SocialD

They'd still figure out a way to make it painful or otherwise fuck it up...

So long as they don't decide to fill the bomber community with FAIPs during your VML, you should be good to go. That hasn't happened since, what 2009/2010?

This just can't be true! I heard it elsewhere (and here) that Zoom will revolutionize the world...everyone stays home, businesses will never travel again...YUGE SAVINGS!!!! We even had senior leaders on FB saying the airlines won't be hiring "for a long time," (better sign this shitty bonus). Meanwhile, in addition to all the other airlines hiring, DAL just announced hiring 150/month starting this fall and 200/month next year.

What is your stance on guys seeking tanker support on FB? By chance does your squadron support 4 school houses? 😁 This! Just got home within the last six months. The gas I wasted flying "real missions," would have been much better spent flying pretend wars back home.

Uh sir you're going to expire within 2 months of returning from deployment, you have reaccomplish that cbt Oh really, show me the reg... Well it's just "guidance." Copy...not doing it.

Lol, pure eyewash to appease the woke mafia. Whether these companies believe in it or not, they'll be doing these things just to look good to the people they're trying to keep off their back.

While I tip my hat to your 23 days, especially on a NB, but I'm thinking more along the lines of trees post. I've flown with guys who used to hit the 6-9 months mark. One said he hit 14 months once, though I think all this was pre-117, which I think made it easier for some reason. That and some strategery.

I can't specifically answer that question, but I did hear of something that, unsurprisingly is jacked up. I guess there is an issue when they upload your points for ACSC. Apparently, in the month that it's uploaded, any other points (AT/AFTP/etc..) are NOT uploaded. You'll have to go back and ensure those get added. I haven't checked if it happened to me, but it did happen to a few squadron mates. Note: If I missed this previously in the thread, I'll assess myself a nice glass of Old Grandad Bonded that I'm already drinking right now.

What happened in that category is a one in a career, fleeting opportunity. The true winners are the professional reserve bidders. Some of those dude put up some serious numbers, wrt longest time between putting on a uniform. Let's call it pay per day putting on a uniform 😁. Those are the guys you'll want to break out the notepad and take notes from! Being able to sit SC from your house/boat/hangar is a beautiful thing!

The ANG can board with 4 years TIG, so I'd assume AFRC can as well. As Guardian said, it sounds like Chida is referring to ROPMA. Some bases lean on ROPMA more than others. Unless someone doesn't do PME, we rarely ever have to promote guys via ROPMA, while other bases/states seem to use it almost exclusively...even for O-4, which is crazy to me.

In general, I just assume that finance and DFAS are highly incompetent at every level...this helps with my blood pressure. Took me way too many e-mails, over multiple months on a deployment, just to get them to STOP paying me the W/DEP BAH...of which I had never been! Never thought it would be so hard to get the AF to pay me less. To the question above, I'd just sell it. You'll make more money overall and it will be a nice little addition to your savings prior to leaving AD. If you go on orders, you'll earn back plenty of leave and most squadrons work 4 day weeks, so you're need to take leave will likely drop dramatically. You'll sell all kinds of leave back once you're in the ANG if you're not planning on being on long terms orders. There is no limit on the number of leave days you can sell on orders under a year. Another crazy thing is that you can actually carry over leave as a part-timer. You just have to keep an eye on it, my days disappeared when I went on T10 orders for a recent deployment. Had to call finance to have them put them back on the books when I went back to part time status.

Aren't you still full time? 😁

Cool read about a crew making it happen! That book led to me picking up a few more books on Pan-AM (one linked above), which are a pretty cool bit of history if you're a WW2/Airline nerd. You really get and idea of how Pan-Am was able to become such a power house...not many can compete when the government is propping you up! Great stories of doing what needed to be done for the good of the nation. I'd like to think today we'd do what needed to be done, but the cynical side of me thinks American's would be dying because assets would be delayed as they were tied up in litigation. China Clipper - The Secret Pre-War Story of Pan American's Flying Boats.

I'd consider the Guard + other flying options. Regionals are a great place to gain some experience and check the box. With your time, even if you had to go to a regional, I'd be surprised if you had to stay there very long. Also, don't count out places like Atlas, ATI, etc... Some of those places allow you to be home based, so you could conveniently live wherever the spouse career allows.

Bring back Pan-Am!

My bad, the airline got lost in the quotes. Post edited to say DAL.

Edit: At DAL. I may have worded my post poorly. A reserve pilot on a day off (currently not sitting reserve) absolutely can pickup premium flying, it's just at single pay (ABOVE your monthly guarantee) rather than double pay, but you also get compensatory days off later in the month. In fact, GSing on reserve can often be much more lucrative than GSing as a line holder. Eg...say this month your reserve guarantee is 75 hours and you're on call the 16th through the 31th of the month, with the 1st through the 15th as days off. On the 1st of the month you get called for a 3 day Greenslip worth 16 hours. Add that to your reserve guarantee...75+16 = 91 hours is now your pay and your reserve days on the 16th through the 18th are dropped and are now off days. On the 5th you get called for another 3 day worth 16 hours...your pay is now 91+16 = 107 hours and now the reserve days on the 19th through the 21st are dropped and are now off days. Keep repeating that (if you're lucky) and you could end the month with ~150 hours of pay and never have actually sat a day of reserve. On the flip side, if you get a GS on an off day and there are no more reserve days left in the month, those days go into a bank that can be used at a later date to drop days of work for pay. If used properly, these are absolute gold. Lots of nuance in how they can be used, but I once used three of these to get paid ~32 hours to fly a single, 8 hour, 1 day trip. You an also pick up premium flying while ON reserve days...essentially you're making yourself a short call pilot by doing that. In that case, only the first days flying goes on top of guarantee and you get no payback days (since you were on call already). Sometimes it's a good deal, sometimes it's not worth the effort.

Ya, that's working way too damn hard. As someone who often bids reserve, I love people like that. I much prefer that they fly those trips and I stay home. Hoping to follow in your foot steps and retire early...hopefully around the same time I'll start collecting my Guard retirement (circa 57 years old). May stay longer if I still have the ability to drop my entire schedule and just fly what I want. That's the hope/plan for now anyway. Airlinepilotforums, airlineapps, pilotcredentials, FDX/UPS websites, The Pilot Network on FB. Double pay for line holders. For reserve pilots, every day flown on an off day is pay above reserve guarantee, then you get the same number of days of reserve dropped later in the month. That's what you'll hear DAL bros refer to as "rolling thunder."

I'm just amazed that they actually got the iPad approved for us fighter guys. Of course they can't make it a total win, so they have to throw a wrench into the situation and have the system completely wipe itself clean after a month of inactivity. Makes total sense, would really hate for the enemy to get access to the Hi-Tacan approach plate! Works great for part-timers, or people returning from a deployment and the associated leaves. They just can't make things smooth and easy...

Soft pay is your friend! I'm currently at the lowest pay rate at DAL (717 FO...8th year pay). For this month, I'll have worked 11 days (well, now only 6 because I called in sick for a 5 day trip), flown less than 30 hours and I'll be paid for 97.5 hours (last month was 132 hours pay). That works out to be ~$16k for the month...18.5k if you add in company 401k contributions. I still have 11 day in the month to either pick up normal flying or pick up some overtime trips, that could easily nudge me over the 20k mark. I enjoy time off more than money so I doubt I'll actually pick anything else up. I had multiple 30k (plus 401k) months as a Widebody FO while only actually working 12 days (due to vacation, overtime "Greenslip" flying and getting paid on days I didn't actually work due to deviating dh). Last year, I was only active at DAL (MLOA the rest of the year) for 7 months and I made more than your example above. A former squadron mate has gotten 150 hours of pay (though not flying much), every month this year. Lots of schemes to make extra pay for very little effort, especially if you get senior. The big downside, is Uncle Sam takes a much bigger cut than you're used to. As a O-4 or O-5 on the bonus, you'll do just as good as a newer airline guy if you look just at straight pay. However, it's the time off that really wins the day for me (pay per day worked). I'm for keeping it as it acts as a natural shock absorber during times like this. We could monotize them as pay rate or whatever, but the next negotiating cycle, the other airlines will match and we'll be back at square one...just without PS. I've worked at a place w/o it and now with it, and I think keeping this type of "at risk" pay is great for the motivation of employees. As long as you're not one of the idiots that COUNT on the PS to keep them afloat, then not having it is not that big of a deal. Though I don't expect to see pre-covid numbers soon, based on what I'm seeing, I'd expect to see PS in the next year or two.

Crazy, I thought that shit was just made up about other airlines not having FAs and pilots staying at the same hotel....definitely not the case at DAL. It's not like we hang out with the FAs all the time, but Internationally, some captains will invite the entire crew (13 of us) out to dinner. With the right crew, it can be an absolute blast! Domestically, we stay at the same hotels but it's not all that often we overnight with the crews we fly with because they usually continue on. Just prior to covid, we were experimenting with hard pairing pilots and FAs for the entire trip. A buddy did a few of those trips and said it was absolutely great! It's nice to have more options of people to hang with, especially if the CA is a slam-clicker. Of course if you don't care for them, just pass on meeting up.

One might even say, he knew this may be the outcome. Get your name in the limelight, book is promoted and get out of the military...that's like 3 birds with one stone! We have a pilot at DAL that appears to be doing pretty much the same thing.

The Guard had one a few years back, but they made it so restrictive that seriously only 2.5% of my squadron was eligible...that was 1 guy. I haven't heard of it coming back, I hear the airlines aren't hiring for "quite a few years," so retention isn't a problem anymore.

I'm in general agreement with Brabus Johnson, but my (fighter) squadron recently hired a Captain who is a BUFF Nav, so anything is possible. Now it's slightly different because he is already rated, but you just never know. Make them tell you no!

The gas shortage that wasn't. Panic buying caused long lines but there wasn't really a supply problem. People lose their minds based on sensational news stories. Anecdotally, my uncle just drove home through 3 of the states states that were "most hit." Aside from spending a few extra minutes in line (panic buying), he didn't have a problem getting gas. He noted a few gas stations appeared to be out of gas, but hell, I saw that in Tennessee driving home during spring break this year. I remember on the evening of 9/11, even in my podunk town (pop. ~900), our lone gas station had a line of nearly 100 cars. This same thing has played out numerous times since, and so far they've all ended up a nothing burger. So far...because I acknowledge the reports that our infrastructure is vulnerable and I'm hoping IT (or government) spending will be going up soon for our those companies.