Danny Noonin

Danger will Robinson. If you are indeed that young you are not necessarily going to be super competitve for the airlines. Little hiring with tons of way more experienced dudes in line before you. I'm not saying you can't get hired but you definitely have an uphill climb. Point#2 realize that when you submit your palace chase, you've showed your cards to big blue. Don't count on being taken care of after that. Lots of non flying/unmanned requirements that would leave you non current and therefore non competitive to get hired at an airline later. Not trying to talk you out of anything, but you definitely need to think this one through. It isn't just a "worst they can say is no" scenario. It can get worse than that.

It's not a choice between a $500/per flying hour T-38 with no radar and a $10-15,000 per flying hour 4th gen fighter adversary. It's a choice between T-38 and nothing. The only reason this is even on the table is because the airframes were free to acquire and they are super cheap to operate.

Same kind of gig will be happening at Langley. Holloman still has T-38s left over from the stinkbug days too

from what I know that may be tough for an ART job. The problem is with the GS half of the job not the mil part. Probably not a specific enough answer to be helpful to help you but i've heard several anecdotal stories that make it seem like a pain in the ass. Recommend you start the paperwork early and aggressively push the rope

typically, so long as there has been a bid since you left, you can pick whatever seat/jet/domicile you can hold...as if you had been there for the bid try talking to your union guys. They'll know the deal at your company

By "we" you mean "you." Some people still do them. they are not difficult.

huh?

overpaid or not, why is anyone auditing PCS vouchers from 4+ years ago? Don't they have enough recent stuff to look over to verify that it's right?

Almost as strong a comeback as the old Costanza line "yeah, well the jerk store called and they're running out of you!"

It depends. If you turn down IDE, then you've essentially shown your hand since very few people turn down IDE in res. Basically you'll just be in the assignment pool with everyone else. I wouldn't expect them to reward you with a good deal or choice assignment after that instead of taking care of the dudes who plan on staying in. I'm not saying anyone will be out to punish you, but you have to look at it from the bigger picture perspective of the dudes making those decisions. There are so many bad deals out there, they might not want to burn one of the few good deals on you. They are going to save them for the guys whose careers they still need to worry about, since there already more good dudes than there are good deals. Showing your hand that far out from your ability to separate puts you in a bad spot. As for being burned out, a year working half days with no deployments at Maxwell may be just the thing you need to recharge. Most dudes are burned out when they show up there. Few dudes I've talked to are still burned out after that year. Maybe a change of pace/scenery/lifestyle would help. Just a thought. By my math, you can't even separate until about your 15 year point. Are you sure you don't want to suck up 5 more years to get paid to breathe for the rest of your life? I think if you got out 75% of the way to retirement and didn't pick up an AGR guard/reserve job (which is tough to find, especially for a 15 yr guy), you will look back on that as the single worst financial decision of your life, though I agree money isn't the only (or even the primary) consideration to stay/go. But in this case, you'd be turning down benefits worth a TON. Pension and healthcare benefits for life in exchange for only 5 more years of work. Think about it.

I understand your suspicion of the personnel system, but in this case I really think that it just doesn't matter which option you choose. Neither will affect you getting another job, change your benefits, impact guard/reserve hiring, or affect any chances at recall to active duty.

If you're in an O-5 slot and you get selected for O-5 on the promotion board, then you get promoted. The quota is met via the slots allocated. You can serve in an O-5 slot as an O-4, but can't serve in an O-4 billet as an O-5. BL...still have to meet a board for O-5 with a PRF and everything (i.e. it's not simply time in grade), but you also have to be in a slot that allows you to get promoted. TIG is only used (to my knowledge) to determine which board you meet. If you are an O-4 in an O-4 slot, then your O-5 board is about 3 years after your REGAF active duty peers meet their primary O-5 board and it is called your "mandatory promotion board"...if selected, it still means nothing unless you find an O-5 slot to hire you. If you are an O-4 in an O-5 slot, then your O-5 board is a year or so earlier than the mandatory board date and you can pin on once selected. I could be wrong on some of those details, but that's my understanding.

As for the bonus, you'll have to read the ACP announcement to be sure, but I don't see why not. You don't have to be in a flying billet to get the bonus, but you have to meet certain eligibiltiy requirements (years of aviation service, have aeronautical orders, etc). The agreement is available on the REAMO site...to to the AF portal, look for career guard/reserve on the right, got to Active Guard/Reserve Management Office and look for the ACP link. That's all from memory, so I might be off a little in the navigation. The bonus varies depending on how long ago you graduated UPT. Currently, between 10 and 14 years of aviation service will get you the 4 yr, 25K bonus. More than 14 years gets you a 3 year/15K bonus. You can re-up for more 2 year stints up to a certain number of years of aviation service, based on your commitment, but you have to remain eligible for aeronautical orders throught the entire time of your bonus, i.e. you have to have met your gate months. As for promotions, when I signed the paperwork for my job, one of the things I signed was that I would not seek out a higher grade job for at least 2 years (on a 4 year tour). Not sure if you signed one of those or not. I'm told there are ways around that piece of paper/2 year requirement, but not sure. You will meet the mandatory LTC board eventually even if you are sitting in a Maj billet, but even if/when selected you won't be allowed to pin on until you are actually in a LTC billet. You don't have to complete your full 4 year set of orders before you seek out another job, so you if you see an AGR LTC job that interests you, you can apply for it and even PCS/PCA if required. Turns out there aren't that many AGR LTC billets out there. The list narrows if you aren't wanting to PCS. Hope that helps.

T-clone costs depend on how you do the accounting. The true costs are spread out among many pots of money. But it's WAY more than 50 grand in the end. They pay for their own rooms. I think they needed 56 rooms at our show. 90 bucks a room x 4 nights. That's 20 grand in rooms alone...for one show. The airshow pays for their cars (or get them donated, but that's tough in this economy). Something like 30 cars x say 40 bucks x 4 days is ballpark 5 grand. The airshow also pays for their smoke oil. $600 per barrel. Approx one barrel per jet, per show. Not kidding. 2 shows plus a practice works out to over 10 grand in smoke. The airshow also foots miscellaneous other costs...their own tent, tables, chairs, etc. but that's only a couple grand. We're at probably 37 grand already. All in all, they are expensive for the obvious costs. The not obvious costs are the killer. Now throw in airlift to get their stuff there. Generally 1 C-17 or 2 C-130s. Plus gas/flying hour costs for the heavy(s). Plus Per diem/rooms/cars for the crew(s). Now throw in the same costs for tankers that they get on the way to most of their shows. All of that is still chump change. If you want the true costs, take their annual budget + flying hour program + AF costs (personnel costs to the AF, Tricare, facility costs, civilian support staff, plus fuel, parts, oil, mx, etc) and divide that by the number of shows per year and you reach a number that is obscene. That's what it really costs to put on a show. If the public ever knew the total costs they would flip, no matter how cool they think the show is. I'm not advocating getting rid of them. Not even close. I actually like their shows, regardless of how much I make fun of them and their leotards. They are good dudes (mostly) who work ridiculously hard for 2 years and I think they are the biggest recruiting asset we have. Tell me you didn't love watching them when you were a kid. Tell me you don't stop even today and watch their show if they're in town. They are incredibly effective at their purpose. They are just expensive.

You mean the "incident" that was already linked in the first post of the thread?

Valid. Except for the moron and the woman parts. My bad on the rest. If you're having a good time, then good on you. You're the second person I've ever heard of that hasn't despised that place. As for the craptors, yes. They realized with limited production it was inefficient to spread them out so much, sts. They are basically consolidating jets in fewer places and upping the PAAs.

I never compared 3 squadrons to 5 flying remote billets. You did. You said there were no Eagle remotes. I pointed out the inaccuracy of that statement. Quit being a woman and trying to read into things. And are you fuking shtting me? A remote to Saudi is living the good life? What planet are you living on? Have you ever been to that country? Living in a cinder block "villa" in the middle of the 120 deg desert, with no other bros around, surrounded by people who hate you, flying jets maintained by saudis, in a formation filled with saudis? Awesome. Sign me up. Oh wait, they did.

Iceland was a remote. Saudi still is a remote.

Brabus, dude, you're killing me. Aren't you a friggin wingman?!? You have no standing to speak for "the fighter world." You need to act like a good wingman sometimes and STFU, especially when you have no idea what you're talking about as in this case.

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They're both worthless in the civilian world. If post-AF employment is at all one of the reasons you are getting a masters, then get a real one from a real school that actual civilians attend also.

Gimme a break. No one acts like it's their "right" to live in a good location. But what's wrong with wanting to live in one? Are you even married? Wives don't get to fly every day. They don't get to do things that "contribute directly to the fight." They're stuck trying to raise the kids and/or find a job in the local area. Pretty tough to find reasonable employment relative to education in some of these places. So they end up facing down the majority of the "suck" at places like Cannon while we go off and do the j-o-b. They at least get the right to complain about it.

Wow. I'm hoping that's a weak attempt at sarcasm. If not, I bet your flight boots are really shiny and you are wearing an academy ring right now. You apparently are fine with tossing common sense out the window in favor of strict adherence to "the rules." The friggin cop knocked on his door at 2 in the morning to tell him his car was parked wrong. It wasn't on fire, it wasn't blocking traffic, it wasn't unsafe. It was parked in the wrong direction. Big whoop. The fact that he was in pilot rest is really an irrelevant part of the story. The issue is whether a cop should wake ANYONE up in the middle of the night because a car is parked in the wrong direction. Doesn't matter if you're a pilot flying the next day or an A1C working in finance. No one should have to put up with that kind of crap. Are you telling me that you wouldn't be royally pissed off if that cop knocked on your door in the middle of the night? So whether the cop should or should not have known he was in pilot rest is irrelevant.

Flight pay, BAH, etc. It happens. I've got old LES's to prove it.

https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/pilot-health/20692-motion-sickness.html some good advice here too.