, but we can't all be Harvard grads.

($38,000 wouldn't cover the bar tab for one of the green energy companies on that list, romani.)

So we should be glad that the losses are finite. There are some things that have infinite risk.

For some, a finite loss is better than infinite gain.

In other cases a finite gain is better than an infinite loss. 

Think about it.