Delicious...A400M in the Mach Loop for the first time

I know some of you fast jet types will think this is pretty passé…but I love the A400M…

https://youtu.be/6QTL-OcrBQg

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Not blase to me! Pretty nifty. Looks quick and nimble for such a slug.

When you hear there’s someone on the low level and not in something pointy nose:

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But that has to put such conflict in your soul…I mean…don’t they deliver the beer??

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Wrong service beach. The Navy are a bunch of tea totallers while at sea.

Only the US Navy.
As far as I know the German Navy, Royal Navy and French Navy have alcohol aboard. Drinking is limited of course, but better than nothing. :slight_smile:

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I’m just gonna tag @Navynuke99, sit back, and crack a beer while his explanation of the USN’s drinking policy goes from calm to apoplecticaly bitter. :beers:

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American warships do carry booze onboard, but it’s mostly only for social functions aboard ship when in foreign ports; when we were in Brisbane, the Australian delegation almost drank the ship dry, and stayed four hours longer than initially planned.

At the same time, to provide power for that little party while we were fighting off schools of jellyfish, all ventilation below the hangar deck was secured, most of the lighting was out, and a third of Reactor and a quarter of Engineering found themselves serving a second duty day in a row to keep the lights on and the music playing. Eight folks in the plants had to be treated for heat stroke, and both departments were running bucket brigades of ice and bottled water from the mess decks down to both the plants, and two more pump rooms, to try and keep everybody hydrated and, you know, not dying?

Ok, deep breaths. But I digress.

There is also a store of beer kept aboard, for any ship that’s on station for longer than 45 days without pulling into port, if the Captain so chooses. In those “beer days,” every member of the crew not on restriction or in the brig who’s off watch gets two beers. Never had a beer day myself, as the longest i was ever out between port calls was 33 days.

Aside from that, there is no drinking aboard ship, thanks to a white Supremist newspaper owner turned secretary of the Navy from North Carolina named Josephus Daniels, who may have hated the Navy and all things traditional even more than Ray Mabus does.

So it begs the question - is there a black market onboard - or is the punishment so severe to not warrant even trying?

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Rumor has it that officers can get away with having a bottle or two stashed in their staterooms, but for enlisted, the punishment is much more Draconian. Buddy of mine for denuked as a result of getting caught once with a bottle in one of his lockers.

However, I can neither confirm nor deny that engine room bilges are big enough and hot enough to ferment fruit juice.

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TIL that non nukes think these are reactors…pfftt…officers…

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I was stationed in Germany in the eighties with the Royal Artillery. When we got sent to Northern Ireland on a 4 month tour we were ordered to use our duty free allowance to stock up the officers mess so they were allowed to drink but us normal squaddies had to stay dry for the whole tour. Talk about them and us lol.

It felt really strange too to actually go through customs carrying a rifle after getting off the Hercules and be stopped and searched. It could only happen in the British Army. Sorry for straying off topic.

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That part has always bugged me a good bit. Discipline was the same way- a junior enlisted sailor gets put on 3 days bread and water for coming into work drunk, but an Admiral gets a stern talking-to for bilking the Navy out of millions, and giving a foreign national contractor classified information on fleet movements.

I understand your point, but isn’t this the same thing no matter the organization? Guys at the top get privilege and leeway, guys at the bottom get pooped on?

It’s cool seeing something so big pulling that kind of bank angle and turning rate. Next up: C-17 in the Mach Loop! :grin:

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I wanna see a C-5.

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I don’t remember there ever being a problem finding a beer on any of the RAF bases I served at :wink: .

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But you definitely can’t be loudly drunk and smoking cigars in your stateroom. They’ll burn you for that.

Idiots.

Yes and no…or at least not anymore. When I was an Ensign in VF-32 on the KENNEDY- Med Cruise '86-'87 the aviators drank - at least in my squadron. Not all partook but it was an one secret and nobody reported it. It was a different kind of mentality. I actually had a CO tell the entire ready room that he would personally end the career of anyone who spoke up about such shenanigans. e were to turn a blind eye. I didn’t drink (was never invited which was fine wth me). I bit my tongue and hated it.

By 1992, when I reported aboard the US GUAM (No NavyNuke99, that is not an acronym for “Going Under Any Minute”…although it could have stood for “Go UA Man”…) there was not a drop of booze to be found among the ships officers (I cannot speak for the embarked Marine Aviators). This was post Tail Hook and the “culture” was definitely changing.

We did “enjoy” a beer day during our first cruise. It was winter and we were in the Adriatic off the Balkans. Cold…very, very cold…not the kind of evening where you are thirsty for a “Cold One.” We signed the log and got two cans, both open. We went into a roped off area on the freezing hangar desk and they watch you drink them - no trading, sharing or saving for later.

Finally by 2003 when I was the Carrier Strike Group 7 N2 for the STENNIS strike group, I’d say that any drinking that happened onboard was extremely rare (outside aforementioned hosted socials…we were the host ship for RIMPAC 2004…nuff said).

By then we had women aboard and the entire culture had improved. With the exception of battling the Soviet menace, I for one do not remember “the good old days” fondly. During my last sea tour it was nice to work with professionals who actually followed the regs.

On the STENNIS, had an officer been caught drinking on board, underway, I have no doubt that he/she would have gone to Admiral’s Mast and beed drummed out of the service (Admin Discharge).

I know of no sailors who got in trouble for drinking although that is often “handled at the Chief level”…which I am a proponent of in appropriate cases.

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Wish we’d had more like you in the Wardroom when I first got to the Reagan, sir. But that’s another story for another time.

Back on topic, does anybody know if X-Plane has scenery to accurately recreate the Mach Loop? I think it could be fun for all of us to take our own shots at it in different planes of our choosing. Imagine the hilarity in screenshot and video form!

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