SocialD

Lol funny enough, any time we have AD inspectors on our base, they send out a base-wide message asking us to not talk on our phones while driving on base. They want to avoid having to explain it to every inspector after the first few complained . Guard bases are actually State property thus we're allowed to talk on our phones while driving on base.

LOL right! Not sure why we had 45,000 lbs of cargo on my flight today. 🤔 PM sent.

As you can already see it depends wildly based on what airline, what aircraft and even what base (here at DAL anyway). My category mostly has 3 and 6 day trips, though we occasionally see a few 7-9 day trips. The 7-9 day trips usually have DH days on both ends, so guys deviate from them and knock off 2 days while still getting paid. As a super junior guy in my seat, my typically awarded line is 2 x 6-day trips (12 days worth 68-72 hours of pay). Each 6-day trip is 4 legs of flying with 3 layovers (22-30 hours each), the middle one is somewhere in the US and the other two somewhere in Europe. Since I don't particularly care for 6-day trips, after the schedules are published, I drop them both (or give them away to other pilots) and go fishing in the open time (uncovered trips). What I usually end up with for the month is 4 x 3-day trips (12 days worth 85-95 hours of pay)...sometimes I just do 3 x 3 days (9 days worth 63-74 hours). If you're ok with wild swings in pay from month to month and/or willing to accept the occasional "low month," it's a great strategy (I live locally)! When I say low months, I mean still 4-5k more than you'd make as an AD O-4. On months I bid reserve I usually work O-6 days (non-summer months) and 3ish to 12 (summer months) for 72-80 hours of pay. - Up to 12 hours - 3-man crew (1CA/2 FO) with 3 even breaks...same math as tree. - 12+ hours - 4-many crew (2 CA/2FO) with 2 breaks per pilot. Usually short/long/long/short like was mentioned above. Short being 2-2.5 hours and the long being the remainder (usually 3+ hours). - Unless it's a odd, "one-of" type event we don't do 2-man crews across the Atlantic (under 8 hours). Always staffed with 3+. I would not get into the job for the travel benefits. Load factors are extremely high an even when they look good, they can change at a moments notice. Went to bed one night with my preferred flight having 60 open seats...woke up and the flight had been subbed with a smaller jet and was now oversold. This is not necessarily a "one-of" type thing. If it's just you (and/or a adventurous significant other), it can be great! That said, as a guy who has flown for a regional and now DAL, I can not think of any situation where going to the regional would be a better choice.

Oh man, TSPs...aka go fly CT on the other side of the globe. These have done more to kill morale in our squadron than anything. After multiple TSPs and potentially another one down the road, even our young guys have become jaded and said fuck it, if we're not going to do anything while, might as well go to the regionals to gain hours for the majors. Hard to disagree with their frustrations.

Smokin nailed it with his response. I guess you just have to ask yourself if you want the ability to fly WB international? As someone who flew the 737 for a few years, I am happy I had the choice to jump off of that jet. It's actually a pretty fun flying jet and very easy to hand fly, I just found it extremely archaic, uncomfortable and noisy...especially on 5+ hour transcons. I've since jumped to the 330 (all international) and I can't even begin to explain how much of a difference it is wrt to QOL. It's like I work for entirely different airline. Jets are always fixed, you're never in a rush, always start both engines on push, 3 to 4 pilots, 1 leg a day (between 7 and 14 hours), decent meal every leg, naps every leg (2-6 hours worth), no layovers shorter than 22ish hours, and 90%+ of the trips sign-in well after noon and sign out between 1300-1600 (if you're into commuting). In months I bid a line, I usually can work my schedule to get 9-12 days of work worth 74-96 hours of pay. When I've bid reserve, some months it was zero and one month they really busted my balls and worked me 13 days (outlier...average is ~6 days/month) for 72-80 hours of pay. If you can sit reserve from your house, it's about as good of a gig as I could ever imagine. I can sit short call from home, but often choose a line because I find it pairs better with my Guard schedule. I don't see myself going over to NB capt for a LONG time as I don't see the relatively small pay increase as worth it for the added work/responsibility. Not all, but many of the guys I fly with plan on staying in the right seat until they can hold the left seat. I've ran across more than few guys who bid over to NB capt only to come back to WB FO ASAP. Goodluck with your decision.

Couldn't agree more. I think the biggest issue out there is the expectations some squadrons put on their part times. I would argue that, outside of TDYs, anything over 5 days/month is excessive for a part-time force...especially if one day is a no-fly drill day. Some squadrons want up to 7-8 days/month which is beyond ridiculous and unsustainable. What you end up with is group of full timers who think that's OK and consider anything else min runners. I assume some squadron also got accustomed to this during the "lost decade," when everyone was begging to days/dollars. We're just finally trying to get back to the way it should be...even part time SQ/CC and OG/CC are making a come back.

HS2020 is not completely wrong wrt the hiding out comment. How many dudes do you know that got hired, consolidated then bounced to 2-5 years of orders? Guys that can't be bothered most of the year, but have no issues finding themselves some orders during the holiday season? Or never providing scheduling solid days of availability, but they sure know that they'll be out on 22Dec so they can drop that Christmas trip? That said, in my experience, some of the loudest full time airline bashers end up twice as bad once they themselves found an airline gig. I too was junior in the "lost decade." The only cycle I've see in my 18 years is a steady decline that seems to be continually picking up steam on its way down the hill. Things ARE worse and I'd venture to guess those types would still complain if they needed to come back on orders. Having a job where shit just works and you get paid properly/on time has a way of doing that to a person.

Honestly, it's really none of our business, and I think he's handling it rather well. I've heard from multiple people in the bro network that both the Col (even after O6 lobotomy) and the Capt are solid individuals, so I'm willing accept it at face value. People fuck up, but don't deserve the have their names drug through the mud over any misstep. It's a welcome change from the standard AF (or mainstream media in general) blast the accusation on the front page of every major news source, then retract it a year later....on the bottom left of the back page of the Sumter gazette. Here's hoping it's something that is recoverable careerwise and everyone can move on. I'm guessing if it weren't for threads like this, people would have already forgotten about it.

Why would it get sporty? The 2 conversions we just did were rather seamless and has left only 2 techs as the lone holdouts, but even they will convert soon enough. We've been hiring dudes off AD/Navy/Marines straight into AGR with the gentlemans handshake (or bonus) that they'll spend a few years AGR. We simply have no more room for part-timers.

I've ran a board or two and been on 6 or 7 hiring boards. Biggest piece of advice I can give is read each squadrons instructions thoroughly and do what it says...don't try to church it up thinking they'll appreciate it. We used to say place a single staple in the upper left corner and no protective covers. You wouldn't believe how many people would send there app in a spiral binding and plastic covering. We want the single staple because all we do is rip it out and run copies of your app for everyone on the board. Don't overthink it, I would just put it all on the same paper. More advice... - Be sure to double check your cover letter and recs. I've received more than one app that had a cover letter talking about their dream to fly a F-15s (or KC-135s)...I appreciate that, but we fly F-16s lol. Personally, I don't mind it because I remember being there and it shows me there applying elsewhere and this is probably someone who really wants it. - If you can go visit the squadron, do so! Multiple times if you can swing it and they're ok with it. Face time is great so all the guys can get to know you...puts a face with the app. - During the interview, be yourself. Don't tell us what you think we want to here (it's obvious), just answer the question the best you can. - Know the mission of jet you're applying to fly...not just that the F-16s shoots missiles and drops bombs. We don't expect you to recite doctrine, but have a little more understanding than just we go fast, pull-Gs and bomb bad guys. - Be prepared for an oddball questions or even to tell a funny story. Best of luck!

From what I can tell, the closest thing she has to part time is 3 years as an ART, in a unit attached to the AD...lol! I think the SQ/CC and/or the OG/CC should be a part time position. If you want to work your way up to state/national leadership that road should go through a stint as a part-timer with another job. On the flip side, not many part timers willing to take on those roles without a serious shedding of BS requirements that have accumulated since we've gone to a mostly full time leadership force. Fighter squadrons would have to bring back the AOO and assign a full time ADO, to share the workload of the OG and SQ/CC respectively. Whew, good thing my next paycheck is just from 15 days of mil orders and not from my next 3-day trip. I bet it was discussed and I have zero doubt that there were some that spoke up against it, but were ultimately shot down. Until people start voting with their feet, it's not a true problem. I'm not in the tanker community but I can see that having a few ARC wings switching to the KC-46 will cause some pain and understand something needs to give, but the decision to lengthen deployments AND deny swaps is just mind-boggling.

I think it was Huggy who said he fairly recently retired and never had a GTC, so I guess anything is possible. Start blazing that trail!

Based on some recent events I have gained a little bit of belief that ANG will tell the AD to pound sand on certain issues...but they still have a long way to go. Wrt manning, I know of a few squadrons who are sub-20s on the LOXs...these are units that also have alert. When the Montgomery dudes went on their 6-month to Afghanistan they got ZERO swaps. Fairly certain they lost a few dudes over that trip.

The problem with that model is actually having people to swap. Many squadrons are currently not very well staffed...some squadrons have a shockingly low number on the LOX's. So a 6 month trip with a 90 day swap isn't going to do much when you don't have people to swap with...guest help only goes so far. This is compounded when you still have an alert mission to fill back home. 100% agree on your last sentence.

Fighter bubba here, but we're basically sitting at 100 days gone every 19-22 months. We don't have enough swaps to allow everyone a swap, but it's over half. If they ever took that away, I see our manning going to shit in a hurry...especially if pushed further out to 120+ days. What's the cost savings when all your experience walks out the door?

Likely the most honest answer. Like so many things in the military. I've recently run into a few interesting examples of this where some places can do things while others can not do the exact same thing...all because of who is doing the auditing and how they are interpreting the laws. Beyond ridiculous!

Lol right! But seriously, we've been converting our techs to AGR for quite some time. Very few pilots want tech anymore...even with the pay raises. It's tough to entice AD guys with techs jobs. It's also impossible for airline guys to come back to help unless it's some kind of mil status. In my squadon, the more AGRs the better. Now if we can just get the big bonus down to a year in the ANG.

No swaps allowed? How often would an individual have to deploy? Interesting they think it won't have an impact on your manning, I guess time will tell.

Because the .govs red tape works at the pace of a tortoise. When we get the "new and improved DTS" in 16-19 years, you may be able to use these "new" and convenient things like orbitz and Turo.

Yes mother Delta has some heartburn with dudes logging pay cards while on reserve or even on a trip. They don't seem to like the idea of having two masters in the same day and the few reasons I have been fed are completely illogical and it's utter BS. WRT Threeholers post, I haven't seen anything that says it's illegal, but I've honestly not taken a deep dive into the rules on it. That said, I've been here over 4 years and have had zero issues wrt MLOA, of which I've taken a fair amount. In my experience, they get the dynamic nature of mil duty and occasional stuff here and there isn't even on the their radar. What really seems to burn them is consistent, strategic use of mloa to enhance your schedule. I was chatting with a tanker OG (AOO) today that has lots of part timer airline guys all over place. His anecdotal evidence pointed at Delta and FedEx as the most strict about MLOA, based on which company he heard from the most. Break break With respect to above posts about working mil around the airline. I found that on the NB, I needed to drop a trip or a few days of reserve a month to keep from feeling like I worked the entire month. Now that I'm on the WB, my schedules is so cush that I simply work at the Guard on my off days. 2x6-day (or 4x3-day) trips at DAL, then 4 days at the Guard. Living in base for both gigs is extremely helpful.

Unknown on MPA. I think that's title-10, so I'd assume so, but I can't answer that question.

They lowered the limit from 3 years to 2 years for the big bonus. Small bonus remains 15k. They further limited the type of orders, you must be perm AGR and NOT ADOS or temp AGR (you can bet stat tours are covered though...). Getting out of the bonus is up to TAG...you feeling lucky? I'm not willing to go into a signed contract with full intention of breaking it AND counting on the hope that TAG will approve such a curtailment.

If you're going to take >1 year orders anyway, take the big bonus for 2 years...bird in the hand. AFRC staff asked for 1 year and got it...why didn't the ANG Staff ask for the same? I wouldn't hold out much faith that it will change next year.

It looks like the Reserves allowed the big bonus down to 1 year sets of orders. Maybe next year the ANG guys will pull their heads out of their asses and do the same, though I'm not very optimistic.

Right! - Does anyone in Ivory tower even listen to the commoners/step foot outside of their tower? - I'll give them credit for nixing the one big bonus per career. - I could work as little as 9 days/month at DAL (13 days/month counting Guard duty) and I would still be taking a 15-30k paycut to take the bonus. This even accounts for the tax benefit of mil pay vs civ pay. - Most of our Perm AGRs are filled by dudes still under a UPT contract, thus not eligible. - We utilize temp AGR and ADOS to bring guys back on orders...here's hoping they'll waive the Perm AGR requirement. - We don't need a 1:1 pay exchange. But if you want us to come back to computer systems that barely run, epic battles with DTS, a system that seems to always be fighting you and fly the same as a part timer...it's going to have to be much better than 35k to sign on for 2-years (I understand 35k is the federal limit...by why not 1 year). - Unless they waive the Perm AGR thing, this bonus will likely do very little to help my squadron. - I would have jumped at a 35k/1-year bonus. - My 2018 DAL W2 was 22k more than what I'd make if I took the bonus right now...and I only worked at DAL 9 months that year...