The Gun Counter

Jericho941 wrote:Hmm, yeah. That reminds me, I've been meaning to ask: Are Marine MX officers still pilots as well, or have they created a specialty career field for it?

Aviation Maintenance is its own MOS. Granted, the pilots should be in tune with it, but they're too busy doing their own thing. Not a slight, the truth. The way it should be.

I getcha. The reason why I asked is because AF maintenance used to be run by pilots, then years ago it was changed so that MX officers were a separate field. Apparently SH-60 MX squadrons are still run by pilots, though. There seem to be pros and cons to doing it either way.

JAG2955 wrote:

Jericho941 wrote:
I do think that it is noteworthy that they're speaking directly with mainstream media about this, without apparently being filtered through Public Affairs and/or AFN. Historically, when maintenance starts talking to the media, it means heads are either already rolling or are about to. See: C-5, V-22.

If media was on base, there certainly was a PAO within earshot of the interviewer/interviewee. But there's a fairly good chances that neither the PAO nor the pilots knew what they were talking about. The Aviation Maintenance Officers got very little time on screen.

It's notable when a squadron commander is saying he's weeks away from deployment, at a time when they should just be buffing the tires, and he's got two actual ready aircraft.
I can see two- and three-star BS merchants with dreams of Commandant buffing someone's knob about readiness.
But when it gets down to the squadron level, this is a guy who has to stand in front of a couple hundred officers and men and lecture them about integrity face to face, and explain to the wives why XX number of guys won't ever be coming home from deployment, and whose story - were it crap - could be deflated by one smartass career lance corporal with a smartphone, a YouTube account, and an axe to grind.

This sort of thing is the equivalent of Billy Mitchell accusing the general staff of criminal negligence regarding aviation, or David Hackworth telling the Army CoS he had his head up his ass about Vietnam.

Back when we had a Congress that gave a shit about national defense, it was the sort of thing that'd have the SecDef, service secretaries, and 50 of their senior minions doing a very uncomfortable rug dance on TV in front of 37 congressmen and senators, and getting harangued and shit on publicly for weeks.

It's an election year, and it's still not too late.

Aesop wrote:
It's notable when a squadron commander is saying he's weeks away from deployment, at a time when they should just be buffing the tires, and he's got two actual ready aircraft.
I can see two- and three-star BS merchants with dreams of Commandant buffing someone's knob about readiness.

Seriously? Readiness is the metric by which the performance of the maintainers and logisticians, not to mention physical parts performance is graded. Let's not believe everything the media says. The first squadron commander "Crash" is deploying in something like 3 months. That's eons in the Aviation Logistics/Maintenance community. What's more is, he's touring the I-level maintenance hangar there. There's no way that O-level maintenance will be pulling engines, wings, radar, nosecone, whatever. It's a hangar queen for now. If there's no money for new parts (hint: there hasn't been for a long time), the depot will overhaul the parts back to like-new condition. The second squadron commander, who looks like the youngest LtCol that I've ever seen is deploying soon. Nothing is mentioned about his squadron's readiness, or grounding percentage, if you prefer. I'd wager because it's fine. What he talks about is the real concern: the strain on the young Marines who are forced to do more with less all the time.

I'm not denying that Marine Aviation is underfunded, but let's not believe everything that the media says. The flight hours are the biggest concerns to me. Mostly, they're caused by a lack of funding for fuels. But accounting, procurement, and contracting isn't sexy, we'd rather show a bird without its wings than a fat turd civilian comptroller who went home early because I yelled at her over the phone too much about doing her damn job (actually happened).

"There's no way that O-level maintenance will be pulling engines, wings, radar, nosecone, whatever..."

Hmmphh, I need to check my NEC's. Maybe I was got an I-level one when we were doing all that at O-level. Swapped all sorts of major stuff from hanger to roof. As birds went in and out of phase in hollow force years we'd be cannibalizing fools. Went through a long season when T-56 engines, transmissions and props were like hens teeth.

blackeagle603 wrote:"There's no way that O-level maintenance will be pulling engines, wings, radar, nosecone, whatever..."

Hmmphh, I need to check my NEC's. Maybe I was got an I-level one when we were doing all that at O-level. Swapped all sorts of major stuff from hanger to roof. As birds went in and out of phase in hollow force years we'd be cannibalizing fools. Went through a long season when T-56 engines, transmissions and props were like hens teeth.

Sorry, let me fix. "There's no way that O-level maintenance will be [strike]pulling[/strike] repairing engines, wings, radar, nosecone, whatever..." They remove and replace. The reason that they don't have the replacement is because the replacements are being fixed, or if they are fixed, being routed to the unit that will be deploying the earliest. The CO's comment about not knowing where the engines are is asinine. But your comment about parts like hens teeth is basically my entire point.

roger that. concur.

I can't speak to the specifics, I don;t know them. I do know overall readiness is a serious Naval Aviation concern at this moment.

Looks like it's the Air Force's turn for Fox.