Secret Twitter

Good morning,

I’m sitting at the desk slaving away and gently reminding everyone whose rank is Major and above that I need to get off this fucking desk and fly soon. I’ve already gotten my intel briefing for today, so the rest of my time will be spent on my usual antics of printing and taping memes to the step desk, playing Uno with crew comm and intel, and browsing SIPR on a continuation of my search for proof of aliens.  At some point I’ll meander into the intel office like I always do and with my thickest Russian accent ask “Comrade Watson, where do you find secret intel to put on slideshow?” That makes for good laughs but brings me no closer to finding classified documents pertaining to Area 51 or Roswell NM. So then I head back to my desk and make more attempts to poke around SIPR (the secret intranet of the US government), sometimes literally typing “aliens” into the search prompt of some file drive, often to no success. But then, I hit the motherlode.

Did you know… there is a secret version of Twitter? There is literally a website setup identical to Twitter where people with security clearances can tweet about classified information. In fact, there is a whole world out there of secret versions of popular social media websites. There’s secret google maps, where you can sort pieces of classified intel geographically and pinpoint each by address. There’s a secret Instagram, where we can share our favorite classified images, or top secret memes, maybe a classified XKCD comic rewritten with the perfect punchline on Iran. There’s a secret BlogSpot, where you can have long-form secret posts and discussions. There’s secret google docs, to collaborate on SITREPS and the like with your fellow security-clearance-wielding coworkers.

And my favorite, Intelipedia! The classified Wikipedia. It’s literally Wikipedia, an almost direct mirror of the unclassified public version, but with the occasional added lines in red that start with (S/FVEY). Yes, this is actually a thing, and it blew my mind. And since most people I know don’t have access to it, I’ll go ahead and let the cat out of the bag and admit that if you search Area 51 on secret Wikipedia it will take you to an article about the Dining Facility in Fort Bliss TX, which is apparently named “Area 51” (for some reason that information is unclassified by the way, like I said, cats out of the bag). They’re clearly hiding something.

There are few things that I could imagine that could make this desk less shitty, and the discovery of secret Twitter, secret Wikipedia, secret Instagram, and secret Google Maps blows them all away. Now I can check the public news when I wake up (you know, what the peons read), get the aircrew permission briefing when I get to work, use secret Wikipedia to brush up on all the secret background information, and then see the story unfold in real time on secret Twitter.

Chalk that up as reason #2 to work the desk. I don’t anticipate there being a #3.

Here’s an interesting article I found pertaining to it all: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4xp4d9/the-twitter-for-spies-has-over-60000-users

Good Deal Fliday

Good morning.

I've decided that it's too hard to write quality stuff while I'm on staff. All my free time is more or less spent raging off-base, and then I have this weird sleep schedule, and there's no more spa days. I'm more or less a morning person now because my window has shifted all the way around the clock, which is fine. Staff isn't the worst thing in the world; I guess if you like routines and spending every day in the same room then it's great. But I don't. So it's not. Anyway instead of spending a week writing some long and handcrafted piece with a theme and good flow only for it to not be current by the time I finish it, I'm going to try quicker and shorter thoughts that accumulate throughout my days. Okay. Consider yourself introduced to the format. 

I've done a lot of 7+ hour flights in the past three months. I fly so long, so much that anything below 6.5 hours feels short, like how the SDF to ATL flight felt compared to the ATL to SLC flight when I was 15. When a day at the office is 8 hours in a metal tube sitting with a yoke in your face, it becomes extremely important to keep things chill. Eight hours feels a lot longer when things aren't chill. Ever been on a roadtrip with someone you don't like? Same principles. 

Now that I only fly once a week, at my leisure, when it comes time I simply pick who I wanna fly with, decide which direction I wanna go, make a phone call and BOOM. I become on that flight. The SARM airmen do their thing and add my name to the flight orders and authorization, a schedule change with my name added gets emailed to the squadron, and just like that I'm on the flight. So every Good-Deal-Fliday-Eve (that's Thursday) I look at the Air Tasking Order, look at all the Legal-for-Alert times of the different crews, and get to play the Bachelor of aircrews. 

"Do I wanna fly with Huston and Dwayne? Dwayne owes me a landing so I'd probably get to fly as much as I want, and Huston was my bro on that Greece trip. Rankin's crew seems chill, and they always ask me at the step desk when I'm gonna fly with them. Katie and Sarah are really nice, and they've flown in Afghanistan less than I have so maybe I can help them out and answer questions. I've heard good things about Thurman's crew, they seem like good guys. I wonder if they'll mind me GoProing the Malak at 300kts."

Flying with precisely who I want, when I want, and where I want over the past month has made me realize what a superpower it is. You're not being told "hey Loyd you're flying on this line with this crew, show is at this time", but instead it's a day hand-picked by you. You can rest easy knowing you don't have to worry about whether or not the A/C is a stickler for checking the Lat/Longs on the flight plan, or whether or not you really gotta watch them during flap retraction because they have a reputation for low SA and overspeeding flaps. You just know it's gonna be 8 hours of chilling on a plane. And that's the best kind of chilling. 

For maximum cockpit chill it's important to have plenty of food; in the same way that snacking is incredibly important for a quality road trip, having snacks in the cockpit is a vital reagent. Try raising some morale on the radios; (American controller on Bahrain East Control? Gen up your best Boston accent impression and give it a go.)  Found a KC-10 flying around the same MOA as you that forgot to turn off their lights? Why not form up on them? Give them a call on their A/R frequency and declare MARSA for shits and giggles. For a chill flight, examples like these are omnipresent. 

Another thing that's crucial for upping the comfort levels, and by association the chill levels, is getting out of the seat. Walk around. Go take a pic in the boom pod. Use the bathroom. Do some lunges. As long as you aren't taxiing, taking off, conducting A/R, or landing, only one pilot needs to be in the seat. So there's nothing stopping you from getting up and stretching them legs.

I love when the AC does that and takes a half hour to get up, go to the back, turn on the oven and cook, read the newspaper in the boom pod, and just chills - but not in the seat. Whenever the other pilot leaves, the remaining pilot has to take "it all"; the aircraft and the radios. The autopilot and the fuel panel. Comm1 and Comm2 and Comm3. And I love it when that happens. 

Even though I despise anything and everything to do with single-pilot aircraft, it's nice to have half an hour to just sit there and run everything. ATC gives you an amended clearance, you take it down and put it in the FMS. You do it all. You wash and dry. For 30 minutes while you're sitting there on hour six of your eight hour chill-sesh, you are the sole operator of a 300,000lb aircraft. For 30 minutes it's just you at the helm, sitting in your command center, flying in a combat zone. It's like when you were 16 and your parents let you drive the family car alone for the first time, except you're flying over Pakistan and Karachi Control is yelling at you for something. It's... a very solemn feeling. 

Anyway that's all I got. Hopefully it made for good reading. Until next time.