SocialD

If true, DAL hasn't gotten the memo. They've continued to gut our squadron of full timers, even when a fair amount of the previous hires have gone back on 2-3 years of orders. There are also a fair amount of us who have no desire to go back on orders that are balancing it out for you future hires, come on over! 🇺🇸

But did he have to land it gear up as well? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/news/amp27761/belly-land-a-10-warthog/

Barons are going for north of $1M now...insane! https://www.controller.com/listings/aircraft/for-sale/28588129/2014-beechcraft-g58-baron

I thought it looked De Havilland, but you're right it's too small for a Beaver. Turns out it's a De Havilland U-1A Otter (thanks to the help of a friend).

Plane nerdery...anyone know that that is at 4:36. Looks like a AN-2 missing the lower wing.

I find the Massif jacket much better in the cockpit than our old school flight jackets. Only downside is everyone's jacket is starting to get ripped/worn through where the HMCS and oxygen clips to the harness. With the old jackets our AFE shop would sew a patch of leather on our sleeves...I doubt that works for the massif jacket. Small price to pay for comfort.

And most people don't build wealth by dropping 30k out of their savings to buy a car (...not smartly leveraging)....or with W2 income in general. I don't think about if I can afford something, I think how can I afford it. Why are you NOT using a cheap loan? If I buy a car (I recommend used use as well) for 30k @ 3% for 48 months, I'll have a payment of $660/month and pay a total of $1,800 in interest over the life of the loan. With that same 30k, I bought a rental property that nets me ~$700/month, after I pay all my expenses and account for mx/vacancy. For the first 48 months of my mortgage the tenant is paying ~$250/month in principle, which is just more cash (via equity) in my "pocket." This doesn't even take into account my tax savings, which has been huge! In that 48 months my investment has paid for that car (with 2k left over), earned me 12k in equity, saved me a quite a bit in taxes and has increased in value by 5 or 10k. Or I could pay 30k cash and have the same car that is still not worth what I paid for it. In general, I agree with you that if you're not going to do anything with that money, then yes save up and pay cash. However, if you're just the least bit motivated, there is so much more you can do with your money. That said, I still own the same compact to mid-size car that cost me 15k over 12 years ago as I left of UPT. I expect it will last another 10+ years as my airport car. Cars are not my thing...as long as it gets me A to B in relative comfort, I'm mostly happy. Agreed! His stuff is so basic for the average person on this forum, but for a HUGE portion of Americans it's absolutely needed. It's a great place to start to build a solid foundation, but that's it...a start.

Freeze yo credit!

12301d vs 12304b...real world equivalent of the blue pill or red pill.

Neil trap!

What Herkbum said, and for clarification, SPP = state partnership for peace (google it). Of course it's highly dependent upon what country your state is partnered with, on whether it's a good deal or not. Ours happens to be in one of my favorite cities in Eastern Europe. If I hadn't got hired at the airlines when I did, I would have been lobbying hard for that gig. As always timing is key.

As others have said already, yes they can. If you want a staff gig right now it's likely yours. Ping your OG, I'm guessing they are getting plenty of emails with opportunities. If your state partner nation is a good country, the BAO gig is one of the best kept secrets out there.

Whatever came of that court martial/pilot?

Yup, TONS of opportunities out there if you're willing to travel or leave your airframe. Our OG seems to send out emails monthly with opportunities. The really scary ones are the ones asking not just for IPs, but simply Flight leads to help AD squadrons. The Guard has some pretty awesome hidden gems, one I was willing to give up flying for 2-3 years to do...before I got hired at the airlines.

=

Highly dependent upon your FM. I could go on for pages about fucked up shit when FM builds an empire. I would be happy if they could just figure out how to get it so everyone on the TDY could get reimbursed for rental car gas on their GTC, they didn't arbitrarily just reject vouchers without querying us, and they didn't seem to fight us on every little thing.

Yup, lots of interesting peeps in the enlisted force in the Guard. I knew one who is a self made millionaire, a few who were legacy airline pilots, one who was doing their residency while still an E-6 and an E-9 whose company easily makes him more than a 4-star. We have some great people doing some pretty awesome things out there.

Hmmmm, ALPA... Nice subliminal messaging.

...at low threat CAS. The bad part is you’ve treated your people so badly that all your experience has left, leaving you to relearn the same lessons over and over…the hard/expensive way. You have active duty OGs begging the Guard to send experienced FLIGHT LEADS (not just IPs), to come help with their upgrades. Yes, this is EXACLY it! Just the other day we were commenting about our diversity (or lack thereof) and how much it’s impacting the tactical prowess of the squadron! DUBYA TEE EFF!!! Yes, yes it is! But please, keep denying the big bonus for 1 year orders, it’s really helping the situation… Also, keep denying us full ACIP even though we, as part timers, maintain the same currencies and fly as much as a full timer/AD guy. Yes, I love “deploying” for over 4 months to go fly TRAINING lines on NON-contingency orders (blue pill 12301D vs red pill 12304B). Made even better by sending me to a location with terrible weather and terrible navaids causing us to cancel more than we fly. Why am I taking this massive pay cut again? SO MUCH MEANING!!! I love the insinuation that I get no meaning from my Delta job. On the contrary I quite enjoy the gig. I get people (to include mil charters) where they want to go and I fly with lots of great people, including lot of former mil guys. On my last trip, at the hotel bar I ran into a buddy from an Afghanistan deployment. We hit the town with both our crews and had a blast. The hotel bar is like a reunion every time I go and is always fun. The crazy part is none of us worry about if we’ll have to fight to get paid properly or if we’ll have to jump through hoop after hoop just to make shit function normally. Then we all get to go home and spend a metric fuck ton of time doing what we want to do with our 18-21 days off per month. Bonus, I also have shit ton more money to do the things I like to do with my awesome amount of free time. I’ll tell you what, I do get some meaning out of all this. Today I get to go give an incentive ride to a top-notch engine troop who is a longtime friend from my enlisted days. This will be the most meaningful thing I’ve done in a long time…and I “deployed” this year. Let’s just hope it doesn’t get ruined by a “higher priority," since the AD technically has TACON (or some kind of CON) of our jets for right now.

Cathy is still there?!?! Place is going to fall apart when she finally retires (I think she's already retired militarily).

As a Maj coming off AD, AGR is a no-brainer and you're right it would highly depend upon the squadron. I'm talking a younger guys who just finished the FLUG in an alert squadron. We have Captains that still have 4 years until their ADSC expires (thus no AGR bonus for a while) who are making 60-70k more as a GS than they would as an AGR. They will work on a Friday (non workday for us) here and there and sit a 3ish alerts a month (AGRs sit 4-7/month). Even with that they only work an extra day or 2 more than most AGRs and sleep in their own beds more than our AGRs (ref...alert). I used to be the biggest hater of technician status. However, the 25% bonus and alert are game changers. If I'm a young guy who thinks they're going to go to the airline anyway I'm going technician, cash is King!

If you're looking for the pay tables. Pilots are paid at the 2181 (aircraft operator) rate. Click here and scroll all the way down to the bottom of the Occupation drop down. Then click on 0558 (0558A = Alaska, 0558H = Hawaii, 0558P = anywhere else NOT CONUS). Historically, wingman/FL started out at GS-12 step 1 and IPs started out at GS-13 step 1. As I mentioned in my previous post, they're now giving brand new flight leads GS-13 step 1 (with a tech bonus). If someone came off active duty with more quals (FAC-A/WO/etc..), and wanted a technician spot, some squadrons have been successful in bringing them in at a much higher step. Not certain, but I think we secured at GS-13 step 6 or 7 for a guy before. Each base/state is different so ymmv. If I remember correctly you moved up in steps via the following...1 year for steps 1-3, 2 years for steps 4-6, 3 years 7-9. That said, there are ways to step dudes up faster, but your leadership has to be willing to do that and there are some limitations on how often it can be done. From what I've seen with the this, is it can vary wildly depending on squadron leadership and state HRO. It used to be that our leadership rarely ever "quick stepped" (not sure of the proper term), but another Viper squadron in the state did it as a standard practice. As a technician you also get 48 UTAs, 36 AFTPs and 15 days of AT orders a year. These pay cards are worth 1/30th of your base pay + flight pay. If your squadron has an alert det you can also work that for some extra pay days. With all these extras, I think our techs are easily able to make an extra 35-50k+ on top of their base GS-13 pay. We do 4 day work weeks so that makes it easier for techs to make extra $$$. Also, our home station alert offers unique opportunities to make extra as well...without ending up like Fresno lol. If I were are young guy under the new retirement system and I could snag a GS-13 early, I would consider that over an AGR. With a step or two, the mil pay, current bonus and double dipping, you could easily be making over 150k as a young Captain. This becomes an easy decision if you plan on going to the airlines soon anyway. I'll take the extra cash now over a few extra retirement points (or whatever they get under the new system) for when I turn 60. If I were a guy coming of AD under the old system then I'd clearly want an AGR. Just remember that the taxman cometh with civ vs mil pay. I should caveat this entire post with the fact that in my 17 years in the ANG, I've been in pretty much every status you can be in BESIDES technician. I have just learned A LOT about it over the years and have seen it work for some.

LOL, I remember hearing about that program when an AFRC buddy said they wanted him to go GS-9. At the same time, the Guard wanted me to go GS-12 step 1 or pound sand, which was a significant pay cut itself...can't imagine what GS-9 was like. So I said fuck it, if I'm going to take a pay cut I'll go to a regional so I can build time faster. Now they're handing out GS-13 (sometimes with a few steps) to brand new flight leads. With the bonus, mil pay and a few alerts here and there, these dudes are pulling in some good cash. Still not worth it to spend a majority of your time behind a desk pissed off that the network is down, yet again, while trying to email off that .xls/.ppt you've been working on all morning...all while flying as much as a part-timers. Last month I made more in a 3 day trip than I would have as an AGR (or GS-13) for an entire month.

Just finished the last episode. I think it has great potential, but I am scratching my nugget on that subplot as well.