I know how I feel when I see the "delivery and destination charges" that appear when you're fighting your way through a car deal, after you thought you'd settled the price. Y'know all those little overhead things that the dealer keeps off the table until they're done haggling on the price, then you find out that he loads his overhead costs on you after you think you've already gotten your best price, which included the overhead costs.
If you shop at a Commissary, it happens to you, too - the surcharge that is added to your total after the groceries are all totaled up. That's your cost share for the fact that the commissary is an appropriated fund activity (vice the PX, which is *not*).
Imagine how you'd feel at Wal-Mart, if, after all the merchandise is totaled up, you then got entries for shipping and storage costs, shipping material disposal, property rent and maintenance amortization fees...
[Um, John, where you goin' with this, dude?]
Sorry - for some reason that all flitted through my head as I watched some gents from the Missouri Air National Guard unit up the road in Saint Joseph, Missouri, rig, load, and drop an M777 howitzer to a FOB in Afghanistan. There are some serious costs involved in that delivery.
I also like the gun crew's sense of humor.
Since I have to head to work - if somebody could link the "airdrop mishaps" video in the comments, just to be fair and balanced, so you can see what happens when it goes... wrong.
If you shop at a Commissary, it happens to you, too - the surcharge that is added to your total after the groceries are all totaled up. That's your cost share for the fact that the commissary is an appropriated fund activity (vice the PX, which is *not*).
Imagine how you'd feel at Wal-Mart, if, after all the merchandise is totaled up, you then got entries for shipping and storage costs, shipping material disposal, property rent and maintenance amortization fees...
[Um, John, where you goin' with this, dude?]
Sorry - for some reason that all flitted through my head as I watched some gents from the Missouri Air National Guard unit up the road in Saint Joseph, Missouri, rig, load, and drop an M777 howitzer to a FOB in Afghanistan. There are some serious costs involved in that delivery.
I also like the gun crew's sense of humor.
Since I have to head to work - if somebody could link the "airdrop mishaps" video in the comments, just to be fair and balanced, so you can see what happens when it goes... wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1izGSMKqskY
Back in 1979-1980 I worked at the US Army Yuma Proving Ground and part of what I did was data entry / data reduction on these programs. That was when they were first working on dropping stuff on pallets so you got the whole load instead of just the gun or just the ammo.
Saw several fun things, some on high speed film (frrame by frame, entering the camera's azimuth & elevation, then centering cross hairs over the load and punching a card). Watched a HALO (High Altitude, Low Opening) drop where when the main chute opened, the chute release did do. Chute stopped, load continued unabated. Lessons were learned from that test.
Also saw (live) a LAPES - Low Altitude, Parachute Extraction System. Cargo plane dove at the ground, leveled off at about 6 feet. Little drogue appears at the back, then magically theres' a small tank bouncing up and down as the plane first pops up about 20 feet then climbs into the sky.
Now, all these years later, they can drop a 155 on target, on time, without major worries. Well worth the hours I spent in my little data entry cubbie.
Okay -- I can see how that could work...
Okay -- I can see how that *could* work, a good imagination would be helpful.
The poor old, "Herc", she was one really constipated bird, I'm glad she was able to get a load off of her mind.
One time I was talking with one of the helitack crewmen after watching a Bell Jet Ranger take off with a sling load of .... gallon tin cans of drinking water, I think....
Anyway, this guy was telling me that the previous week they had done up a pretty heavy sling load of fire tools on the BJR and as the pilot started executing a fairly low altitude climbing turn the cargo hook jetisoned the load. It landed smack dab on top of a pickup. Fortunately there was no one in the truck at the time, 'cuz he said the truck was about 10" tall after the fact. :-)
My rememberer glitched....not that it's all that important, but I basically got it backwards...
The load that flattened the pickup was a load of bladder pumps... a rubber backpack with a spray nozzle containing 4 - 5 gallons of water. I don't have any idea of how many there were, but a bunch.