nunya

Hold out for spec ops fighter pilot. It’s the best of all worlds for the best of the best of the best to live your best life.

FIFY.

I don’t disagree. Sounds like a great gig. Delta is hiring a couple hundred a month. AZANG? Lots of dudes will have to settle for Delta instead of GS-13.

I completely agree, but I don't have a good answer. Do we kick it back and demand full retro because to accept less is a dangerous precedent? Do we take the pay and "get em next time?" What will the mediator say if we kick it back? I wasn't in the room, but my 69th hand information is that she wouldn't be thrilled. Does that even matter? Do we go to self-help over retro? I believe Congressional interference in the recent railway dispute bodes poorly for what little RLA leverage we had. Like I said, I've got no answers.

One of the reps wrote a newsletter angry that it's not "full retro" meaning the full raise effective and back-paid to the amendable date. A group is mad the pay rates are lower than the 2000 contract adjusted for inflation. The health insurance isn't as good as FedEx and SWA. The company 401k contribution is only 18% in a couple years and not higher. I've heard guys say they wanted up to 25%. The argument was that an old pension plan didn't require you to put money in, so they want the company to max 401ks for every pilot without pilot contributions. That's $66k for 2023, so you can easily max it out, but you have to make $367k for the company's portion to do it for you. My gut says it'll pass easily.

An older group nearing retirement wants/wanted a lump sum to make up for their terminated pension because they feel like they lack time to make up the difference with the “new” 401k system.

This thread is about to get worthwhile.

The regionals aren’t the ones awarding you your R-ATP, the FAA is. And they explicitly say follow 61.51 rules. https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/pilots/training/atp/ATP_AME_Job_Aid_GA.pdf

Yes, that was my point, but without the negative implication. At the low end of the industry, PIC = FAR 61.51 PIC. If you are looking at low end CFI or banner flying jobs and they ask you for your PIC, you give them the FAR 61.51 number, including sole manipulator. If you're applying at FedEx, they will specify that you only give them the I-signed-for-the-aircraft number. To your original question… You’ll probably have 300-400 hours when you finish UPT and training. Your clearest path to aviation industry profit after UPT is to whore yourself out to every TDY, deployment, and exercise you can to get 750 on the .mil dime, no matter your airframe. Once you get 750, go to a regional and the path from there is pretty well established. If you want to go a non-airline route, there are many, many paths through the woods. They're much less established and will take networking legwork, but they can certainly be more interesting than DFW-OKC.

That depends on who is defining PIC and what the definition of is is.

https://www.swapa.org/news/2022/two-legacies/

Let's try an academic exercise, starting with defining a few terms. Differing definitions will certainly lead to differing conclusions. Dead beat dad: A dad that doesn't fight for his family, abandons them, or otherwise does not fulfill the role expected of a father. Dead beat mom: A mother that doesn't fight for her family, abandons them, or otherwise does not fulfill the role expected of a mother. Your argument is that dead beat dads are bad and should not be legally empowered to do dead beat dad things. I will ass-u-me that you also believe dead beat moms should not be legally empowered to do dead beat mom things. Is abortion a dead beat mom thing?

Easier said than done, but the sooner you can adopt a nihilist view of the AF "system," the better. Allow me to wax poetic as an old guy for a minute. I don't mean unprofessionalism towards our craft. I don't mean disrespect for your wingman. I don't even mean insubordination. If you want a masters, great. Get it. If you don't want it, don't get it. The AF might kick you out as a passed over Major at 20 years. Ok. Your check of the month will be $600 less and the gate guard might not salute you quite as crisply when you go to the commissary during retiree hour. Or don't wait around to find out and get out at 12 years. I'd encourage you to go to the ARC, but if you don't want to, don't. If the AF is a lifelong calling for you, great. If it's just a job for your 20s, great. The system doesn't care which camp you're in - it'll be just fine without you and you'll be just fine without it. Your work ethic, intelligence, and expectation of success puts you heads and shoulders above your workplace competition. Unless you go looking for that hot girl Molly, you won't end up homeless on the streets of Portland. If you're panicking about your promotion opportunities with this new bait and switch, I encourage you to go create a LinkedIn account. Seriously. Go look at who's doing ok in the world. Find and follow the people that you think have made it. Masters or not. Promotion or not. You'll be ok.

All the airlines I'm familiar with have something like this. While there are certainly stories of off-days being ruined by a gate agent handing you a junior/inverse/whatever assignment, the dirty secret is that it's often voluntary and pays up to double. At my airline, it used to be they call and if you answer, it’s yours. So don’t answer. Now they call and a recording says call us back if you want it. Not exactly the way I was tagged via email involuntarily for Afghanistan.

I don't get your point. It's the same place that says the AF needs stealth, the Army needs dune buggies, and the Navy needs fleshlights. The puzzle palace people wrote a requirements report, lobbied, and got it approved. If you're arguing the Marines don't need VTOL to accomplish their mission, ok, argue that VTOL is unnecessary and the Marines should have CVs. If you're arguing the Navy can provide the required airpower, that's incorrect.

Public Law 416. Until that gets changed, the Marines are required to have entirely organic capabilities.

Disclaimer: I don't vouch for the tactical prowess of the concept, WEZ, range, etc. They talk about a more distributed force vs single center of gravity mega-carrier and better maneuver (33% less draft).

Yeah, that's not how that works. https://news.usni.org/2022/04/05/marines-load-record-16-f-35bs-aboard-uss-tripoli-test-of-lightning-carrier-concept

I was definitely a travel agent way before I was a USAF pilot. Hotels for the crew, check. Cars for the crew, check. Oh wait, Andrews rental car place closed at noon. Ok, we'll call three taxis. Taxi driver got arrested trying to come through the gate. Can I hitchhike to the off base rental car center? DTS approver wants to know why I didn't get a u-drive. Ok, hand it all in 14 hours later. What's that Eng? We're broke? Ok, I'll get our cars back. Let's see if the hotel has rooms - wait - it's Friday night. Now I put on my lawyer hat because the load just called from jail.

I gotta change my LinkedIn profile. “Senior C-Suite Executive executing executables and delivering deliverables on time and on target.”

Sounds like they took reasonable precautions to avoid injury or damage to persons or property.

Certainly plausible. His belly-up-ness struck me first, too.

Not a fighter guy but incredible experience. Seems like he lived and breathed this stuff from childhood. https://www.toratoratora.com/pilots-bio/craig-hutain

A rejoin is a skill taught to UPT students 4 months into training with 6-9 hours of formation flying experience. That's the wrong question. The question is what went wrong that a guy that has done thousands of rejoins in dozens of aircraft suddenly screws it up? And my experience tells me the answer has a lot more to do with human factors (rushing, distraction, medical, etc) than experience or skill.

It’s gotta be a serious passion project. There’s no financial or family reason I can think of to do it. You do get to do some cool shit in mil flying, but most of that you can do civilian, too, and turn it off and on as you feel like it.