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Old 05-04-2018 | 11:52 AM
  #48  
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hindsight2020
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It may be too soon, but I think this is going to expedite the discussion about the fate of the flying mission for the PRANG. It's been a decade and a half of back and forth regarding the follow-on mission and potential outright flying mission loss. At least such has been the case since they lost the fighters.

RC-26s were discussed back a while ago but a certain congressional delegation were apendage-blocking PR from having them because one Congressperson flies them (or used to) in his home state (RUMINT). At any rate, for a while it looked like the flying mission was over for the unrepresented territory of Puerto Rico, flying these sloppy third hand me down airframes. Local leadership apparently had insisted in the push for Hs due to having the extra crews (a J model or RC mission would represent aircrew job losses for the wing, so political interests abound).

This accident changes the game imo. Hopefully it galvanizes an improvement in conditions, though it could very well likely represent complete and permanent ANG mission loss for the territory on account of lack of political top cover. What else is new with colonialism....And I digress.
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