Lots of good discussion. Back to the "Fly when you can, log what you need" mentality. As a very new copilot, one of the more seasoned IPs told me that as long as you had a sharp pencil, you should never be non-current. I thought that was a good idea for a few weeks and then realized I was actually hurting myself at the very least, bending metal and risking lives at the extreme end. You are short-changing yourself on training. There were numerous months as a copilot where I flew only once for about 6 hours. Most of that duration was spent with the autopilot on at 30,000 feet and maybe had an approach or two at the end. I'm not really sure how we call ourselves the worlds most powerful air force when our junior guys are getting 1 flight a month. On the other hand, I've seen guys land 30 min earlier than the duration allowed because they just wanted to be done flying for the day. You'd better believe that if they give me a jet for a 5.0, I'll fly that for duration allowed to maximize the sortie. If we continue to land a little early each time, all this is showing the higher ups is that we don't really need all these flying hours.
Another thing we're seeing as a result of less local flights is they are throwing 5 pilots on a jet, flying for 5 hours and calling it good. They are making RAP with a few approaches and a sortie with just maybe an hour or so in the seat. Or you get 5 minutes on the boom...but hurry up cause we have to get these other guys AR current as well. On paper, they are current and that looks great on the excel tracker. However we all know that currency does not equal proficiency. Guess we're just going to have to wait until they can figure out how to make a proficiency matrix and throw it on a powerpoint slide for the OG. This 'do more with less' BS does not work in the aviation world. I look around the squadron and wonder where our experience is....