hindsight2020

...and a distinction without difference.

better lucky than good as they say....

Beats the alternative.

Bingo.

Congrats! Heading to 38 PIT (then back to Mejico...) myself. See ya there.

As to government collapse and my welfare payments? My bet is the airlines furlough before my reserve pension or SS check ever bounces, whether it be today or in 30 years. I'm happy taking that bet. All that said, I'd never pursue an airline job without either a pension check or current Guard/Res flying membership/participation for the following reasons: It acts as partial insurance against furlough and lack of access to turbine currency. Not to mention, Guard/Reserve participation is a powerful way to manage the first five years of airline 'juniority' schedules. This is no small benefit in my personal scorecard, being a QOL-over-$$$ type. Doing the airlines cold turkey is too volatile and anti-QOL for my blood. I would agree with you in that, I too would pursue airline work before I do the latter 10 of an Active Duty career, regardless of economic considerations and knowing what we know about the dynamics of years 12-20 for most. There's a lot to be said about shaping your days to your own accord without acquiescing to gratuitous Combat Desk FWA quagmires and other associated institutional military bullshit that don't ring true to one's heart. I think smart folks with the proper perspective should be able to land on their feet as they transition from Active Duty, whether they become airline pilots or not. It's the 'nav-mentality' dopes without a real marketable educational foundation or the grit required to step outside the box that encounter problems in reaching income parity outside their DFAS check.

This thread is useless without stories about said capt america.

Or dental school, med school, oil rig work. Jesus Christ, it's amazing how much the nav mentality abounds amongst public workers.

I didn't claim otherwise. It seems you don't understand the difference between seniority and longevity.

Ok, this comparison needs to get qualified, because at face value it's complete bullshit. The current CP of the BBJ division at Boeing was a squadronmate of mine at the old unit. Interesting stories about delivery flights to China and Saudi, and the gucci lifestyle. That civilian gig is nice indeed. What it is also, is extremely rare of a position and the result of multi-decade networking and hovering around the manufacturer. But of course, that tidbit gets swept under the rug when making these comparisons. To be fair, by VOLUME, manufacturer pilot jobs are to top-4 121 carrier pilot jobs what ONE Miss America pageant is to JCPenney retail positions nationally. It would be rather foolish to put all your eggs in that teeny tiny basket. Also, a distinction needs to be made between delivery/training pilots and test pilots. I looked into the latter and frankly was rather underwhelmed with their aggregate compensation, for the level of box-checking competitiveness they require on paper. A knuckledragging airline pilot beats the lifetime earnings of a test pilot by quite a bit, with less employer turnover, which is crazy considering we're talking about unstable airline jobs in the first place. Test pilots suffer from the same career nomadism and job loss as company pedestrian engineers, and require willingness to relocate to stay gainfully involved in the industry. This, to avert the alternative of switching to printer toners across the street 'cause mama is sick of moving every 5-7 years because you insist on having 'aerospace' attached to your pedestrian job label. So it's completely inaccurate to suggest test gigs are homestead central. From my conversations with some of them, it seems one becomes a test pilot because one like to geek out about 32nd decimal place validations of the 20th iteration of a 737/Bombadiér, for 90K median. Outside of new materials and avionics, there's nothing flight dynamics relevant about airplanes anymore, but I digress. At any rate, these jobs are separate and apart from the delivery/training pilot jobs you're probably referring to, which are gucci indeed. Also let's disclose that mother Boeing is indeed undercutting the luxury of that job, as they continue to utilize contract positions (read: walmart benefits) to fly their iron. Cool if you have Uncle Sugar medical/retirement benefits, not so cool if you don't. So things are not all that rosy on that side either, and we're talking about less than 1000 jobs worth of access here between manufacturers, not 5,000+ like in the airlines. https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/2012-09-12/boeing-pilots-protest-use-contractors-train-787-crews In the end, there's plus and minuses to every job, but to me, a job I can only speak of getting is not a good job at all. Median expectations are what matters in the end; I just don't think it's fair to juxtapose a dozen six-figure equipment manufacturer jobs at any given time to thousands of six figure 121 carrier positions. I think most people here are more likely to get a job with Delta than they are to get a job delivering BBJs for the manufacturer, with otherwise IDENTICAL resumes. We are carbon copies of each other, here in blue Shawshank. But hey, if you got [regular/sugar]daddy/mommy on the board and one of these gigs is waiting for ya after you're done with the 20 year Air Force combat desk deployment kabuki, I'm certainly not gonna hate on that. Talking to my old squadron bud, that's one hell of a job you'd be getting into. Good luck to all.

Ok. Here's the skinny fellas.... I. The contentions of working as a commuting TR are highly dependent on the unit. The units will establish their willingness to pay for the reimbursement of legal traveling and lodging costs for their non-local members depending on how difficult it is for said unit to staff their place. Units in shithole locations, or alternatively units with airframes that are not cool (i.e. not fighters and whatever else shit) will tend to exhibit greater willingness to endure the cost of traveling TRs and the paid travel gravy train. Those units that do not have such need, will likely not play that game and thus resort to the more typical commuting restrictions fighter units have been known for since forever. Figure out what type of unit you work for. The intent of the ARC was based on hometown unit models; the reality of Congressional pork belly has been an effective subversion of that intent and as such the hometown outcome is not universally true. Thence the reality of traveling cost for TRs in shitty locale/shitty airplane units. II. Some units originally affected by the 2005 BRAC and other force restructurings that led the iron dislocated from their current/qualified members, have been allowed to reimburse commuting TRs for travel to perform IDT status, which in normal units is NOT a reimbursable expense to the member. Lodging cost reimbursement in the form of unit direct billing however, IS an entitlement for non-local TRs while performing IDT duty in all units, not just units approved for "IDT travel" reimbursement. Paragraph I caveats apply to whether or not you find yourself employed by either type of unit. At any rate, the IDT travel reimbursement is 12 vouchers a year, up to 300 dollar actual cash value last time I checked, all receipts must be included (i.e. you can't get away with not submitting receipts under 75 bucks when it comes to an IDT travel reimbursement voucher). III. GTFO with that bullshit about traveling to work for free on RPA/MPA or AT status God damn it. Lodging only weekends while on a "1" status, living like god damn riddle kids out of a crash pad a la regional airlines because the unit promised you mandays if you play good house------a'. Mother blue loves that. Whoring out your skillset because you love wearing that bag. Rule#1 of the Reserves: you don't show up to work when not in status. Rule #1a: you certainly, DO NOT, travel for free when you're entitled to travel reimbursement, as some sort of a precondition of being given work. Travel entitlements and lodging are the price of freedom and when you give it up to play soldier for free the rest of the bros take it in the checkbook. We don't want to go back to the Country Club days of the Guard/Res; stop that shit. Your unit must have given you the spiel before they decided to hire you. If the place is located in a shithole and people can't make a lucrative living close by, then that's the price they got to pay to get you to work. Otherwise you buck up and move to the location and pursue your duty without the traveling reimbursement or per diem entitlement that's absent to a local area guy. But you do not wipe your ass with the JTFR and set an erosive precedent at the expense of your brothers. I'm a middle-of-the-road guy by age/rank but an old timer by Reserve longevity and nothing fires me up more than some of the folks within the current crop of AD separatees, anxious as hell to get out of AD but then turn around and turn the Reserves into a low-tier regional airline operation with their work-for-free shenanigans. If you actually want to make it to your 20 year letter you should have a vested interest in internalizing what I'm saying. Y'all want to keep the Reserves a place that's reasonable to not only work in, but to get to. Some new hires are coming in with the touch n go mentality of "ill just do this to finish out my loose ends then I'm outta here" and it's screwing up the place for everybody. Don't be that guy. Be honest with the unit, have a plan, and do not forego your travel entitlements if the unit agrees to hire you as an outside-commuting area guy. Hold the line god damn it, I feel like a teamster rep drawing it in crayons for some of you guys. Congratulations to all those parolees and welcome to the ARC, where flying, getting paid and not upsetting your civilian employer is our priority...well, at least that is my commitment to my TRs, as one who has BTDT myself. Good luck to all of you making the transition.

Why would you of all people ever bother posting in the ATP thread, ya closet airline wannabe :D /tc

It's not that sweet when you consider he probably doesn't get to accrue longevity while on furlough. I don't know the contract though but that's the standard. So, longevity at 18mo a whole 13 years later, while the cat is actively trying to stay attached to the tit past 28 years of blue flavor? my guess is he doesn't care much for the UAL number... The one thing that's sweet is that someone managed to stay on USERRA-exempt orders for that long a stretch. Well played sir, well played. We had one dude get an AD retirement as a trougher, 9 extra years of piece-meal orders since they (obviously) weren't gonna let him go AGR....and he managed to keep his number at AA through the whole thing. Hate the game not the playa' kinda thing.

I stopped paying attention to Liquid's quitter-hate a while ago. I can only imagine the conniption he'd have regarding an expanding Air Force Reserve structure (per the congressional report 6 months ago) in the present active duty drawdown. You know, that organization of selfish quitters who vote with their feet every day with disgusting values such as homesteading, rejection of qweep, unapologetic preference of flying over any other duty as a prerequisite for deciding to show up at all, getting a second paycheck which is less important than their civilian one, and lastly, a community of politically incorrect brotherhood built upon relative lack of turnover, which makes active duty look like a bunch of fucking 3-level equivalent JCPenney cashiers on their second week on the job. Yeah buddy, guys like him probably couldn't tell a Reservist from the Taliban judging by the traits he values. The people he decries as the problem are literally the preponderance of my recruits. And here's the sweet irony: Active Duty turns around and puts us in positions of flying support under the premise of higher aggregate experience retention we bring to the table.

Is that what 4 July stood for? And here this whole time I thought it was mattress sales and getting killed by drunk drivers. At any rate, the only nationalistic holiday I've seen celebrated around my pork belly duty station has been on 5 May if you catch my drift.... :D /stirpot Happy Independence Day everybody. 'Murica... We may suck ass at futból, but we can still FUCK YOU UP.

Well, gee....You think your present sense of a good deal might just not be permanent? You shot your own argument ^^^ You beat me to the post. Exactly my sentiments. I'd love what I was doing too if I got to do what I wanted. Alas, there are such things as getting buffed/tami'd/alo'd. I'm not gonna be a hypocrite and go all kool-aid and say I love my fighter and everybody oughtta love their lot in life too because I got to fly my dream airplane, today. Life is indeed a moving target. And that's alright. That's the real value of the civilian job. The option to quit when it no longer makes sense in otherwise the same sea of managerial apathy and disregard for your contributions, as an individual with an above average measure of work ethic.

1. You will change your mind. It's a mere function of time and life stage. Don't fret it. The young ones want to fly helos these days after MWS day out of UPT because they don't want to get "stuck in an airframe that doesn't see action". Nothing has changed much in that regard from 50 years ago. The crusty majors and above roll their eyes and welcome a family-friendly PCS duty location, or conversely 7-day opt in order to save their families in the absence of one. The two archetypes were the same person at one moment in time, bear in mind. You will be no different unless you opt out of a family, which is perfectly fine too. 2. You're misunderstanding the exodus. Just like the retirement of the baby boomers, job replacement will not occur on a one for one basis. The jobs are GOING AWAY. The 11F shortage is an 11F head count (sts) shortage for 11F coded staff jobs, NOT an 11F cockpit shortage (i.e. false advertisement). Ergo, there is NO net vacating spot for you to jump into. You're competing for less jobs, which makes your desires MORE competitive. It's not impossible, but watching all this experience leave is not leaving you with more opportunity merely because you feel willing to go where the ones before you are running away from. Understand this difference for your own sake. It will lessen the disappointment. 3. You'll quickly come to chastise your own statement. I know you're being flippant, but you really have no concept of how old queep gets. It is fundamentally defining in the career of a flying officer, that his flying duties, in paper listed as primary duties, are in effect tertiary duties after he pins on O-3. You will not escape that (there is no WO program in the AF). The closest you will get to attain such an outcome is to be a Guard/Reservist and deal with just getting to do it on a part-time basis (even full time reserve guys are being fired too, for your SA). Understand what this means. This means they'll pay you to not get to do what you're willing to sell your soul for in order to get to do in the first place. You will reject that construct in due time, like most of those before you, and again come to chastise your own words. Look, none of this has to be accompanied by a moral adjudication either. Some kool-aid drinkers could say airline_guy is a shitbag for having such an openly disdainful attitude (by proxy) for which he took an officer oath that had nothing to do with flying airplanes. Others (myself included) would view such means to an end as an admittedly apathetic but par for the course answer in an organization that's bigger than the kool aid drinker, myself or airline_guy's, and certainly an organization who doesn't care one flying fuck about me, airline_guy or even the kool-aid drinker. The only truth I know is to keep doing something until it stops making sense or you get fired. Words I live by and it's kept me sane. What makes you a SNAP is not that you think you're willing to do things others are not (you're not btw), what makes you a SNAP is that you foresee yourself as immune from these dynamics by simpleton attitude. You're not immune and you will find out. Whether that transition is a fluid one or a life-embittering one largely depends on how much common wisdom and free internet advice you're willing to accept or dismiss today. Good luck to you either way and thank you for your service.

How's the EMS job market for rotorheads? I hear the pay is crappy coming down from the govt teet. Otherwise I'd think that kind of work would have a high level of job satisfaction (again if it wasn't for the pay). Offshore-shuttling people I hear pays bueno, with accompanying roughneck 14 on 14 off schedules. It's probably a more lasting job than EMS outfits though. No queep. Yep, we all wish.

Exactly. You played the hand the same way I would have.Early bird gets the worm, and a preemptive PC application worked in this case. By the time these guys get around to submitting their plan B PC application all they'll have in the matrix is a big red middle finger. Game's Chess, it ain't checkers.

What a bush league....

Office Space. Always valid life advice.

biggest UPT mistake? Not dumping my girlfriend (ex wife now) before going...Now all the graduation pictures are ruined for me. She wasn't even hot, god damn it.

Well I don't know Bob, how much do you make currently? If you're currently active duty and an O-4 or higher, then not. even. close. For your SA the GS-12 step 1 gig without SSR or special locality pay (i.e. just the basic locality pay of 15%) is basically a 68K job, of which 100% of it is taxable. A TR gig assuming min running (48 UTA 48 TP and 15 AT) for an O-3 is around 25K gross. So 93K gross where pretty much all of it except the portion of AT that is BAH (and type II at that) is taxable. Also remember that thanks to those asshole "raise the ladder below me" baby boomers, the pension contribution as a GS went up to 4.4% of your check versus the previous 0.8% for the same retirement benefit. Oh and as a GS you are disqualified from enrolling in TRS (Tricare reserve select) instead being opted for FEHB, which offers more expensive civilian plans that cover less. Yeah buddy. bottom line? AD junior O-3 takes home more than you and a junior O-3 doesn't gross anywhere near 95K. It's an ok living, aside from living in UPT locations, but it's at least a 15-20K/yr paycut from active duty money when accounting for taxable differences. O-4 and above delta? it's off the charts. WTF would you want to do such a despondent thing as a young person though? That's the one question I have for you. I'll give you this, it's an easy transition gig to attain as someone just separating/getting kicked out while in his/her white jet tour, but it's something that's not particularly desirable or sought after amongst young people who feel they have options. The opportunity cost of homesteading in a upt locale as a civilian/TR is just horrendous for QOL, for the majority of people. At least in AD they parole you after 4. I'm the last guy looking for an airline job right now, but if simming as a civilian in DelEnimbus was my only alternative, I'd be chasing airline dreams so hard it'd make my wife's head spin. Actually, I know what I'd be doing, because I was doing it 5 years ago...Straight up troughing with no civilian job. It's not as much money as sim/tr combo but at least I don't want to gouge my eyeballs out for 8 hours everyday. The obvious upside is of course, colocated civilian and mil gigs, which can only otherwise be attained if you were an ART or a defense contractor whose contract happens to be colocated in your TR base. The other upside is that the job is monkey stupid easy, but it is boring and in equally crappy location. No way I'd stick my family in these crapholes for straight GS-12 money. That's me though. Sim jobs are decent for retirement money. For family raising or "prospering as a 30-something" money, you'd be leaving a lot of income and QOL on the table by pursuing such a thing. But hey, your life.Good luck to you.

It depends on what you want to do post-retirement. An airline seniority number now plus a TR gig is a much better affair for QOL than attempting to start the junior airline drudgery in your late 40s. Plus considering the eventual hiring uptick, it'll be much better for pay and furlough protection to start now rather than 10 years later. You also have a TR gig to protect your turbine currency and source of income while going through the lean years at the airline. Not so with the AGR, though you will have a retirement check, which saves your bacon but doesn't keep you in the air. Now, if airlines are not your cup o tea, then yeah, AGR beats the hell out of most civilian employment, most particularly ART. Actually, for people who value living in their "good ol town" more than what they do for a living, the ART becomes desirable. They get to stay employed in the same "good ol town" until civilian MRA whereas a retiring AGR could feasibly be economically forced to look for a second career away from the Guard/Res hometown in order to retain income parity (most Guard/Res locations are not in cosmopolitan locations with competitive civilian jobs). ART is an outright paycut from AGR and I'd never resort to such insular life views, but to each their own. It's also interesting to note that there's a TON of AGRs right now jumping ship back to the airlines or as they get class dates; rolling the dice on getting the man to curtail them. So clearly there's plenty of people who don't think uncle Sam's tit is the bee's knees. BTW I'm AGR too. The devil really is in the details.

As a reserve baby, hell NO, I would never give up a good civilian job to go active duty. To each their own.