<2023-01-12T01:04:46.000Z> GabeLakmann@nicecrew.digital: can you see the whole conversation I had with that guy about "jailhouse carry"? haha
<2023-01-13T00:44:11.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot: Only saw a little bit actually
<2023-01-13T00:48:45.000Z> GabeLakmann@nicecrew.digital: I kept mentioning it and the guy never understood what I meant haha. He was some old boomer who thought he was so smart and didn't need average people except to collect garbage and stuff. Very condescending so I trolled him. I said you need a small and smooth pistol for "jailhouse carry" and that it takes longer to draw but is very secure and only x-rays would be able to tell that you are carrying
<2023-02-12T00:02:50.000Z> GabeLakmann@nicecrew.digital: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valmet_L-90_Redigo saw this landing at my local airport and the dark/od green colors made me hop on flightradar24 real quick and see if it had its transponder on still. Pretty cool looking aircraft
<2023-02-12T00:04:38.000Z> GabeLakmann@nicecrew.digital: it belongs to a company that does contracted work with JTACs since apparently the air force can't give its own pilots seat time while training JTACs. It's the only civilian company legally allowed to fly armed and drop ordnance too
<2023-02-12T00:18:29.000Z> GabeLakmann@nicecrew.digital: Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that you and the other professional aviator on here have mentioned getting paid to train diversity hires for the USAF using civilian planes and everything...
<2023-02-12T00:19:37.000Z> GabeLakmann@nicecrew.digital: so i guess it shouldn't surprise me. it bothers me though because it feels like they're creating mercenaries for almost everything and aside from civilians being able to tell them to fuck off I don't see an upside to it. I look forward to hearing what you think about it all
<2023-02-20T02:47:52.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot: topaces.com/our-fleet
<2023-02-20T02:49:24.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot: There's a phenomenon I'm hearing about from these guys, I met a couple of them near their desert stomping grounds, and it's basically a cheat for the mil to guarantee training staff that are actually competent. All the pilots are former mil IP's, contracted for all the exercises, so the corporate structure lets the biz weed out the shit much better than the military. They even let them install a pretty nice package from lockheed a while back, AESA and all, in their privately held F-16s. Weird times
<2023-02-20T02:50:40.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot attached file https://i.poastcdn.org/087f62ccfd7d2538d35cb2c446b6bd1305c6363ca3a29b3f629e0a4da8c66f8a.png
<2023-02-20T05:15:15.000Z> GabeLakmann@nicecrew.digital: I can't see the image for some reason but that's crazy that there is more than one company like that. They've really screwed up with both their training and recruiting/retaining too when it is bad enough that you need outsiders to train. It makes sense though, like you say, it'd be slightly easier to fire some dumbass or a negro that doesn't belong there. The good news is, if that F-16 is indeed in a private collection then maybe you could talk them into letting you rent it haha
<2023-03-05T00:22:59.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot: That company announced they're moving into AI now. Bought some san fran company and they're working on unmanned wingman F-16s, from what I hear
<2023-03-06T06:15:45.000Z> GabeLakmann@nicecrew.digital: That's kinda cool but also scary. I'm not afraid of all out and uninfluenced AI but I am deathly scared of partial AI influenced by zog.
<2023-03-08T04:06:44.000Z> GabeLakmann@nicecrew.digital: You think they have to remove the seat and stick to replace it with automated stuff or are they still flyable manually if needed? Would be sweet to take one. It's bullshit that we can't have our own F-16s. That's just about all I've ever wanted since I was 4 years old and saw one take off from the local base.
<2023-03-24T01:37:19.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot: I wouldn't talk about my bike choice openly but I've had my KTM 1190 since...2017? Overall it's been pretty good. Have had some niggles with it but I suspect they're the result of putting it in storage without prepping it. I grabbed the 1st gen, which was probably dumb, but I paid $13k for it back in2016. The LC8 engine had been around for 10+ years and is pretty reliable, but you'll have to keep up to maintain it. The airbox design is kinda iffy, so you kinda have to grab an aftermarket filter for it (which gives you more oomf, throttle response, and sound) It IS a kraut bike, so the downtime is worse than a jap one, but in return you get 150hp at about 33 mph when you're getting on it. I had a multistrada for about a year, got rid of it bc it was a bitch finding tires for it and I never took it off road anyways, was too paralyzed after replacing the first plastic from a tip-over. Also look out on height. I did a lot of shopping when I had the money to burn, to me the only bikes that really captured me were the the KTM, the duck, and the 1200 GS. The GS was a little too sedate and expensive though. 
<2023-03-24T01:40:30.000Z> GabeLakmann@nicecrew.digital: The service intervals aren't too bad if you can do the work yourself since that stuff is fun to me. Did you have to take it to the dealer or was it stuff you can do at home?
<2023-03-24T01:40:35.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot: When you get a bike though, you GOTTA love it. If you don't, it'll just sit in the garage. The more roles you can press it into, the more you use it. I've always done grocery shopping, vacations, work commutes w/ my bikes, so I've leaned towards jamming as much storage on them as I can. A topbox, side bags, (boxes, better, you can lock them), and a pass. seat duffle mean you can wear all your protective gear too, you have somewhere to park it. Sure, it's unsexy to look at but you'll end up riding it more. (and they pop right off). I've gotten a LOT of use out of all my bikes, just taking them in to work, or being able to park them in the hangar and leave them. Until this current job, I've usually put on about 8-14,000 miles on a bike per year, at least when I had outside day jobs and friends to ride with. Now it's mostly my airport runabout, night-out vehicle, and shortcut through the hills machine. 
<2023-03-24T01:42:31.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot: Forgot how to do enters on the messages. I've only had to take it in for service once, I cracked the dashboard LCD and you need to key it in. Aside from that.....well I do have a bent rim right now, gotta go get it trued. The KTM has been my most finicky bike, but until honda starts giving me the same performance, I'm keeping it. 
<2023-03-24T01:42:48.000Z> GabeLakmann@nicecrew.digital: It sounds like it is a great all around bike. I'd probably be better off getting something like that and then go find a used dirt bike for cheap if I want go ride off road more
<2023-03-24T01:44:30.000Z> GabeLakmann@nicecrew.digital: It seems like that is the trade off with German/Austrian stuff. You have to keep up with maintenance more but you get more out of them in return. It's why Mercedes get a bad reputation with some because negros buy used Mercedes and don't want to pay to keep them maintained so they break down.
<2023-03-24T01:44:33.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot: Give the V-strom a try, if you want a bike for about 80-90% street, it's a solid choice. Good wind protection, good range of motion so you can set it up w/ wide bars like an enduro or raked back like a sportier tourer. The v-twin comes from their naked streetbike, the SV650, which is also a solid choice, though they changed it into a girly, rounded thing for a generation. 
<2023-03-24T01:44:54.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot: Suzuki might let you do test drives, they did for me easy enough. 
<2023-03-24T01:45:17.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot: What's funny is that for a long time I actually WANTED the unreliability, because it's kinda fun hanging out in the garage messing w/ stuff. Figures that I lose that freedom now. 
<2023-03-24T01:45:46.000Z> GabeLakmann@nicecrew.digital: Yeah, I've heard good things about the V-Strom and SV650 too. Apparently Yamaha is making a similar version now with a v-twin
<2023-03-24T01:46:42.000Z> GabeLakmann@nicecrew.digital: Yep, that's why I wouldn't mind servicing it more if you can do it at home. It's relaxing to me to work on stuff, well stuff that doesn't need to be running the next day because you have to get to work or whatever anyways
<2023-03-24T01:52:51.000Z> GabeLakmann@nicecrew.digital: If I had known you before going down the path I'm going down now I probably would have became a pilot instead since it has been my dream since seeing F-16s at the local airport as a child. You seem to be doing well and I always thought to do well as a pilot you needed to have the military experience and have military pay for your flight schooling. I'm glad that I was wrong even though it might be too late for me personally.
<2023-03-25T00:58:52.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot: That's what I was told too, I never thought it would be a career track when I did it, I just had exposure to it and knew someone who offered to gimme my private license for cheap so I started doing it to add to my collection of certificates. It wasn't until my biz went belly up that I took stock of what I could do after a career change, so I've been charging ahead with this one. I'm not doing TOO great, though, I'd like to get a better job soon. 
<2023-03-25T01:01:25.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot: If you have the loans/funding or any kind of finAid in your pocket, and you're willing to work your ass off, then I'd probably recommend the pilot mill track. I've known guys who went from zero to airline pilot in the span of about 3-4 years, spending all their time grinding and taking any way to fly they can. Family life is very tough to get though, so while the money is cool and all, there are a lot of downsides like any ohter job. Also really dying for airframe and powerplant guys, and that track takes less time. There are schools doing classes/apprenticeships at the same time, so you get paid a wage and spend half the day in class. Sometimes we'll contract with roving teams for on-call fixes, I think they make pretty good money since the private jet biz pays a LOT for instant service. 
<2023-03-25T03:18:40.000Z> GabeLakmann@nicecrew.digital: I'm about to have a BS in STEM degree thats related to the medical field and I think I've used most of my financial aid to get that. If they'd actually do the 20k student loan debt forgiveness instead of using it as a carrot to vote democrat it might free up some funds. What does the average pilot and the high end mechanic make yearly? If I was a mechanic I'd go for the high end jobs since I'm pretty smart and learn quick.
<2023-03-25T03:21:18.000Z> GabeLakmann@nicecrew.digital: You've done a lot of interesting stuff by the way. I'd like to know more but I don't want to risk doxing you. I've always know it's possible but after the chudbuds thing it seems a little more probable that any instance could get hacked if someone wanted it bad enough. I don't use anything related to my name and I put out disinformation half the time so I'm probably a little safer than some of these people but I'd still rather not risk it these days. I worry that if that happened I'd get blacklisted and never know about it.
<2023-05-11T04:45:50.000Z> GabeLakmann@nicecrew.digital: You ever looked into "BioComputing" where they make computers out of cells or try and store data using DNA/RNA instead of binary since with binary there are only two options, 0 and 1 while with DNA/RNA there are four options, ATCG (for DNA)/AUCG (for RNA)?
<2023-05-17T03:49:30.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot: I never check my DM's, there's something so much more intimate about them even if nobody sends me anything all that crazy on poast. Average pilot pay varies, the career guys doing it the smart way get through the shitty early phases as fast as they can. So they get their private license, then their instrument (flying blind, in weather), then commercial, then almost always onto their CFI so they can start teaching the previous 3 phases. It's about the only way to build up the necessary experience in order to meet legal minima in order to fly for pay.
<2023-05-17T03:51:17.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot: CFI's don't make shit, and the few commercial jobs out there generally require 800 hours of total time in your resume in order to begin considering you. Lots of competition there, so most do the pyramid scheme way and teach, fly their ass off, and do whatever it takes to get to the 1500 hour mark. That's now the legal requirement in order to fly for scheduled air carrier service, (thank that stupid united crew in 2009. Our parents got to walk on to the jetway with less than a third of that time for decades, but they pulled the ladder up behind them and effectively allowed the industry to require the pilot's equivalent of a doctorate's in order to work as a nurse.) 
<2023-05-17T03:54:30.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot: Pilot pay varies pretty widely, depends on how much you want to make. On the puddle jumper side, anywhere from $40,000 to $80,000 seems to be the going rate, depending on what airframe, and where you are. Most of the time they're temp, and you move on to bigger and better aircraft the second you can. Now, the Good money? Skywest is the halfway point between trash planes and airlines - and everyone wants to fly for them. It's a very nice job, as long as your family can make it work without you there every day. My buddy is at NetJets, which is a funky case of charter, private flying with the pay of a pseudo regional airline. You can infer some of the pay from this chart: 
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<2023-05-17T03:55:36.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot: Overall, if you're thinking about doing piloting, it's probably the best time we've ever had to do so. It's still a pretty good meritocracy, despite their efforts, and the wave of retiring boomers has paired up with the post-9/11 slump to absolutely destroy any chances of filling seats. 
<2023-05-17T03:57:30.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot: As it stands right now, I've heard the industry isn't even putting out enough pilots to maintain the level of flying our economy has now. If nothing improves, then routes will be cut about 30%. The Regional assoc. sends out panicked newsletters every montth about how regional airlines have cut routes and flights, and we still have a ton of our boomers in the captain's seat. Once they're all retired - which is an FAA mandatory limit, you turn 65 and you CANNOT fly scheduled air service anymore, unlike every other eternal boomer industry - they're REALLY gonna panic. There's no way to train us, either. It's a slow, expensive, demanding process. 
<2023-05-17T04:00:20.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot: If you have the GI bill then you can mull over a college with an aviation program - there are loopholes in the 1,500 hour rule where certain degrees allow you to start working at 1,250 hours, trimming your time and allowing you to hit your peak earning sooner. Ther are lots of orgs dedicated to bringing up the next generation too. AMT's (our technicians) have a lot of the same pressures, I've seen them get paid pretty good for a long time, particularly if they're willing to do the needful to get a bird airborne no matter the time. Planes don't make money while they're on the ground, after all. There's a few programs now where they'll pay you to go through your 2-year apprenticeship, then give you your certification as an AMT. Professional groups even give out tons of free classes and certs, from the looks of it. Hit up something like the NBAA and write a  couple blurbs about turning your life around, they'll send you out to Rolls Royce to get trained on their engines for a week, slap that on your resume. 
<2023-05-17T04:01:11.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot: I forget the name of the company, a while back I posted about it, because they were offering a zero to hero thing where you even got room & board, IIRC. You show up, willing to work, and you LIVE aviation maintenance full time, doing classes in the day and work in the evening, then come out the other end a year later and a certificate richer. 
<2023-05-17T04:01:46.000Z> WashedOutGundamPilot: That's what's great about certs - they're interchangeable and gov standard. You can go anywhere and just start working with them. Networking is key, but it's nice not having a state by state registry like other dude jobs do. 