The new NGB RUTA policy...

[Gazmo]

Anyone else hear about the new RUTA policy? You can no longer submit your own RUTA in AROWS anymore. Your supervisor must submit it. I also overheard some hallway talk about us only being able to make up one UTA per FY and will lose the cash for any others, but just get points? I didn't totally absorb the details. Looking for credible answers if you are in the know.

[herkbum]

The new ANGI 36-2001 came out toward the end of April and does make it more difficult for RUTAs. But I have not seen or read anything about only making up 1, but I haven’t finished reading it yet.


Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

[SocialD]

I was wondering what was up when I logged into ARROWS and couldn't find rescheduled drill in the drop down.  There was a policy update or reminder sent out a few months back about how making up UTAs is not supposed to be the norm.  It will be interesting to see if NGB plays hard ball on this wrt pilots.  For the average enlisted Guardsman, it makes sense...drill weekend is what it's all about and time for them to get their training en masse.  But to force pilots, to show up to drill just because it's drill is beyond ridiculous.  Who is making these decisions?  

[nunya]

IMA Recruiter: "Hey, NGB, I'm hurting on my quarterly numbers.  Think you can hook a brotha up?"

NGB: "Yeah, sure, watch this."

 

[Gazmo]

IMA Recruiter: "Hey, NGB, I'm hurting on my quarterly numbers.  Think you can hook a brotha up?"
NGB: "Yeah, sure, watch this."

 

Exactly. I wish A3 would pull their heads out of the sand. Let's see - deployments, trips, non-collocated sim training, 4+ day exercises, airline training, etc. and we can't make up more than one UTA per year? They are sure making it a hard sell for the old and tired.

[gearhog]

Our CC told us the same. A rescheduled drill period must be processed as if you are requesting orders. One rescheduled drill per year for pay. You can miss more than one drill, but just won't be able to reschedule them.

What the hell is NGB thinking?  Give traditionals a $20K/5yr bonus with one hand, then bitchslap them with the other. 

[Gazmo]

Our CC told us the same. A rescheduled drill period must be processed as if you are requesting orders. One rescheduled drill per year for pay. You can miss more than one drill, but just won't be able to reschedule them.
What the hell is NGB thinking?  Give traditionals a $20K/5yr bonus with one hand, then bitchslap them with the other. 

Well how did you think they were going to pay for those bonuses?!

[SocialD]

Turns out it's not as bad as we think, rescheduled drill approval will be at the CC level as long as they are at the benefit of the government.  If we forced everyone to show up for drill, we'd had have a bunch of non-current dudes because we just don't have the capacity to fly them all...and our part-timers are not going to come out even more days/month.  On to huge upside we're getting 72 AFTPs, with a max 24/qtr.  So as long as it's not another bait & switch like a few years ago, this change should be rather positive.

[AirGuardianC141747]

Time will tell cuz Uncle Shuga don’t give deals without an unknown side event. Someone will always take a back seat. That bait & switch was horrible. We tried for more RUTAs back in the day to secure valid points, but it seems the 72 was shifted to the AFTPs which isn’t a total loss by any means. Great for the Bums, but I doubt the 3 year and beyond large airline folks will capitalize on this encouragement regarding $ value, but the ability to pop holes in their schedules will definitely be more enticing, especially if they live near their unit. If you happen to be at both domicile and unit, more power to you - well done!

Hopefully your CC’s aren’t Richard Craniums and all goes well...

*If you are held to one makeup drill only, that ain’t pretty, that hurts, that’s wrong! 

Edited May 13, 2019 by AirGuardianC141747

[Guardian]

What’s the reference for the increase in AFTP’s?

[Guardian]

What’s the reference for the increase in AFTP’s?

[herkbum]

What’s the reference for the increase in AFTP’s?

ANGI 36-2001


Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

[AirGuardianC141747]

While this 2 cents may belong on a retirement thread I will state a viewpoint that has  reinstated itself during the past decade plus of increasing AD retirements and “I have 20 good years” by the Guard & Reserve.

Increase pay types such as AFTPs gains more proficiency for our forces without any backpay towards retirement. Very smart bean counter strategies.

If you achieved an AD retirement via the separate point system, then your other points are thrown on top of your total AD points and it is a significant increase of retirement pay dependent upon how many you have.

As supporting info, the DoD will not offer or change retirement systems to benefit the individual. Giving you cash now without any strings attached (not having to pay you til you die) is a business model. Hence, only one makeup RUTA is a screw job...

More AFTPs not RUTAs = cost savings, Redux, Blended retirement system, RIF, etc.

Military spends money, civilians make money - but the military is getting better at their oversight and starting to parallel the civilian sector regarding cost savings, but forgetting we are here to break sh*t...

[Gazmo]

While this 2 cents may belong on a retirement thread I will state a viewpoint that has  reinstated itself during the past decade plus of increasing AD retirements and “I have 20 good years” by the Guard & Reserve.
Increase pay types such as AFTPs gains more proficiency for our forces without any backpay towards retirement. Very smart bean counter strategies.
If you achieved an AD retirement via the separate point system, then your other points are thrown on top of your total AD points and it is a significant increase of retirement pay dependent upon how many you have.
As supporting info, the DoD will not offer or change retirement systems to benefit the individual. Giving you cash now without any strings attached (not having to pay you til you die) is a business model. Hence, only one makeup RUTA is a screw job...
More AFTPs not RUTAs = cost savings, Redux, Blended retirement system, RIF, etc.
Military spends money, civilians make money - but the military is getting better at their oversight and starting to parallel the civilian sector regarding cost savings, but forgetting we are here to break sh*t...

Yeah well they forget about this thing called..... separation.

[SocialD]

My understanding that this is just being added and/or reemphasized because someone on the staff, spent a lot of time reading a DODI.  Anyway, I guess it all depends upon your Commanders idea as to what is "convenient for the government."  

 

[Chida]

Had a support 1st shirt come to the pilot section last Nov on a UTA lamenting that few pilots were in attendance. Then he bragged that a fix was in the works.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SocialD]

13 minutes ago, Chida said:

Had a support 1st shirt come to the pilot section last Nov on a UTA lamenting that few pilots were in attendance. Then he bragged that a fix was in the works.

Did you tell said support shirt that he's in the wrong fucking section and firmly, yet politely, advise him that he can STFU?  I would like to see his face when he sees the same attendance at drill going forward.  What so many on base don't realize is that we have to show up 5ish times a month, and we can't fly everyone on a drill weekend.  You should ask him if he's in the habit of bringing his people in on days where they accomplish zero training?  At the same time ask him, aside from the shirts course, how many nights he's spent away from home over the last few years.  Though that will likely be changing with all the 6 month RCPs the AD is dropping to the ANG these days.

Drill weekend for pilots, made sense when we were used as a "break glass in case of...," and a true part time force.  We also had quite a few jets that were fairly new, no alert mission and very few depot upgrades, so flying a 12x12 both days on drill weekend was no big deal.  Now we're saddled with aging jets, never ending depot inputs, an alert mission stealing jets, reduction in total number of jets (PAA) and non-stop TDYs/deployments.  Putting up enough sorties is just not possible.  

I truly appreciate the extra AFTPs, but let's be honest, it's really just finally giving us the required number of pay cards to accomplish our minimum required training.  Trying to strong arm us and hinder our ability to UTAs is just working contrary to what they're trying to do by giving us extra AFTPs.  I wonder how many of these staffers have spent any time as a part-timer in a fighter squadron.  How about you spend your time seeking out shit that helps our flexibility and/or fight shit like this that makes no sense.  Here's hoping that many of the Commanders out there are taking their ability to approve rescheduled drills and running with it.  

Oh ya, get the fuck off my lawn!  Stuck at home sick today...on a roll!

[Scooter14]

What SocialD said. This happens at every guard base regardless of the mission.

Shoe Clerks - “Gosh, where are all the aircrew? They must be slackers.”

Oh I don’t know, using their drill periods to support a two shift local flying schedule during the week, deployed, TDY on an AMC mission, alert, NATO, PACOM, CENTCOM.

But sure, let’s all show up on a Sunday and sit around and stare at each other and do fire extinguisher training.

Chida - Bring that shirt in to the alert facility next Monday. Invite him to cook hot dogs and burgers for the crew chiefs and pilots (and security forces for that matter) that are stuck there and not with their families this holiday weekend. They all serve meals at the DFAC on drill weekend, tell him this would be more meaningful...because it honestly would.

[EvilEagle]

I was just up at NGB last week putting sticks in eyeballs about the AF-IT/DRRS/ARTS/SORTS soup-sandwich of reporting that we are saddled with.  While I was there we had a talk with some folks in A1 about RUTAs and AFTPs.  I had heard there was only one approved per year - she (Col Doyle) broke out the ANGI and read verbatim  that the one per year was an "excused absence" - which she went on to define as a family emergency that commanders can excuse people **AND THEY STILL GET PAID**.  I've never heard of that nor do I intend to do a lot of approving of those absences but the important part is that as long as the CC feels the RUTA/RD is valid, press!

[Gazmo]

I was just up at NGB last week putting sticks in eyeballs about the AF-IT/DRRS/ARTS/SORTS soup-sandwich of reporting that we are saddled with.  While I was there we had a talk with some folks in A1 about RUTAs and AFTPs.  I had heard there was only one approved per year - she (Col Doyle) broke out the ANGI and read verbatim  that the one per year was an "excused absence" - which she went on to define as a family emergency that commanders can excuse people **AND THEY STILL GET PAID**.  I've never heard of that nor do I intend to do a lot of approving of those absences but the important part is that as long as the CC feels the RUTA/RD is valid, press!

Ok, so what does that mean for any other drill that you don't want to come in for? For example, crew member returns from a deployment two weeks before a UTA. He/she does his "PMCR" that we don't really get, but sometimes we do have a week of orders after we return, and now this person wants out of UTA because they haven't been home for the last 4-5 weekends. This isn't a family emergency. The individual isn't going to get paid for not showing up. What constitutes an "excusal". I can tell you my unit excuses people all the time and not just for family emergencies.

[Karl Hungus]

Yikes.  Reading this thread (amongst others) makes me really glad I went to Cat B IMA.

[AirGuardianC141747]

Good to see the hornets getting out of the hive. Keep it up! Go to your Commanders, be a Commander, push your State HQ, press your TAG! If your young in the game and you don’t know what a TAG is or who, TAG is not doing their job...

*Work with neighboring units (initially select parallel mission units), states, connect the dots with data/ impact statements, monthly reports, do your due diligence if not for yourselves but for the others coming up thru the ranks. Everything else leads to separations or units unable to fulfill their doc statements and that will lead to an undesirable event however defined. 

Its always an uphill battle with bean counters, budget and self-proclaimed we know best Bureaucrats (Bureau). Do something and something might happen. If you do nothing, expect nothing. Fight for honor and good sense. (I chose honor as American English, don’t get hung up on it below 😉 )

Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. ... - Never Give In. - Winston Churchill

[EvilEagle]

On 5/24/2019 at 10:02 AM, Gazmo said:

On 5/23/2019 at 9:07 PM, EvilEagle said:

the important part is that as long as the CC feels the RUTA/RD is valid, press!

Ok, so what does that mean for any other drill that you don't want to come in for? For example, crew member returns from a deployment two weeks before a UTA. He/she does his "PMCR" that we don't really get, but sometimes we do have a week of orders after we return, and now this person wants out of UTA because they haven't been home for the last 4-5 weekends. This isn't a family emergency. The individual isn't going to get paid for not showing up. What constitutes an "excusal". I can tell you my unit excuses people all the time and not just for family emergencies.

This.  Any drill needs commander approval to RUTA/RD but there is no limit (other than the specific case for getting paid but not showing up that I mentioned).  

[SocialD]

9 hours ago, EvilEagle said:

This.  Any drill needs commander approval to RUTA/RD but there is no limit (other than the specific case for getting paid but not showing up that I mentioned).  

If true, that's great to hear.  After reading your post and reading the reg again I guess I see it, but it seems to be a grey area.  I actually like grey area because we'll interpret it the way that seems logical as it is read and works best for everyone.   That said, it's not very clear and there are several units (just that I know of) that are not interpreting it the way A1 conveyed it to you.  

[EvilEagle]

1 hour ago, SocialD said:

If true, that's great to hear.  After reading your post and reading the reg again I guess I see it, but it seems to be a grey area.  I actually like grey area because we'll interpret it the way that seems logical as it is read and works best for everyone.   That said, it's not very clear and there are several units (just that I know of) that are not interpreting it the way A1 conveyed it to you.  

Agree that units will interpret differently; I'm just passing along info here.  That's what A1 told me and as a commander that's how I will use the reg.  Hopefully others will as well.