Stoker

It's the cost of a small fleet, though there are still a lot of common parts sources for the -10 thanks to MD-10s and -11s flying freight. The real issue, I think, is that the maintenance was cut during sequestration and now the -10s are in a deep, expensive hole - theyd rather focus on new, shiny planes even if the 46 isn't up to the same tasks.

Weren't the estimated flow times looking like 8-10 years before the current airline crisis? Realistically, if the airlines get back to hiring at a pace to make flows from a regional take less than a decade, a pilot with a year or two of regional time plus military heavy time shouldn't be waiting around for the flow.

It is far more socially acceptable in some circles to spend your late twenties making $6000 a year studying political science so that you can teach political science. Grad school numbers don't indicate intelligence, possibly quite the opposite. "If we were good at life, we wouldn't need more school."

Hey, I passed the last one! CAP isn't a bad thing. It got to the point in my T-6 flight where all but me and another student were on CAP. We all made it.

I have five months of seasoning and then a deployment in short order thereafter. So hopefully I'll be able to get the remaining 100 hours in that time. Depending how how much Corona slows things down, and how long the Federal civilian employment process takes, I may have a couple months of TR-ing in there, but at this point I'd be fine with that. I'm looking forward to taking my first vacation on a date of at least partially my own choosing, in three years.

I'm basically being told not to apply for TDART until I have the 300 hours. They count sim and Other time, so for me I only need about another 100 during the five months of MQT.

Given how the current airline hiring environment is looking, don't expect anybody to be in a hurry to fix anything about the ART program. As far as big blue is concerned, they've solved the pilot shortage. My biggest complaint about the ART is the time off issue. Everyone seems to have grand plans for getting paid from two sources on the same day, getting UTA on top of civil pay, etc., but ask if there's a way to avoid working 12 days straight once a month and people look at you like you have three heads.

We've only know for the past hundred years of aviation that more flight time directly correlates to better pilots. At least on the T-1 side at UPT, how much more likely is a former airline pilot with 3,000 hours to DG than someone whose first time at the controls was in IFT? I showed up to my squadron out of UPT and they referenced the 250 hours I received there. They didn't realize I got slightly more than half of that. So people can complain about the declining quality, and maybe it's true that we younger folks just suck, but it's also a disconnect between resources expended "back in the day" versus now.

Does the ROK claim sovereignty over the whole peninsula? I didn't think so, and it seems like most political parties are very much pro status quo as basically nobody in the South wants to shoulder any portion of the massive burden rebuilding the north would be. They see how difficult it was (and still is!) when Good Germany annexed East Germany, and the disparity in wealth, education, and political systems were all far smaller than South Korea vs. North Korea.

I'm not so sure they did. I was really expecting to see some move to surge the number of healthcare workers, and it doesn't seem like that's happened. I think New York let NYU's graduating medical school class practice a few months early, but otherwise nothing. It's too bad a big portion of the stimulus wasn't a "How to be a COVID-19 healthcare support worker" program for newly unemployed people, maybe with the course counting for credit towards an RN after the emergency is over.

Yikes. That sounds like the 340th for me. Guard does the same thing as AD, so I don't know why the Reserves would be different.

Getting an instrument rating now is probably not worth the money; I didn't have one before I went and I did better than some people who did (and worse than others who had even less time). Enjoy your free time and ability to travel, because with the current environment it seems like you're gonna be stuck on/near base even during the weekends. I wouldn't even really bother wasting money maintaining currency - you're gonna have so many delays and gaps before you start in T-6s that it won't really be relevant, and honestly a single ride in the IFT is probably better prep for flying a T-6 than a dozen hours in a Cessna. When you get there, find more advanced students and actively learn from them. My biggest mistake at UPT was waiting until I failed at something before getting someone's advice on how to learn it. I went to my dollar ride with very little clue of what would actually be expected on the ride - it's very student driven, the IP isn't going to tell you "OK now go do this, no perform this maneuver, etc." and that threw me.

It's not just that it's their right to do the bad things; it's also their right to have someone else pay for it (be it their employer via health insurance, the government, or the hospital).

Strategically, the pilots are wanting to hold the line based on their past bankruptcy experiences. Any compromise on pay and benefits now, and a Federal bankruptcy judge will use that compromise as a starting point for new terms and conditions later. It's better to go into bankruptcy from a strong position than a weak one.

Basically the argument is that no self-quarantine is going to be perfect. There will always be breaches. The social distancing / economic shutdown is intended to spread these breaches over a long period, so that when a vulnerable person does get it, they're not showing up to a hospital already overwhelmed by other sick, vulnerable people.

15,000 families in a city of 1.5 million want food assistance, not necessarily need. It's like when Florida has the National Guard passing out MREs and bags of ice during a hurricane; people will line up for hours for free stuff even though the Publix right behind the distribution site is open and stocked.

I'm in the same boat, with 40+ days right now. I've been told that I can take leave to stay at home (despite already being on a work from home status).

Because people wearing gloves don't wash their hands or use hand sanitizer. It's a false sense of security.

Yeah, those countries' stay-at-home-orders were "stay at home, if you come out you're going to jail." Not our version where you go pick up some baking supplies, play some basketball at the community center, hit the gym, go touch some playground equipment, etc., etc. Ours will work at flattening the curve, but you're not gonna suppress the virus that way.

The problem is if it makes you think you're safe(r), you're more likely to engage in hazardous activity. Plus, touch your face a ton fixing the mask. It's like people wearing gloves, it makes people feel safe and all but guarantees they aren't washing their hands.

This is going to have the effect, intentionally or not, of reducing the reported caseload, making containment efforts look more effective. And of course, making the death rate look even worse.

I'm not normally one for government getting into the private sector... but if we're basically admitting our acquisition strategy is "dump money into the giant hole until it's full", maybe we should just buy Boeing Defense and run it ourselves. Could it be worse?

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/490979-sailors-cheer-navy-captain-who-was-removed-after-pleading-for-help-with When's the last time a unit started spontaneously cheering for a fired commander?

He knew he was getting fired the moment he sent that letter. Which, IMO, makes him the kind of person you'd want to be in charge.

It's not just AETC, many government agencies and individuals are totally fine with telling others to sacrifice their businesses, lifestyles, and jobs to fight the virus but don't feel they need to make any changes themselves. It's basic game theory, if everyone else social distances and you don't, that's the best case scenario for you. How many commanders calls have been held since we were told to not gather in groups?