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Another perspective from the dark world of cargo (777 aircraft): My March trip leaves 19 Mar for 13 days including my commute home. So, I leave on a Tuesday morning and I'll be back home Sunday midday just shy of two weeks later. I get it - not everyone would want that. There are plenty of shorter trips available if someone wanted say, two 6-day trips with a week off in between or even more trips (four 3-day trips). I prefer to minimize my commutes. As a result, I'm off 15 days in a row before the trip from 3 Mar-18 Mar. If I had worked the first two weeks of Feb, I could have had 4 weeks off in a row without using vacation. I'm working as an FO (as opposed to bidding a Relief FO trip), so I will fly a mix of long and short flights. I usually try to bid for an international deadhead to start the trip (and maybe one at the end of the trip if I get lucky) and one revenue flight each day I fly during the trip. If I wanted all long-haul flights on the trip, I would need to bid an RFO trip. Those trips typically have a deadhead (always on pax carriers, never our own aircraft) every other leg. The RFO works as part of a 3 or 4 pilot crew, has a layover and then deadheads to another city to meet up with another crew in need of additional pilots and so on. An added bonus of bidding the FO trips (if you know who the LCAs are i.e. Instructors) is you can also get bumped if they need that trip for training new pilots. You purposely bid a trip with them knowing they're going to get a student. So, your two-week trip gets "bought" and you get paid to stay home for the month. If you still want to work that month, you can pick up an extra trip or trips (maybe over the same days you planned to work originally) and double dip (even more, if your extra trip is being paid as draft - 150%). Day One I deadhead on AA in business class to Paris - I leave from my home airport to fly to France without having to commute to my domicile to start the trip and have some extra money left over for a private car to take me to the airport. Arrive Paris, 24 hours off 4-pilot crew Paris to Guangzhou, China (12:01 block hours)- 29 hours off 2-pilot to Osaka, Japan (3:17 block) - 50 hours off 2-pilot to Seoul, Korea (1:51 block) 33 hours off 2-pilot to Guangzhou (4:03 block) 27 hours off 4-pilot to Cologne, Germany (12:54 block) 62 hours off 3-pilot to Memphis (10:15 block) I get in to MEM around 0500, so I'll grab a nap in one of our hub sleep rooms (private, single bed, private showers available) and then use more extra travel money to fly home on AA with a real ticket (they'll upgrade me to first class) and another private car to take me home. Should walk through the door at home around 1400. We do our rest periods on the 3-pilot crew the same as TreeA10. 3 equal periods. With the 4-pilot crews, we do 4 breaks (two each) as he said, but the two breaks may not always be equal. Some guys like one short break and one longer (short, long, long, short). So, a typical 13-hour flight would start with the two RFOs taking a 2 hour break while the flying crew works. Then the flying crews rests for 4-hours, RFOs rest for 4-hours and the flying crew gets another short 2-hours right before top of descent. Longer flights closer to 14-15 hours usually just mean the shorter breaks get longer. Not too many pilots I work with have much luck sleeping longer than 4-hours at one time during the flights. That trip pays 86:21 in credit hours. Actual blocked flight hours 44:21. So, it works out to just over 6.6 pay hours per day on the trip, which at my pay rate is $1513 per day. Really efficient RFO trips can average up 8-9 pay hours per day and as a result tend to go very senior. One other thing - We're allowed to check in to our hotel up to two days early with a deadhead on the front of a trip if we wanted. So, I could take my wife, get her a business class ticket with my frequent flyer miles on my Paris deadhead flight. Leave two days early and we get to Paris two days before my scheduled layover starts (so, really 3-days before I have to work). The day I go to work from Paris, she starts making her way home on another FF mile ticket. Since I have extra travel money (cheaper ticket from my home airport than the one FedEx planned to buy from Memphis), I can also expense the two extra days of hotel against my travel bank. End result is a 3-day mini-Paris vacation that only cost me some frequent flyer miles and the expense of ground transport to get her back to DeGaulle and to my house after her flight home.

More academic bullshit from someone with too much time on their hands, cashing a government grant, pushing the everyone's special narrative and helping absolutely no one in the real world. The fucking stalls don't fit my (imaginary) dragon-kin wings.

What are you drinking tonight Cheddar?

AA started building domestic trips for the 787 and I ended up with one sitting reserve. I forgot how much I hated domestic flying. Jet isn't ready to go, waiting on a ride to the hotel, swapping jets going through a hub while doing the bag drag and enjoying quality airport sit time, and hotels in crappy locations with limited food options. International flying is really a different airline than domestic.

Interesting article. Everyone serving should read Boyd. As to the Be vs Do choice, I think it’s simple. Be a “Do”er and let the chips fall where they may. If your career doesn’t take the trajectory you wanted, well at least you can look at yourself in the mirror. I’ve seen too many people compromise their character using the justification that if they can just move up the ranks they can affect real change. The moment you start down that rabbit hole is the moment your lobotomy begins. Next thing you know you’re pulling people out of scheduled training events to attend your mandatory all call where you stand around in ABUs (even though you’re a rated officer) where you pat yourself on the back repeatedly and insist on spending over an hour handing out awards to everyone on the base except for those who directly accomplish the mission.

I'm baffled why any new hopeful pilots even consider the Air Force after visiting this site.

This month was 2 Hong Kong, 1 Madrid, and 1 London which flew into next month. Hong Kong is 44 hours on the ground while most other layovers are 25-27 hours-ish. My second Hong Kong trip cratered while we were in Hong Kong so I got an extra day and a half in Hong Kong, flew back to LAX instead of DFW and had to deadhead home. While that sucked, the extra hours took me over our max and I got paid to NOT fly to Madrid. Last month was 4 3-day London trips (Flight Standards bought one for training) and I picked up a HNL and took the wife. I bid reserve next month because I have vacation and pay/trip strategery favors reserve. You can put these trips back to back, i.e. get in from LHR on Monday and fly to Narita on Tuesday. Time zone changes and weird hours make for challenges getting rest. Some guys can do that but I'd rather have a day or two to relax. Most brutal is to get in from a deep south trip at 6 am and then fly deep south again departing at 9pm that night. Uh....hell no but, again, some guys do it. Most international flights are 3 day trips. Our deep south flights to Buenos Aires, Santiago, Sao Paulo, Rio, etc. boarder on 4 day trips because you depart late, 8-10pm, and fly 10 hours to arrive just after sunrise. Layover is long since you depart late in the evening on the 2nd day to fly home arriving 5-6am. I fly out of DFW and there are many more options depending on which HUB you fly the trip from. For instance, LHR (London Heathrow) is a 20 hour, 3 man crew out of DFW but is flown as a 15-16 hour, 2 man crew out of JFK. 4 man crews flying Asia out of mean you get two breaks inflight. 3 man crews mean you get one break. How long? Take the time remaining between 15 minutes after takeoff and 35-45 minutes prior to landing and divide that time by 3 or 4 and that is the length of the break.

BLUF: LBGTs are checking you out in the bathroom,.

Leave blank. Just as the instruction states, "Only AFTCOs or Unit Commanders are authorized to enter scores".

Maybe it’s not representative of society at large but I’ve had co-ed bathrooms and showers on multiple deployments and it’s been a complete non-issue.

Sold my bike when moving to San Antonio because the drivers here are garbage. Always wanted a SV.

Once this gets highlighted in the news, people ar going to lose their shit.

It's refreshing to come here and see people simply post information or condolences. No one trying to be an NTSB investigator like they idiots on another forum I go to. The shit they post is downright embarrassing... and disrespectful. They are supposedly "aviators"... and most are pretty well to do...and I would expect they would know better. Thanks for keeping it professional.

Truth data. Granted I’m a fighter dude, but when I raised my hand over a decade ago, we were doing 45 day deployments WITH a swapout at the halfway point. Fast forward to getting back from the B-course 5 years ago and now I walk right into 3 month deployments (TSP bullshit) as standard. Not that it was that big of a change but it was a real fun conversation to have with the fraü after I sold her on the “at most 45 days” pitch before I joined up. Change is a coming.

Yep. It's the 30s and 40s where it gets to be problematic.

Or printing out and laminating cards that have your personal 'axioms' listed on them to pass out to your sq..🙄

Point made... Don't choose a company based on the current labor relations (Pilots, FAs, AMTs, etc). That shit is so cyclical you'll never be able to keep up even when you work for the company. Look back at the overarching theme of this thread.... go with the first company that puts you in class and do your best to avoid a commute.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-47323045 Good video. Thousands of people cheered a flypast honouring 10 airmen who died when their plane crashed in a park 75 years ago. The US bomber came down in Endcliffe Park, Sheffield on 22 February 1944, killing everyone on board. A campaign for a flypast started after a chance meeting between BBC Breakfast presenter Dan Walker and Tony Foulds, who tends a park memorial. A tearful Mr Foulds was given a rousing round of applause as the planes flew over. He said: "This is unbelievable." Relatives of the aircrew and thousands of people from across Britain paid their respects as the planes roared over the memorial at about 08:45 GMT. Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

https://lmgtfy.com/?iie=1&q=undergraduate+pilot+training Has to be a troll or honestly ya ain't gonna make it in pilot training if you have zero idea how to google something. You managed to find this forum so I mean you're not completely illiterate but FFS, search around, learn the basics (you need a 4-year undergraduate degree from an accredited university, you need to get commissioned, you need to apply for an earn a pilot slot, you need to complete UPT, etc.). Most of that info can be found using the good ole' internet using a some simple search terms in google. Good luck and god speed, I think you're gonna need it!

Here's the newest version available: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7rcrstziv2j59ho/AF24_blank.pdf