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I'm not getting in some dumb semantic argument about what's the worst thing the US has ever done. The bottom line here is that delusional political extremists were actively encouraged by lies from the sitting president and stormed the capitol. And that is a very bad thing. I don't know where it places on the ultimate scale of national shame but it's the worst thing I've seen since I've been paying attention to politics. Almost as concerning is the sheer number of non-extremist republicans who continued on the trump bandwagon as he devolved into increasingly desperate political lies and tantrums. It shows how few Americans have actual principles and how many want to just pick a team and root for that team at all costs.

Holy shit, am I really getting that fucking old? Marilyn Manson? Never heard of her... This was the concert shirt that caused my Mom to think I was heading for hell back in 1979...

Reference the 11R community being left off of the bonus list this year. I wonder how long it will take HAF to fix that glitch for this year? Or maybe next year they will sneakily add them back on.

United announced today they are starting to hire immediately. Once all the majors start the train the USAF is going to see the pain that they are causing themselves. I just hope I bail before any type of stop loss is implemented.

This is a big deal. Getting your medical done first is huge for both you and the ANG/AFRES unit you are applying to if you can get it. Heavies generally hire older people as opposed to fighter squadrons, that's why you can wait it out a bit if you wanted to.

In a country of 300 million people there are enough things that happen every day you can craft whatever narrative you want with selective attention. If you want to pretend white cops killing black people is a super common problem you can find examples of that. If you want to pretend teenage girl tazer carjackings are a big problem you'll find instances of that too. If you want to make the case for widespread cultural rot, I'm sure at any given moment dozens of rappers are doing ill advised publicity stunts.. including but not limited to devil shoes. The point is that none of these things are evidence of any type of national trend, and in a country this big, the only thing that should matter to you on the right or left side of the aisle is large scale data. Unfortunately, humans are stupid, emotional creatures so we get moral panic on both sides based on a wide variety of fringe nonsense.

Worth noting that if you are happy with heavies, you have plenty of time still to get picked up by a guard unit. The airlines are gonna heat up quick and you'll see people start chasing the money again. But like you said you can spend a lot of time chasing units and job postings that never materialize. If you are single, no kids, want to see the world, just pull the trigger on AD while you are young, I wish I had done it. You'll also get a medical done first, rather than spend 5-10k rushing units across the country to finally get hired and than get booted for some med issue you did not know you had.

Hey man, I would totally apply everywhere you can including active duty. I will say the guard/reserve side is going to be very very tough without a PPL yet/low flight hours. You've got a ton of highly experienced pilots who have been furloughed from airlines competing for these slots in the guard/reserve right now. I'm not saying experience is everything, but especially on the heavy side, with the Civilian Path to Wings program, they are targeting dudes who have their IR, commercial and over 250 hours. What makes it even more difficult is the fact that units are allocated less slots than usual this year because of the training pipeline backup. The nice thing is that until you sign papers that commit to doing one or the other, you can pursue both avenues. Even going to OTS could take awhile, and in the meantime you can apply on the guard/reserve side...if you get picked up, awesome! Get that PPL and keep improving your resume, it can't hurt. Hope this helps...

Can’t wait for the Air Force to fall flat on its face. Again.

Agreed with O-Face. Before, I know some suggestions said to not waste time enlisting with the unit. But even before the pandemic, guys that are “familiar faces” and have trusted work ethic and attitudes ALWAYS have the upper advantage over some dude from the street. During interviews they are able to provide examples related to a deployment or TDY experience, know the environment of the unit, etc. I can not stress how much enlisting makes a difference. If you are young (18-23) I highly recommend joining your local air guard unit while taking advantage of the free college benefits.

I can remember when my mom thought I was going to hell for listening to Marilyn Manson in high school. Glad we're over the "satanic panic" as a society...🙄

As a longtime Guard pilot who has run many of our pilot boards over the years, I can assure you that, yes, applications are through the roof. I can also say it is heavily due to the lack of civilian options as a result of COVID. As far as Maverick and a YouTube channel are concerned I cannot say, but personally I haven’t heard of this being any of our applicants inspiration. The bottom line is that it is more competitive now than ever and if you really want an advantage - Enlist in the unit. Granted it’s no guarantee, but it’s the closest thing you’re going to get to one. All our hires in recent history have been enlisted in the unit - and it makes perfect sense, we know them, we’ve deployed with them, if we like them, we make them pilots. Again it’s not foolproof, or the only avenue, you could spend the next 3 years shotgunning apps, trying to attend a meet-and-greet, paying for flight time, and get noticed. Or you could enlist, prove your dedication to the unit, talk to the pilots on a monthly basis (at least) and most units guarantee unit members an interview.

Most of us aren't "triggered", booze. Just disappointed and disgusted... and a bit saddened too... with much of this sort of thing. If you find it powerful and cool and relevant, so be it. I guess you're "triggered" in a happy way.

The real victim in all of this is the poor shlub who has to translate all of this into sign language!

Well, to be fair, he said “my lifetime”.

I have been dropping my schedule to zero (I'm LGA based) for about 2 years now. I've been here for three. Like all airlines, the more time you are willing to invest into learning the system and the contract, the better able you are to make it work for you. I can't even count how many guys I've explained my system to, guys who claim they want to be able to drop more of their schedule, and after walking them through it they tell me it sounds like too much work. And it's true, it's certainly more work than just filling out your preferences for the month, and getting a schedule to fly. But as I said, on an okay month I fly 50 hours and get paid for 90. To do that I spend about 20 minutes on my monthly bid, and about 15 minutes a day from the 18th to the 28th working the trading systems to dump my schedule. Then let's say 10 minutes a day during the month keeping an eye out for trips to fit. I'm no mathematician, but I think I'm still ahead doing that. There's a joke here, American Airlines pilots only hate two things. The wAAy things have always been, and change. The airline is never going to make it easy for guys to have an empty schedule. In their mind that's exactly what reserve is for, and the trade-off is that you don't get to pick what you fly. Ultimately I'm glad that more people aren't willing to take the time to learn to do what I do. Most of them are much more senior than me if they were all running the same hustle, I wouldn't be able to. There's no right or wrong answer on commuting, but it is a simple discussion. You don't get to do any of the things I'm talking about as a commuter. The best you can hope for is to drop your schedule to zero at your assigned base, and pick up regular trips at the base you live closer to. That's an improvement, but it's still a grind. Often it seems like the conversation comes down to a military spouse wanting to live by his or her family after a decade or two of following the member around the world. I try to explain that they're making a choice between who they're going to see more, their family or their spouse. I guess if you're only going to do it for 11 or so years before you have to retire maybe the numbers balance out. It's often hard to convey to someone just how different the job is between commuting and not commuting. It's way more than just driving to work. It's more nights at home. Less stress. Exponentially more opportunities for easy money. Flexibility for how you balance work and family life. I was always able to conceptually understand that before I was a commuter, but after even just a year of finishing a trip and immediately transitioning into "how the hell am I going to get home" mode, hoping someone else didn't have the jump seat, hoping that a passenger wouldn't show up, watching my commuter flights get canceled due to weather, it wears on you. But anyways, yes it's possible, and no it's not a pandemic thing.

Counterpoint, there are *lots* of hustles depending on how much you are willing to learn. I dump my whole schedule before the month starts. Zero hours, zero pay. I then pick up day-of or next day trips as they come up due to sick calls, weather diverts, maintenance, etc. There are all sorts of trips that come up like this, but unlike regularly scheduled trips, these can be *very* inefficient for the company. As an example, I just grabbed a trip leaving tomorrow after dinner. One leg to Tulsa (1:07 hours, includes taxi), overnight, one leg back to DFW (1:25). That's 2:32 hours of on-the-clock time, but 10:30 hours of pay due to our minimum-pay-per-day provisions. 18 hours from the time I get to the airport to the time I'm back in my car driving home. That's all I fly (mostly). One out, overnight, one back, legs of 2:15 or less. So when I get paid for 90 hours of work per month, I only worked 30-50 of those hours. Now, you gotta live at the mega base to pull that extreme off, but my point is, you have options. And the biggest point, repeated over and over and over here, is that living in base *vastly* improves those options. On my third year at AA, during a pandemic, I made (not perfect math): $179k pay + $23k 401k = $202k That's for 300 hours of actual flying on a *non-reserve* schedule, meaning I only fly the days I want and the trips I want. Away from home ~8-9 nights a month, no holidays, no Friday/Saturday night trips (unless the wife wants to come along). The more you put into it, the more you get.

It couldn't possibly be that people of color have a higher incidence of COVID in the state and that this is a way to reduce the numbers much like other populations... COVID-19 among BIPOC (healthvermont.gov)