JeremiahWeed

Everyone has an opinion, so here's a differing one. It can be a good system but your statements are way too general. There's much more that goes into being able to say "PBS is great". Someone just breaking into the airline biz needs to understand that. Knowing what I know now, if I had a choice of two identical airlines - one PBS and one line bidding, I'd steer away from PBS every time. Ask any UAL pilot what their first iteration of PBS was like and I doubt you'll find any who were junior who say it was "great". The top half of the list bid for what they wanted which typically involved a balance of days off and work. This resulted in an abundance of flying left to assign by the time they got to the bottom half of the pilots. So, junior pilots were maxed out every month flying 90 hours of hard time. To make matter worse, since most flying was assigned, there was very little open time so trip trading was close to impossible. I imagine it's gotten better there, but that's completely up to the negotiating power of the pilot group. The bottom line is anyone working under PBS doesn't have a choice, so the only option is to make it as good as possible. That falls on smart pilots negotiating the rules, a good software program to follow those rules and the ability to continually update and improve when appropriate. If you have those, then as you said, it can be great. However, PBS will be manpower negative by virtue of the efficiency it brings. Less pilots at an airline is rarely a good thing. That efficiency will typically result in less open time and reduce the ability for people to massage their schedules. In the unicorn, ice cream and blowjob world, no one under PBS would need to massage their schedules because everyone gets what they want. The reality is, that everyone gets what their seniority can hold - far more strictly than under a line bidding system. My situation is a perfect example. Under PBS, I get what my 40% seniority can hold - period dot. Under line bidding, I can go that route if I want to put minimal effort into my schedule. However, I also have the option to bid conflicts or a secondary line and use the necessary follow on bidding process used to fill uncovered trips to effectively increase my seniority and access trips I couldn't get under PBS. Senior pilots get what they want under either system, so their opinions on which one they prefer matter far less. Ask the real junior guys what they like. Some know nothing different, so they may not have an answer. The bottom line is, with line bidding, there are more options available for the junior pilots to create a schedule that suits them than simply relying on what their seniority can hold via PBS. Trip design and typical schedules at FedEx aren't the same as the pax world, so that may be another reason why it wouldn't work very well here. When it comes to vacation, there's no way that a PBS system can generate the same results as the one at FedEx using line bidding. PBS would decimate our vacation system. I can take the 4 weeks of vacation per year I have now, put them in 4 different months and take all 4 of those months off with full pay. Do that with PBS. No pilot at FedEx who truly understands all the implications would ever vote for a PBS system. That's not out of ignorance or not bothering to learn the system. The only way it would come to be there is the same way it came to be at many of the airlines that use it now. It was forced on them during bankruptcy negotiations. If pax guys have been able to take those lemons and make lemonade, good for them. I'm happy PBS is working for them. I effectively use a version of it when I bid for my secondary lines since the process is similar. Take a pot of uncovered trips, put in for specific trips or general "here's what I want and/or when I want to work" and you get what you can hold. Everyone doing that at FedEx would completely suck.

Agreed. The fact that we have a secondary process means we don't have PBS which is worth far more to most of our pilots than some having to get their schedules late. FedEx doesn't use a strict calendar month - rather, 28 and 35 day cycles (Monday to Monday) that may result in the month in question containing a few days of an adjacent month or months. This December is a 5-week month and goes from 26 Nov to 30 Dec. So, it's not possible to say we get our schedules on the "15th of each month" or any other specific date. Lineholders, including reserve lines, (about 80% of pilots in any particular seat) get their schedules 19 days before the start of the month, so I guess that would be the pax equivalent of getting them on the 11th or 12th of the month. The "cats and dogs" process that occurs due to conflicts are resolved over the next week with the last of those notifications happening 13 days out. The final one is the secondaries which I already mentioned. Obviously some people's lifestyles require early information about their schedules, like our OP. They would most likely avoid our secondary lines if they have the option. I'm in the top 40% of my seat and I still bid secondary lines routinely. I can live with the late notification because I get a huge bump in seniority in exchange. I'm usually in the top 5 of secondary lines which gives me a very good shot at getting what I want, when I want it and much higher quality trips than if I simply bid a line. I guess maybe that's why I'm okay with the late notification. Knowing I'll get what I want probably makes not knowing exactly what that is a bit easier to handle than someone at the middle or back of the secondary pack rolling the dice and have zero clue until 5 days prior. Which was the whole point of my caution to the OP - not scheduling 101 for FedEx, but I took the time to type it now, so here it is.

If this will be a show-stopper for you, then I'd steer clear of FedEx. There's been a pretty significant shift in the makeup of our schedules. The junior-most pilots now typically get secondary lines instead of reserve lines. Secondary lines now comprise around 20% or more of the total schedules available. The very junior secondaries will still have reserve, so they're not avoiding it - they just get it another way. But the main thing is that secondary line schedules aren't published until 5 days before the month starts. Wednesday night you get your schedule and you could be leaving that coming Monday for your first trip (maybe Sunday if you commute and need to leave early).

I wasn’t referring to the mishap. Below the video you posted you said it was a non-AB takeoff. I was saying the burners looked like they were going when it went by the camera. So, I was asking if you normally take off in mil and then select AB once clean.

I think you make a pretty valid point. Sure does look like those burners are cooking by the time he goes by the camera. Are you saying he went full grunt after gear up?

Kenny - I thinks it's understandable that someone from a multi-role, multi-ordnance fighter would scoff as you are. However, don't discount the impact of MDS culture, especially with a single mission, single load-out (more or less) fighter. An air-to-air fighter doesn't have the myriad of ordnance and potential takeoff variables that say, an F-16 has. On most take offs, the TOLD data is a square filler. Sea level bases and an overconfidence in a/c and engine capes could easily create an environment where things like density altitude is not in the cross-check. I'm not saying it's right, but I can understand how they got there. For the the first two decades of the F-15's existence, pilots didn't even compute TOLD. Every takeoff you rotated at 120 knots. Full aft stick to get the nose moving and adjust after that. Mil, Burner, missiles, training load, clean, 1, 2, 3, bags... didn't matter. Or did it? I'm sure if someone took the time to compute rotation and takeoff speed, they would have varied somewhat in all the different scenarios. Takeoff speed? WTF is that anyway?😜 It started in FTU with the aborted takeoff discussion. The guidance for some "issue" on takeoff went, that if you're at or past 120 with the stick moving back to rotate, then you're going. If you're not there yet, then you abort. Of course, there was always the caveat that if it was a "no shitter" (whatever that is was up to you) you could abort above that knowing you had the hook. That was for mil power on an 8K runway. Anything longer just gave you room to work with, but didn't change the decision process. How's that for TOLD? Even after we started putting TOLD numbers on our line-up cards, not much changed. I also wouldn't discount the effect the FTU training environment may be introducing to this cultural problem. If you actually read the report and look at the data, it's pretty clear that there's a huge trend throughout the F-22 community to rotate early, even in FTU. That makes it pretty clear this stuff is being taught early on. Another thing to consider - There's probably a bunch of ex-Eagle guys wearing coats and ties and teaching sims and academics who may be throwing out some questionable techniques and info from "back in their day" that's being gobbled up and retained by "Stanley" the newbie Raptor dude. I think back to more than a few bogus techniques I had to unlearn thanks to some retired F-4 guy, now sim instructor, throwing out something he thought worked great. Some bigger stuff but mostly little things. I ended up with an audio only version of my HUD tape during what anyone would argue was the highlight of my career thanks to one of those sim instructors teaching me how to set up my cockpit for start. But, I digress. It's pretty clear from the report that this is much more than one guy not reading his line-up card and being a dumbass. That's not to say your points about not checking safely airborne, etc. aren't valid. As others have mentioned, we're not talking about a huge amount of time from brake release to gear up and I'm sure muscle memory and expected timing took priority over a more accurate check. At least the result was a shiny a/c underside, some personal shame and hopefully a better approach to takeoff ops and not another nickle in the grass.

Dude... really? It's been 4 days. 🙄

Other than books by some of these operators, I have no clue about the reality of their missions. But, as professional war fighters there are rules to follow. Some "barbarian sh!t" is legal and some isn't. Hell, the guy accused of killing the prisoner with a knife may have legally killed one of the POW's buddies the week before on a mission. I'm sure some of those guys have a tougher time than others staying on the correct side of that line every time the opportunity presents itself. This isn't a new problem - there's just a sh!tload more ways for this stuff to come out into the open now. If anyone thinks WW2 didn't have plenty of these types of events, they're kidding themselves. There just wasn't some dumbass filming the sh!t with his iphone. War is brutal and asking trained killers to turn off the brutality necessary to wage it properly and do what's necessary to win at the drop of a hat is only going to be expected by politicians and bleeding hearts who've never done it. We ask a lot of these individuals and I'm sympathetic to a point. However, if all these charges are proven, killing a prisoner in cold blood or a fellow soldier to cover a crime is wayyyy over the line.

🤔 When did officers (pilots, to be more accurate) started wearing ribbons on their blues?

🤔 I don’t think you saw what you think you saw. It looks to me that in both situations the lag bolt was already screwed into the furring strip but hadn’t hit something solid within the roof structure. They were just backing them out to reposition them and try again in a slightly different location.

Completely inaccurate article. We signed this contract 3 years ago in fall of 2015. These were basic provisions in that contract and have nothing to do with the holiday season or any other industry dynamics. There are two "bonus" payments that really have nothing to do with "keeping pilots from retiring". One is the $40K if a pilot gives 1 year advance notice of his retirement. If he has 23 years of service or more, it doesn't matter if he goes this year, next year or anytime after that - same $40K. As long as he gives 12 months notice. So, not much going on there to "keep pilots from retiring". The other ($110,000 bonus) was a genius move by the company. Again, nothing to do with keeping pilots around longer. It was all about incentivizing maximum work and min sick leave usage over the last 2 years a pilot works here. Prior to this contract, pilot approaching retirement would make judicious use of their sick leave over the last couple of years which typically involved draining their maxed out sink leave bank (about 9-10 months worth of pay). With 6 weeks of vacation on top of that, they could usually take 6-7 months off each year with full pay during their last two years. Of course, they can still do this. But, they do so knowing they are turning their nose up at what could amount to another $110K on top of the rest of their pay. Not everyone values their time off that much. However, there are some strings attached - if they want the full $110K bonus, they need to work a full schedule for their last 48 months (i.e. earn at least $740,000 over that same 48 month period - which is pretty busy). None of that income can be from sick leave and their sick bank must essentially be full when they retire. If either of those two criteria are not met, the bonus is reduced accordingly. Again - both of these bonuses really have nothing to do with keeping pilots from retiring. Most guys are staying until the bitter end now anyway. But, if a guy has been here 25 years, he can get both of these bonuses in their entirety if he chooses to retire at age 60. Or, he can stick around another year or two, three, four or five. No change to the bonus - no real incentive to stay longer other than the pay he will receive for working those extra years. Just another poorly researched and written article.

Did you know that Colin Kaepernick is taking a knee during the National Anthem?

If you take one thing away from this post, make it this. Each airline may (and probably will) have different definitions of PIC time as well as how they make adjustments for military logged times. Based on my experience, there are two major parts to the mil to airline flight time puzzle. The first is what you're alluding to - making our T/O to landing times compatible with the civilian dudes applying for the same job. So, some airlines allow a conversion factor per sortie while others may allow a percentage of total time. But that's an airline specific option and not something put forth by the FAA as a method for all military pilots to "civilianize" their times in the same way. My point here is, there is no way for you to take your military times and "convert" them to civilian times once. You're going to have to figure out what kind of adjustment each airline allows (if any) and make your times specific to that airline. The other part of this is what each airline considers PIC time. They don't necessarily comply with the FAR definition of PIC. So, once again, you're going to have to scrub your sorties and make adjustments to match what Airline X had decided they want to call PIC time which may not be the same as Airline Y. One airline I applied to would only accept PIC time post UPT graduation (i.e wings on chest) when I was the one signing for the aircraft and ultimately responsible for it. That eliminated all student solo UPT time and any dual F-15B/D time during RTU, MQT, etc with an IP on board. These days, the most common criterion is PIC = you signing for the aircraft. Some may argue that dual rides in a fighter where you're flying with an IP in your trunk could count as PIC using this rule. I would counter that the IP is the one ultimately responsible for the aircraft even if you're the one who decides to sign the forms. It never hurts to be conservative and a few hours one way or the other aren't going to matter unless you get called out on them during an interview by someone who decides to nit-pick. The heavy guys run into lots more issue when it comes to figuring out what meets an particular airline's definition of PIC. I can't even begin to offer advice there. The bottom line is, scrub your mil times and make sure they're as accurate as possible. Get a sortie count so if they allow a per sortie conversion, you can easily apply that. Figure out what meets each individual airline's definition of PIC time. Put an airline specific cover sheet inside your AF flight records for each interview that provides specifics on your math and how your determined your totals. Don't waste a bunch of time trying to write them into a logbook. If you want to use a logbook program or spreadsheet to help with the math, that's your option but it's really not necessary. Airlines don't care if you have your military time in a logbook. Frankly, manual, written logbooks have gotten mil guys into trouble on occasion. One that a guy's been keeping since UPT with accuracy issues or notes about a particular sortie that raise eyebrows can create unnecessary discussion topics in the interview. I know of one guy who decided it was important to advertise his logbook as one he had been keeping since he began in the military (even though that wasn't actually the case). When questioned about that, he stuck to his guns and swore had had been keeping the logbook since he started UPT. The problem was that all logbooks have a copyright date in the front. His first sortie in UPT, dutifully logged in said book, occurred about 10 years before the printed copyright date. So, they showed him the door about 10 minutes into his interview. Keep it simple. There are enough challenges and pitfalls to the transition, so don't make it harder than it has to be.

The only thing I find somewhat remarkable is that he actually wasn't already in idle when he crossed the numbers. That's one "draggy" fighter. Also, WTF is with the wet noodle pitot tube once he has WOW?

I'd say it's pretty obvious you chose poorly. WTF did you even go to UPT for? Show me the information you used to come to the conclusion that you wouldn't be expected to work long hours, live somewhere you may not have chosen to live or control every aspect of your life? Holy shit dude! Do you think civilians in professional fields don't work long hours or get relocated? Military families sacrifice. That's not new information. How about your spouse worry less about her professional career and more about raising your kids. One less group of latchkey kids in daycare which ends up costing just as much as the working spouse is making - net pay zero. T-38 vs C-5 vs 11F...... ever hear of a phrase that goes... "The needs of the AF"? You think you're the first guy to get put into a MWS that wasn't his first choice? You think you'd be seeing your kid more flying a C-5 around the planet? If you're spending most of your time in a fighter worrying about that laundry list you have there, you need to ground yourself. You clearly lack the confidence in your abilities to do that job effectively. Getting violated...🙄 GMAFB. Going to war/participating in contingency ops has been part of life in the USAF since 1990. Once again, it appears you chose poorly. Having regard for "life outside the military" is for when you're no longer in the military. Welcome to reality - either change your goals to match it or look into changing your AFSC before you do kill yourself or someone else. Guard or reserves isn't the solution to your problem.

Nobody probably cares since by the time their attitude matters and they can actually do something about it (i.e. get out) they’re the senior Captain or new Major you mentioned.

"No issues for them" but how about those who hope to follow them. I'd think a little bit about dropping that grenade at the bottom of the ladder and pulling it up behind you just to avoid being junior. If you get activated, that's different. If you go into it planning to walk away after day one of indoc or after probation is over, you stand to hose a lot of buds who may be trying to follow your path. Maybe you'll be a number lost in the current hiring wave at some of the biggies - maybe not. It's been a clear trend over the last few years at FedEx (maybe other airlines - can't say for certain) that their enthusiasm for hiring current guard/reserve pilots has diminished significantly. USERRA protects current employees - it doesn't guarantee someone will get hired if a particular airline has had enough of their current pilots dropping 5 years of orders. Not too difficult to find a reason not to hire someone without admitting it might be to avoid hiring an empty uniform for the next 5 years. Just food for thought.

Looks like my stats a million years ago. Except change the P98 to P53...... no engineering experience, just the degree, no PPL and no LORs. 😁 That was a lucky pilot slot in ROTC - so, not really the same situation. Seriously, your stats look like you'd be a solid candidate to be hired by an ANG fighter unit. Predicting success in training and actually becoming a fighter pilot is pretty difficult, so there's not much more to say on the info you posted. In the current environment, if you're willing to cast a wide net and you interview well, I would say you have a good shot at getting your foot in the door.

Looks like punctuation isn’t that writer’s strongest asset. I believe it should read: ”..........aircraft whose sensors, pilots say, give them the most.........”

I was going to vote for “Cougar”. A little thick through the middle, but still reasonably sexy and I’d still do......I mean fly it.

Lawman, To begin, it’s not like we have lots of data points on such events. The variables involved probably make such an event so unique that assuming there is one good option to resolve it is not valid. There may be nothing that can be done in some cases to significantly improve the outcome. At least one other person has mentioned this, but it appears to be worth repeating. When aerospace vehicles get shot down, they don’t turn into harmless confetti and flutter to the ground. Since there were so many potential victims in close proximity to the flight path of this aircraft, there’s absolutely no guarantee that a shoot—down attempt wouldn’t have made things worse. Removing any chance of the aircraft remaining under the control of this individual who indicated he had no desire to hurt others by shooting it with air-to-air weapons certainly wouldn’t ensure it crashed somewhere desireable. Missiles don’t always hit what we shoot them at either. Setting up a shot geometry that ensured a wayward missile wouldn’t hurt someone on the ground may have been difficult, if not impossible. A mach 2+ unguided missile with a live warhead schwacking someone’s house or dropping into one of the venues you mentioned wouldn’t be any better than the possible outcomes you’re concerned about. Opting to gun him might have reduced the radius of potential problems from the inevitable rounds that didn’t find their mark - but they’re still going to fly for several miles once shot. Based on your description of the area, it doesn’t sound like raining several hundred rounds of 20 mm HEI over the surrounding area would have been a good option either. It’s also a bitch to gun an airborne target that’s flying relatively straight and level at low speed. “Safe” shot geometry with the gun would have probably been even more difficult to set up and execute without risk to those on the ground than a missile. There’s a reason we test and practice with missiles and guns at White Sands or in large, over-water Warning Areas. This is not an ROE problem. Making the choice to shoot him down over a population center is almost always going to be the lesser of two evils. Both options carry enough risk that it’s probably a coin toss. Once he lines up on a target with intent, the shot may diminish the result but definitely doesn’t guarantee no loss of life or property. Think about the second 9/11 airliner hitting the tower and what was in its path leading up to impact. If an F-15 was there to pump a couple of missiles into him and halt that attack a few miles short of downtown Manhattan, that obviously would have been great. But, the crash site was going to be a mess, with plenty of casualties and damage. A lesser “evil” for certain, but still an evil that wasn’t warranted in the Seattle case because the same threat wasn’t indicated to those observing and speaking with the individual involved.

Ringgggggggggg "Hello.....this is General Popoff........What?!!....An SU-24 has crashed?.....The crew is dead?...... This is terrible!" "I'll begin the investigation process......ah....just terrible.....we can't afford to lose such an asset." "Wait....what do you mean......4 MORE SU-24??????" "WTF?.......AND 6 SU-27?.........and two fuel trucks??????"

This appears to be a fairly "mil-centric" discussion. So, as someone who has only flown crew aircraft on the civilian side, I'm finding what seems to be a PF talking on the radio preference a surprise. Maybe there's some mil specific situations that are driving this we airline guys don't deal with. But, just flying A to B? If we threw an equal number of airline guys into this thread, you'd be hard pressed to find any of them who would want the PF talking during normal ops. So, I'll just throw this out for the sake of discussion and another viewpoint. I'd vote PF does not talk on the radio. If the PM (that's "pilot monitoring" - i.e. PNF in airline speak) isn't talking on the radio, what's he doing? I think it does help him stay engaged and also tends to force some dialogue on items like wx deviations, climb/descent requests or any other changes to the status quo. A PF who also has the radios is probably more likely to make a unilateral decision and request a course of action with ATC while not conferring with his PM which is going to degrade CRM. As the PF, asking the other guy to request a descent or some other routine request is really not that inconvenient. A non-normal or emergency situation, is about the only time you'll see airline guys having one pilot do the flying and talking. It's very common in the airline world to give the radios and the aircraft to the FO while the Captain does some battle management, runs checklists, confers and gathers info from various sources and evaluates options. He then presents the options to the FO for his input, makes a decision and depending on the circumstances, maybe take the a/c for landing or continue to monitor while taking the radios back from the FO.

Many people discuss single pilot ops as a precursor to autonomous ops. What they fail to acknowledge is that single pilot ops (in 121 cargo or pax birds) is really autonomous ops. This is because, if we ever get to the point where we are launching a single pilot Boeing or Airbus transport category aircraft on revenue service flights, there's going to be some way to cope with the possibility that the only pilot becomes incapacitated. Therefore, single pilot ops isn't going to happen until we're really at the point of autonomous operations. That's not going to happen until we no longer use a spoken VHF radio link with ATC for starters. This is all about the money and less about whether we have the technological capability to field an autonomous freighter. Of course, the technology exists today. But the reality of using it in our current environment and infrastructure along with the cost of aircraft mods and the fact that they would still have to pay operators on the ground is the biggest factor. The modifications on any existing freighter to go to single pilot with an autonomous contingency option are obviously extensive and expensive. FedEx just committed to an additional 12 777s to add to the 35+ they already operate and has firm orders on almost 70 more 767s on top of the 55 brand new ones they've bought in the past few years. A single 777 flight from Asia to the US generates millions of dollars in revenue every time we takeoff. The pilots flying that freight represent a fraction of one percent of the overall cost in generating those millions. I doubt the modifications required to support autonomous ops with these newly acquired aircraft as well as necessary changes to the existing public and private infrastructure at the worldwide airports we operate in and out of would produce a cost savings over the life of the jets. IMO, anyone currently old enough to fly for a living and post here with concerns about a 30+ year airline career is very safe. As far as going down to 3 or 2 pilots for long haul: What's the justification? The aircraft haven't changed. There really isn't a way to increase the automation from where it already is and justify reducing crew requirements as a result. The human body hasn't changed. Our ability to combat fatigue and the cumulative effects of the sleep debt we accrue on a 1 to 2-week trip is still the same. The work load might be low during oceanic cruise periods, but at any point a system failure might change that rapidly. The busy terminal area is still busy at the other end of the 13+ hour flight - less pilots in either situation means more work enroute, shorter breaks and more potential for fatigue. I'm about to go to bed and hopefully sleep for about 6 hours before my alert call. When I wake up, I'm going to make my third Pacific crossing between Japan and the US in less than a week. No one's going to be able to convince me fewer pilots would have been warranted on any of those flights. Good night. 😴