I'm sure by now the Tailhook convention won't even make the news, or if it does, it'll be on page 8 of the paper or something like that, but if it does make the news, look for a medium height guy with short brown hair and it might be me (pretty descriptive I know).

sounds great! you two have a great time!

Dave & Terri

Hope you guys have fun!!! Be safe!

They had booths set up with representatives from Boeing, Lockeed Martin, British Aerospace, Northrup Grumman, Ratheon, etc, who had LOTS of cool information on new aircraft and weapons systems coming out currently and in the next 5-10 years. They even had a simulator for the new Joint Strike Fighter for us to check out.

They had a panel with 8 Admirals on it and an open mike and questions were asked about op-tempo, money, spare parts, bonuses, etc, generally concerns most of us junior and mid-grade officers have. The oportunity was not lost to ask some pointed and tough questions, and I think the questions asked were answered openly honestly and I was very pleased to hear the answers, most notably that our budget for gas and spare parts, which translates into flying time and better proficiency, is going to double for FY02.

We had a banquet dinner and the guest speaker was Ret Admiral Greer, who is currently the ambassador to China, so we heard a great deal about the EP-3 incident (why what happened happened, ie, the Chinese governments take on it) and some other cool stuff. Very impressive man and a great speach.

I met a lot of men who flew off the carrier in WWII, Korea and Vietnam and got to share in some of their "sea stories." It's not often that you get to meet the guys who no kidding laid it on the line and helped create naval aviation as we know it today. Two notable fella's: one who made his first carrier landing in 1940, and another who had over 1600 carrier landings. (I only have 10 so far!)

And, of course, we partied hardy both nights but were well behaved and hopefully nobody made it in the news. I got to see some friends I haven't seen in years and it was cool to have Casey along to share all this with. Overall it was a very professional seminar as far as I'm concerned it should be considered a respectable event and a respectable organization.

quote:

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Originally posted by sigtauenus:
We had a banquet dinner and the guest speaker was Ret Admiral Greer, who is currently the ambassador to China, so we heard a great deal about the EP-3 incident (why what happened happened, ie, the Chinese governments take on it) and some other cool stuff. Very impressive man and a great speach.

I met a lot of men who flew off the carrier in WWII, Korea and Vietnam and got to share in some of their "sea stories." It's not often that you get to meet the guys who no kidding laid it on the line and helped create naval aviation as we know it today. Two notable fella's: one who made his first carrier landing in 1940, and another who had over 1600 carrier landings. (I only have 10 so far!)

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As for wanting to know about the weekend? Yeah, I wanna know....EVERYTHING!

Stories, events, toys & gagets, just start typing!

Then what he got into is the mindset of the government and what is going on in China overall. You have 1.3 billion people over there. China is about the same size landmass as the continental US, ok, a little bit bigger, and their population distribution would be comparable to say that 1 billion people live east of the Mississippi. Basically, they are concentrated near the coast. Yes, they are becoming more aware of freedoms through the internet, but only the big cities have internet access. If you drive 60 miles outside the cities, there's no running water and no electricity, hence, no internet. The average Chinese person is just trying to survive the life of a poor farmer. So, what you have is a large population just trying to go about living their life and basically oblivious to concepts like democracy and other world affairs. Then you have the people in the cities that are more educated, have internet access, etc, and are pushing for more freedom and at the same time you have a communist government trying desperately to regain and maintain absolute control over a country that is slowly slipping out of their hands.