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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.

I know a former U-2 guy that got 173 credit hours of flying in January... at about $170/hour.

Let women into the guys bathroom following Taco Tuesday at Bagram after three months of protein and rip it’s and I guarantee bathroom segregation will take care of itself.

Just wanted to update everyone, got picked up by my home F-16 unit today. Was the only one to be selected! Just wanted to thank everyone on here for all the tips and tricks throughout the whole process, helped tremendously. Cheers!

Reading Jerimiah Weeds description of a trip reminded me of a comment made during contract negotiations by a former (before my time) American Airline's CEO, Robert Crandall, "There's no money in cargo."

I called them last week and they said that they would call/email those who got selected. It has been a week and a half since Feb. 15. I'm pretty certain they already made the call to those who got selected, especially that their interview is in 5 days.

Try disabling protected mode in Preview (if that's an option) - that error is most frequent in Adobe when opening a form from the internet in protected mode.

I didn't try that specific form and, granted, my Mac is approaching a decade old, so it's very likely it could from it being ancient in computer terms. But, I run into a lot of issues with it giving me this below when I go to open AF Forms (emailed and from e-pubs). This is actually what showed up in an email from my unit today. Some of the forms loaded; some gave me this. It'll open if I specifically select it and tell it to open with Adobe, but it won't open with Preview. If @Curtiss JN-4 is using an older MacBook, he or she could be having the same issue.

It’ll open in preview.

If you're using a Mac, you need to download some sort of Adobe PDF viewer and use it to be able to open any of the e-publishing stuff.

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.

I would ask for the reg. Never heard of that. In fact my unit started working on my Maj package prior to even gaining me.

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!

Not sure that it’s any different if you’re non prior service, but what I did as a current guard bum was look up what colleges in my area had a ROTC program to schedule my TBAS and I would call the base training office and skip the recruiter for AFOQT. Just cut out the middle man for those two steps at least in my opinion. Definitely utilize the recruiter still but I think you can just do those two steps on your own. But again, don’t know how it works for non-priors. I’d assume you could knock out the AFOQT at a college as well. Best of luck! Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

My opinion - Don't go enlisted when you're college complete / near to it. You know what you want and time is currently on your side. Enlisting for MAYBE a minimal increase in hiring preference is not worth the couple years you just set yourself back. It makes more sense for someone heading to college/early in college who also wants help paying for school. I think most units will hire off the street for the right guy...some put more weight on in-house interviewees, but it's not a guarantee they'll be hired or an off-the-street guy won't be hired. Apply everywhere, regardless of what rumors you've heard about off the street hiring, etc. For Stearman's question - if you're young and dead set on chasing fighters, then skip applying to heavies for now. When you're starting to get closer to the age limit, throw heavies into the app mix. If you apply for both right now and just want to go to UPT ASAP, then I'd take the first job offer and don't look back. I wouldn't apply yet to heavies if you already know in your heart you're going to ditch their job offer in favor of a FS offering a similarly timed job. Technique only.

Anyone know how this looks to apply everywhere if you specifically want fighters? Could it come back to haunt you if you are offered a heavy UPT slot and turn it down in hopes to get a fighter slot? Just something to consider...

I don’t know what the policy is with astigmatisms, but if you get PRK, it is a year before you are eligible. So if you need it, do it ASAP. But, ignoring the astigmatism, your vision doesn’t have to be 20/20. It just has to be correctable to 20/20 and can’t be worse than 20/70, I think. I’m applying for units now too, I’d say don’t limit yourself to one fighter squadron, apply for all of them! You’re young enough to be a little picky, but I would still apply everywhere that interest you. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Well, I wish I could have told you to enlist a few years ago. It would've paid for a good chunk of school and it would have taught you quite a bit, but there's a reason the ANG is "the best kept secret in the military". Not everyone knows it exists and fewer know how cool it is. That's all in the past, there's no way to go back now. I'm with you on this. Enlisting *now* while you're pushing for a commission is not worth your time. Some bases are backed up quite a bit on training -- my base has dozens of folks waiting for training dates and some have been waiting for over a year. It's insane. What I suggest is sticking to what you're doing now but finding *every* opportunity to show your face to the ANG unit, whether on or off-base. ANG units host or participate in all sorts of volunteer events, stuff like 5Ks, etc... and if you can figure out where the pilots are going to be, you can show your face at these events. An important note if you choose to do this: you're pretending to be "pretty much part of the Wing" not "pretty much part of the Fighter Squadron". If you're familiar with what Student Flight is on an ANG base, you're pretty much pretending to be one of them. Also see if you can't get your medical stuff out of the way ASAP. First class medical, who cares. The military is super crazy about weird medical tidbits. I knew a guy who had an inhaler prescribed to him as a kid. The inhaler did not help the symptoms he was feeling, so he stopped using it, and he grew out of it after about a year. It took almost an entire year to convince the medical folks that he's in tip-top shape and the inhaler had no impact on him.