Hacker

Which media source aside from the military aviation fanboy sites even cares?

Copy of it on a filesharing site: https://k2s.cc/file/c173df3841b24/Golden_Breath Mint For My Balls.mp4

As someone who had this happen to me personally, I approve of this message.

Trust me, good folks who have careers maimed by stupid Big Blue tricks will be just fine when it comes time to go to the airlines.

Must something good, naturally. Here, she says, "the story that I *can* share about the callsign....", so she's clearly repeating a family-friendly cover story rather than what it really means. Meet Capt. Zoe "Sis" Kotnik - F-16 Viper Demo Team Pilot-Commander

I would hope that Maestro, having been on the receiving end of a bullshit punishment from leaders who had their sense of humor removed when they made O-6, would approach such a high-profile firing (for whatever the reason) with a sense of sanity rather than the kneejerky bullshit we have seen all too frequently out of leadership. But, I also unfortunately know more than one bro who totally lost their sense of SA when they put those birds on their uniform.

I have a copy of it, and I got a nastygram from Maestro back a long time ago when I posted it. This is truly a funny Gordian Knot of USAF PC culture.

No, you didn't misunderstand. What you did do, however, is talk around my point rather than to it. Yes, there is a contractual limit to how much open time can be picked up per month (which is what I was referring to originally), and that is 6 hours per month. Yes, there is also a "but", and that is if you have makeup bank that you can use, in which case you can pick up as much open time as you have makeup bank to spend. And, yes, there are ways to play the system (like swapping the new 6 hour trip for something larger), but these still do not equate to "there is no limit". It is an important distinction to make, because not everyone is in a position to put hours into their makeup bank, especially as a new guy who doesn't have the seniority to conflict bid or as someone who doesn't have an ANG/reserve gig to take military leave for.

Yes, exactly what I was saying.

I'll counter and say that commuting is a manageable hassle that allows you to live wherever makes the family happy, rather than forcing a square peg into a round hole. For most of us, we are only going to spend about 50% of our nights sleeping in our own bed. Our spouses and kids sleep in those beds, in that house, in that town, basically 100% of the time. For my family, who followed me all over the world for 20 years in my AF career, it was time to let them decide where it would make them happy to live. All this with the full knowledge of what time is lost commuting...and that was an acceptable tradeoff for my family. Personally, I look at the ability to commute as a gift rather than a hassle.

That's all great, but don't hang your career on a particular base. Bases open, close, and change fleets regularly. Yes, if we're talking about SWA/AA and Dallas, or Delta and Atlanta, or United and ORD, you're probably okay...but just about anything else is fair game, especially over a 20+ year career. I jumpseat often between MEM and ATL with Delta pilots who thought that Memphis was going to be a major NWA/Delta hub forever. I grew up in Seattle around a bunch of United pilots who thought that was going to be their base for the rest of their career, too.

Yes, I was drawing O-5 retirement pay, which was in the neighborhood of $30K per year. Add that to the $16,800 I made my first year at the regionals and I was still undershooting the cost of living for my family of 4 pretty substantially. That being said, I am a big fan of mil guys who aren't able to get directly to the majors going to the regionals. I found it to be (outside of the pay) a great professional experience for a lot of reasons. I re-hash this on APC posts all the time, but I'll say it for the record here, too: none of us are "too good" for a spin through the regional airlines if we intend on making it a career after the military.

FWIW, FedEx has limitations on how much open time you can pick up every month that, by my understanding, other airlines do not have.

Yes, you're wrong. Off days are off days. Reserve days are work days. Never the two shall mix without you intentionally deciding to do so, although some airlines have a (not) wonderful thing called "junior manning" in which you can be involuntarily assigned to work. It differs from airline to airline, but they will all have a minimum number of days off per month regardless of what kind of schedule you are able to bid. The suck is the highest at the regionals: the airline I was at had a minimum of 11 days off per month by contract, but I ended up bidding schedules that gave me closer to 14 or 15 days off per month. At my current airline, I beat the contractually guaranteed min days off by one or so on average, which again is by choice based on the lines I like to bid and what my seniority can hold. More senior pilots can beat that substantially while getting paid about the same number of credit hours. You can obviously choose to fly on your scheduled days off to make extra coin, but just realize that it isn't like the military where you're "owned" by the man 24/7 and can just be randomly made to work on days you were previously told you'd have off.

My experience has mirrored FUSEPLUG's, although my financial hole may have been a little deeper than others since I had an extra year flying at the regionals for $20/hour in conjunction with training pay and first year pay at my career destination. It has taken a while to replenish the decimated savings account, re-acquire just some of the stocks/investments that were liquidated, and re-establish the retirement account contributions that were halted during that time. Yes, the 2nd year+ pay is great, but there's a while lot of "double up to catch up" that has to take place which blunts the acute impact of that extra $$ coming in. I am 2.5 years into my career job (on 3rd year pay) and, no kidding, am pretty much just now getting my pre-USAF-retirement savings and investments sorta back to where they were before the journey to the airlines. I'm not complaining: I knew what the financial cost was going to be and prepared for it before leaving Big Blue, and the investment has been worth every nickel. But, the recovery has taken longer than I expected it to, even with a substantial eventual increase in income over USAF O-5 pay.

Jackson administered me the Comissioning oath when I graduated ROTC back in 1995. Been trying to find the photos of it for the last day or two, but no luck. He, along with fellow AF MoH awardee Leo Thorsness, were somewhat frequent guests at my ROTC unit at the U of Washington as they both lived in the area. An unbelievable honor to listen and learn from those two over the years. Blue skies and tailwinds to a true hero.

Yes, and when your entire thesis is based on a logical fallacy (either false dichotomy or begging the question, take your pick) it creates major doubts about the actual credibility of whatever points are made within it.

I'm a frequent critic of AF leadership being so self-indoctriated that they're thoroughly unable to even recognize that there is a problem, much less have the capability to solve that problem. Given those circumstances it makes sense that the source for both might come from the outside, who is able to see things how they are rather than how they want things to be. However, that outside view doesn't necessarily automatically convey some kind of clarity, as evidenced in the very first paragraph: Uh, says who? Okay, I'm sure Jerry doesn't have any institutional biases of his own with that pedigree.

Meant as a joke, not as a criticism.

So, you're complaining about a culture of risk aversion, while explaining that you're risk averse about your career?

Retired. And?

Love it. Maybe when I get as much experience in the Air Force as you fellas, I'll think differently.

Well, it is called "the service". It isn't about you, me, or any of us.

I believe this is the "barrel dive" video @hindsight2020 is referring to: Which, IMHO, should have been graded "U".

¿puɐʇsɹǝpun oʇ noʎ ɹoɟ ɹǝᴉsɐǝ ʇᴉ ǝʞɐɯ sᴉɥʇ sǝop This is Thunderbird 5's superpower.