SocialD

Crew Resources decides where pilots are needed based on a myriad of reasons (marketing/fleeting/etc...). Every so often the airline will have a bid for guys to move aircraft. Anything that isn't bid by current pilots is left over and then can be offered to new hire classes. After that, it's probably dolled out to newhire classes based mostly on sim availability. Within the class, you get to pick based on class seniority which is decided differently at every airline. At AAL it was based on age. At DAL it was based on your last four...the higher the number, the better.

Lol, just a bit. It's almost like she's been coached in acting (her family is full of actors) and regurgitating what others are telling her to say... Right! They found a perfect combo here, a person you "can't criticize," and parents perfectly willing to let their child be used as a puppet. In fact, I have no doubt her handlers/funders were counting on her being attacked. Her family is set to release a book next year, so I'm guessing her handlers are not the only ones who will be lining their pockets off this publicity. As always, follow the money.

Best deployment...Tallinn, Estonia. Even better if you score it in the summer!

We have a squadron mate who has been dealing with a doozy of a DFAS fuckup from his AD time. They want him to pay nearly 10k for taxes they inappropriately paid for him, which DFAS admits to being their fuckup. They say he needs to pay them back and that he'll just get it back when he files his taxes. He's like fuck off, I'm not coughing up that cash because of your incompetence. The fight has been going for nearly 3 yeas now and he left AD 5+ years ago. I think he's already talked to his congressman, which hasn't done much. I'm not sure if you can file an IG complaint against DFAS, but I would have been there long ago. IDK, where you go next...national new outlets?

The conspiracy theories are strong with this one. You don't have to have worked for the military/government, more specifically with contracts, to know they don't give a shit about saving the tax payers money. Have you ever tried to do construction to a current building to adjust for a new requirement? We recently had to do that and the easiest/cheapest (by far) option was to simply raise the roof. Nope, sorry that is considered X type construction and apparently the money we were given was for Y type construction. So instead of simply raising the roof, they're knocking down a massive wall, breaking up the concrete floor, digging down a few feet, pouring a new floor, then rebuilding the massive wall. Apparently, when this building was built a few years back we knew that this future requirement was likely coming down the pike and knew this building wouldn't work, but we were told you can't build based on future expectations...

LOL, perfect...actually nothing to see here! It's both sad and entertaining to watch the TDS mafiosos chase their tails, trying to get Trump on every little thing. He seems to be the one holding the laser pointer while the TDS mafia is the cat.

We know you've been flying your balls off, you're tired and your morale is in the dumps...but if you guys could start staying in shittier hotels, that would be greeeaaaaatttttt. We know the allowable rate is $150/night but the Commander has his own unofficial official max rate of staying at the HOJOs... If it's within the DOD directed rate then what's the fucking problem here? Fuck this passive-aggressive, touchy-feely, TDS "perception" shit. It's either within the reg or not, if they don't like it, change the damn reg/Dodi/etc... Good stewards of the taxpayer dollars...for fucks sake. Every time I've attempted to be a good steward and save the taxpayer money, I got bent over by finance. They don't give a damn about being a good stewards.

...as long as you're not a prior-e/late rated guy. I was wrong yesterday, one of the the guys I thought was eligible is actually not able to get the bonus. He was a CE officer in our wing before going to pilot training. So exactly 1 of 39 pilots are currently eligible. ADOS, as UPT-hopeful said, are the orders we use to put guys on alert. There are other positions out there that are ADOS as well, I'm just not sure of what they are. ADOS is unique in that it as a limit of days you can continuously be on the them (1095??). After that I think you have to leave that orders status for a year, though you can go on other orders. It's been a few years, so the details are hazy. I'm probably missing a few but AGR/ADOS/ADSW/MPA/ST/AT/MEST are all various orders you may see in the ANG. Which is better depends upon the individual. IMHO, the DSG bonus would have been the best option, if they had actually opened it up to a vast majority of the part timers. I don't think we have single pilot on the one year (25k) bonus. The one year, 35k bonus would have been the most enticing, but the ANG decided they didn't need such a bonus. Most guys seem to be opting for the 4 year, 35k bonus as a hedge against any changes. You can curtail (subject to TAG approval...) if you desire to jump early, but you're at least locked in at 35k for 4 years, rather than taking 2 years and hoping they don't change the rules before you sign for an additional 2 years.

That was some downright scary reading... Too many gems in there to copy and past, here are a few that stuck out.

Well, 1 of 2 eligible pilots in my squadron has been paid. So we have that going for us, which is nice...

A military judge has bucked a two-star general by throwing out a sexual assault case against a sergeant at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida. I wasn't sure if this belongs in the "what's right," "what's wrong" or the "WTF" threads. I'm not saying he's innocent, I really don't know the facts of the case. But damn, this paints a bad picture of how overboard leaders have gone to protect their asses from the Gillibrands of the world. God help anyone who simply has a sexual assault accusation made against them in this military. < 800 days to go! Some gems from the article... Seems legit... But to hell with supporting the possibly wrongly accused! Be sure his clearance is revoked, he is pulled from his work area and/or otherwise alienated! Even if it means denying the accused the right to a fair trail. If he didn't do it, he's probably a rapist in waiting anyway...right? Youngins...take note. This is the smartest thing this guy ever did. Probably not worthing exploring for this case... The following seems like the action of a sane/stable person. We should definitely NOT let them subpoena her SM, you know...to protect "the victim..."

Right...it's nearly impossible to compete when guys figure out they can get out and make significantly more whilst working significantly less. Even Guard squadrons, minus maybe the ones that are in BFE, are even struggling keep their full time jobs filled.

This sounds like an AF that cares about you...

We have that in our ANG Fighter squadron. I've only done my initial assessment, but hopeful it will help.

The fact that they have the A320 on there and don't have the 757 is immediate loss of credibility! Hands down, the 757 is the most badass airliner I've ever flown. Ya know...as badass as airliners can be anyway.

I don't think Gazmo is a long term mloa type of guy. Maybe he was saying that he liked working a total of 4 days this month for 88 hours of pay as a line holder, like I'm doing this month 🤣.

Ha, I wish. While we have some phenomenal people working in our FSS, they still can be a royal PITA. I walked in one day to get my CAC renewed and there was no-one to be seen. Wandered around, found the FSS Chief. She investigated and it turns out everyone was on leave to drop their kids off at a state military kids camp...the one remaining guy got sent out that am on an emergency TDY (for personnel lol). The chief was as dumbfounded as I was and lost her shit. I could also write a book on just our finance shop. I just prescribe to the line of thinking in your second paragraph. If you do those few items I mentioned, everything else will work itself out. I remember when I left Luke, they wanted me to log into some online program and out-process using some ridiculously long, drawn out checklist, which involved stopping at the library (I didn't even know they had a library) for a signature, as well as the chaplin or something. Fuck that, I grabbed my AFE gear, my flight records and medical records then jumped in the car and started my drive home. I never heard a word about it, so clearly it didn't matter. A helpful tactic is to walk into a shop and tell them you have to be out the door at X time for an appointment (works on car salesman as well). If it can't be finished by that time, just send the rest to my email and I'll get it back to you when I come back to work.

Things that might get you a call. Going out on MLOA longer than 5 years on orders that are not exempt. Saying you're on MLOA but actually working at your civilian contractor side gig. Consistently using one day of MLOA on each trip to drop all your weekend trips and then picking up weekday trips (when you 2-leg commute to your mil gig). Dropping so much MLOA that you don't get consolidated. Dropping a trip so you can go in and SOF for half a day on the day after Christmas. Dropping a trip to take Stan Eval tests the day before Thanksgiving. I dropped MLOA between Indoc and sim training. I took a week of MLOA immediately after finishing OE. I've taken MLOA over holidays. I dropped 8 months of MLOA (spin-up/deployment) while still on probation. I had to extend MLOA over the Super Bowl (in the company's mind that's a holiday) due to a broke dick jets and all the married guys in a hurry to get home from a dreaded 2 whole weeks of TDY. I've dropped trips last minute for MLOA. I've even had to call the CPO to have MLOA removed from my schedule. With all that, even at big scary DAL, I haven't heard a single word about any of this. Bottom line in the middle, just take what you need to get your sheit done and heed the advice of Brabus Johnson. Unless you're attached to an AD base, you shouldn't need an entire week to in-process. My in-processing consisted of dropping my medical record at medical, flight records are ARMS, flight gear at AFE, a few forms at finance/personnel/comm and I was done in time for the lunch push.

Yup, I understand that. I'm talking about squadrons, just like mine, that are forcing part-timers to ROPMA to O-4 then O-5, unless there a "chosen" one. Maybe we're lucky in that our part timers tend to not hang around as squadron bums forever, but very few guys are forced to ROPMA for anything other than not doing PME. One bases leadership looks at it as "paying your dues." Then again they also have had numerous dudes leave to fly in the heavy squadron in their state while other said fuck it, I go find a non-flying gig...

Ultimately, it's up to your TAG. I know a guy who made it to O-5 without SOS or ACSC because he wanted to be at a unit that can never fill spots. Our previous TAG had a hard-on for PME, however the new TAG says no PME required for O-5 but you'll be going to ROPMA to make it happen. I understand some states/units require guys to go to ROPMA (even for O-4) as a matter of practice, which I'll never understand why you'd willingly do that to your own people. My base has always been; have PME, TIG requirements met, not a shitbag, promotion paperwork goes in. We rarely have to force guys to ROPMA and the few I can think of were simply for not doing SOS orACSC. Having prior-e time, waiting for ROPMA would have meant delaying my retirement 3 years, so ACSC was well worth the pain.

What herkbum said. PV and ROPMA are how we get promoted. We have to have up to date OPRs but no PRFs (maybe for ROPMA). Our base has recently started requiring interviews for O-5, but not for O-4 or below. Herk may have better insight into what happens next All I know is it's sent up to state or NGB then it's usually 6-9 months before federal recognition happens which means you can pin on.

Makes sense...I've never even seen a PRF.

Holy shit, this is what OPRs are "supposed" to look like? AD kids being sent to Guard units as a first assignment are FUCKED! Well...besides pretty much having a guaranteed job in a few years when they can get out. I guess I don't understand this and it seems to be a complete devaluation of medals. I once got a MSM (as a Capt) because the OG at the time was passed over for O-6 the first time for not having a MSM. A few months later, the whole damn squadron got MSMs so this didn't happen to any of us. I guess he thought he was "taking care" of us. Fast forward a few years and we get a WG/CC from another base. Now a Major, he loses it when he sees that I have 2xMSMs and no Commendation medal. Guess who now has a commendation medal. Again, what a fucked up system! Note: Before this I had never heard that it was customary that Capt get AFCM and Majors get MSMs.

Finally brought my Cub home yesterday. Winds kicked up way earlier than expected...was just glad to her on the ground in one piece. There was zero wind today so I spent the afternoon on the grass. My dedicated crew chief has a T-Craft based at this grass strip...don't think he appreciated me texting this picture when he was working today LOL.

Man I'm jealous, that's a good buddy to have! The panel of the Cub makes it evident that he takes good care of his planes. Post pics of the Stearman if you have some. Hoping to acquire one down the road. Was his Stearman owned by the current President of the Stearman Restores association? That dude is a real under achiever...he was a Navy rescue swimmer, then Seal, then decided to be a 160th SOAR pilot and now flies crop dusters. https://www.westpointcoh.org/interviews/a-career-filled-with-detours-from-seal-to-night-stalker https://readyfortakeoffpodcast.com/rft-284-navy-seal-cropduster-mike-rutledge/