Aviation Continuation Pay (ACP - The Bonus)

[Herk Driver]

KIO. Get back to the topic at hand and take your playground argument somewhere else.

[sqwatch]

He reminds me of this guy...

On topic- I didn't take the bonus.

[GBock]

LOL at this entire discussion, but especially this:

particularly in the landing phase, which is where Altus IPs like Azimuth really make their money

[Day Man]

29 minutes ago, GBock said:

LOL at this entire discussion, but especially this:

 

 Best IP around!

[ComingLeft]

The bonus is the exact opposite of what made the Air Force. Mitchell had money which meant his decision calculus was probably am I making an impact and am I doing the right thing? Patton also received a one million dollar payout during his time at West Point, and did not want anyone to know. *sarcasm* These leaders succeeded because they always told leadership what they wanted to hear.

People in the Air Force because they need or want the money IMHO make crappy leaders. Just enough bonus to be equal or competitive to the airlines...signed one year at a time. If people could always walk you would have good data as to why people leave or who is a bad leader.

[Lord Ratner]

On topic- I didn't take the bonus.

So what's your plan?

[ILoveScotch]

The bonus is the exact opposite of what made the Air Force. Mitchell had money which meant his decision calculus was probably am I making an impact and am I doing the right thing? Patton also received a one million dollar payout during his time at West Point, and did not want anyone to know. *sarcasm* These leaders succeeded because they always told leadership what they wanted to hear.

People in the Air Force because they need or want the money IMHO make crappy leaders. Just enough bonus to be equal or competitive to the airlines...signed one year at a time. If people could always walk you would have good data as to why people leave or who is a bad leader.

I don't get it. Are you saying I lack sufficient motivation to assist in needless foreign rabble rousing while being stationed in low income, low population areas where I'm not able to fully enjoy my 20s, 30's and half of my 40's?

I guess you're right. However, pay me more and promise me $45-50k for the rest of my life (to do nothing) and I'm willing to 'make the sacrifice'.

No world wars going on right now that require a Patton or a Mitchell. Just bullshit conflicts that we instigate, just because...

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[Learjetter]

Yes let's talk dollar bills, and how there should be more

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

I think there should be no bonus, and a six-year UPT ADSC only.

[TnkrToad]

1 hour ago, ComingLeft said:

The bonus is the exact opposite of what made the Air Force. Mitchell had money which meant his decision calculus was probably am I making an impact and am I doing the right thing? Patton also received a one million dollar payout during his time at West Point, and did not want anyone to know. *sarcasm* These leaders succeeded because they always told leadership what they wanted to hear.

People in the Air Force because they need or want the money IMHO make crappy leaders. Just enough bonus to be equal or competitive to the airlines...signed one year at a time. If people could always walk you would have good data as to why people leave or who is a bad leader.

Actually, you're pretty close to being exactly wrong.

- Pilot pay was 50% of base pay--starting in flying training. Even if pilots' total pay not have seemed spectacular, a couple living on a Captain's salary at Maxwell could live like royalty, with a live-in maid 

- The workload was much easier. Shockingly, America's interwar isolationism meant airmen's workloads were not terribly onerous. "Equitation"--to include a healthy amount of polo--comprised a substantial part of the ACTS syllabus. Oh yeah--they got paid for their polo ponies

- The free housing was pretty sweet, too. What counts as Colonels' housing at Maxwell now was Captains' housing in the interwar years

- Pilots had way more social prestige. Back in the day, ridiculously wealthy people often had great respect for airmen, and were happy to hang out with them. It probably helped that a lot of aviators were graduates of Harvard, Yale, Stanford, M.I.T., etc. George C. Marshall and Hap Arnold both came from prominent families. With air travel commoditized, the social respect dynamic has changed substantially

- It's noteworthy that interwar pilots led pretty darn good lives, with ridiculous numbers of parties and other social engagements--on one salary

Monetary and other social incentives aren't everything, but they're a big deal. If the Air Force wants to retain good people, it's gotta be willing to pay for them.

TT

 

 

 

[sqwatch]

On topic- I didn't take the bonus.

So what's your plan?

Troll college campuses and hope a dark-tinted van of over-sexed bikini clad coeds stops and asks me if I'd be interested in being their "oil boy"

[ComingLeft]

TT,

That is the difference between the old officer aristocracy. The current system of debt in America keeps people addicted to the next raise.

Learjetter,

Yes.

ILoveScotch,

Hmmm...so no bonus forces us to plan better bases, manage assignments, "treat people as our most valuable resource."

I'd rather the Air Force got rid of bs than fight for higher bonuses in Congress.

[TnkrToad]

3 minutes ago, ComingLeft said:

TT,

That is the difference between the old officer aristocracy. The current system of debt in America keeps people addicted to the next raise.

So, the difference is that older officers can read? I'm struggling with your grammar, but if there's an "old officer aristocracy," I ain't part of it. The bottom line is this: you cited an historical example to underscore your point. Your understanding of interwar airmen--who led the Army Air Forces during the war, and the independent Air Force starting in 1947--is historically inaccurate. Is money everything? Of course not--wasn't in the 1930s, and isn't today. That doesn't negate the fact that, then--as now--monetary and other forms of compensation played critical roles in retaining talented individuals. 

Perhaps we should also return to the days of Hap Arnold, who not only worked himself so hard he gave himself heart attacks, but at a Sunday morning meeting had one of the staffers he was berating literally drop dead in front of him? Not trying to start yet another fight on this thread today, but be careful when citing examples. Sometimes they can prove the opposite of what you're trying to say.

TT

 

 

[ILoveScotch]

1 hour ago, ComingLeft said:

TT,

That is the difference between the old officer aristocracy. The current system of debt in America keeps people addicted to the next raise.

Learjetter,

Yes.

ILoveScotch,

Hmmm...so no bonus forces us to plan better bases, manage assignments, "treat people as our most valuable resource."

I'd rather the Air Force got rid of bs than fight for higher bonuses in Congress.

 

Will never happen. Because, as I'm sure you are all aware, we are a permanent stimulus package.

$17.5k x (what, 2000 pilots?) = $35M a year. How much to build new bases in new locations? Yeahhhhh...

Cannon AFB, a base which everyone knew needed to be closed, was kept open due to politics. Fact. Congress only cares about our morale and welfare so long as it keeps them in office. The base situation won't change. If you aren't going to improve QoL, pay us for the inconveniance of living in shitty areas so you can stay in office.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

Edited March 11, 2016 by ILoveScotch

[deskjockey]

Coming left needs to put "Once an Eagle" on his summer reading list.  

If anyone needs my quals...I'm an EP on books.   Also been an IP in 3x USAF aircraft and an AC in another.   Because that matters.  Oh, and the 135 is hard to land for the first 25-50 landings...and the sim doesn't accurately simulate that phase, FWIW.   

[di1630]

Was telling my grandfather about the bonus. He shook his head. The stories I grew up with about how much fun the Air Force used to be from my grandpa were off the hook. Just a different culture. He'd tell me stories of taking planes which he had no training airborne after giving the crew chief a bottle of scotch, meeting his buddies and deciding last minute to take a jet to say they went Mach 2 in an F-106 or using a bomber to give a civilian friend a ride across country to go party.

Now that was a while ago but heck, even in FTU 15 years back my IPs told of the glory days where everyone would go XC in Eagles, hogs, phantoms, you name it to party at Randolph.

Good ole days in an Air Force with spare time, Cold War budgets and pilot centric.

In 20 years, people will say we had it good.

My Quals-I landed on the carrier first try when I played top gun on the 8 bit NES in 1987.

[Right Seat Driver]

7 hours ago, di1630 said:

Now that was a while ago but heck, even in FTU 15 years back my IPs told of the glory days where everyone would go XC in Eagles, hogs, phantoms, you name it to party at Randolph.

Good ole days in an Air Force with spare time, Cold War budgets and pilot centric.

Hell, the dudes that were flying the line in the 2007-08 timeframe have some pretty crazy stories.  We had guys in the -135 go to the DO and validate a two week off-station sorties to knock out "training."  VFR tours of San Francisco and pallets of wine, sorties to Hawaii to log an OCONUS sortie, and these were AMC dudes.  Mildenhall had some great TDYs and the Kadena guys had crazier stories involving Thailand and Guam.

QUALS:  135 IP.

Edited March 11, 2016 by Right Seat Driver

[17D_guy]

On 3/11/2016 at 3:50 PM, Right Seat Driver said:

Hell, the dudes that were flying the line in the 2007-08 timeframe have some pretty crazy stories.  We had guys in the -135 go to the DO and validate a two week off-station sorties to knock out "training."  VFR tours of San Francisco and pallets of wine, sorties to Hawaii to log an OCONUS sortie, and these were AMC dudes.  Mildenhall had some great TDYs and the Kadena guys had crazier stories involving Thailand and Guam.

QUALS:  135 IP.

So, how does this check against the AMC is burning out crews, being gone too much and reduce crew requirements argument?  

Not trying to ruin anyone's good time, Lord knows we all need it.

 

QUALS - I play a lot of Battlefield 4 and there's jets in that.

[Gazmo]

Now that was a while ago but heck, even in FTU 15 years back my IPs told of the glory days where everyone would go XC in Eagles, hogs, phantoms, you name it to party at Randolph.

Good ole days in an Air Force with spare time, Cold War budgets and pilot centric.

Hell, the dudes that were flying the line in the 2007-08 timeframe have some pretty crazy stories.  We had guys in the -135 go to the DO and validate a two week off-station sorties to knock out "training."  VFR tours of San Francisco and pallets of wine, sorties to Hawaii to log an OCONUS sortie, and these were AMC dudes.  Mildenhall had some great TDYs and the Kadena guys had crazier stories involving Thailand and Guam.

QUALS:  135 IP.

This sounds like what life used to be in the ANG all the time.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[ned1]

This is why they can't afford to double our pay, it all went down the drain on these irresponsible misadventures! Some people sure know how to waste money!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

[TnkrToad]

On March 10, 2016 at 4:50 PM, Right Seat Driver said:

Hell, the dudes that were flying the line in the 2007-08 timeframe have some pretty crazy stories.  We had guys in the -135 go to the DO and validate a two week off-station sorties to knock out "training."  VFR tours of San Francisco and pallets of wine, sorties to Hawaii to log an OCONUS sortie, and these were AMC dudes.  Mildenhall had some great TDYs and the Kadena guys had crazier stories involving Thailand and Guam.

QUALS:  135 IP.

 

3 minutes ago, ned1 said:

This is why they can't afford to double our pay, it all went down the drain on these irresponsible misadventures! Some people sure know how to waste money!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

I suspect this all comes back to force management, which is the focus of this thread.

As I recall, around the '07 timeframe, the tanker community was flooded with pilots. Why? Lotsa pilots were getting produced, but the communities which really needed them (11F & 11S spring to mind--I'm sure others were hurting, too) simply could not absorb them.  The KC-135 community--and I assume C-130 & C-17 communities, too--got the overflow, because it's a whole lot easier to get someone through Altus/Little Rock, so they can serve a copilot, than it is to train up a Viper or Talon driver. I distinctly remember we had about 100 pilots for 15 jets, with a 7,000 hr flying hour program at EGUN. Do the math, and that only equates to 140 hrs in the seat, per pilot, per year. Not exactly a formula for success, when one wants to get and keep people competent as aviators. At one point at EGUN, there was a policy that two copilots would fly on each sortie, so that they could build up enough "other" time (even though time in the jumpseat is useless), so they would have the chance to eventually upgrade to AC & later IP. In that timeframe, we also started to deploy crews (but not jets) downrange, so crews could get more flying hours--on AMC tails, which didn't count against EGUN flying hours. EGUN was a sweet deal deployment-wise, because of the lunacy of having USAFE, not AMC, own those tails (and I'm sure the same was true of PACAF-owned tankers). 

Yes, there were some pretty sweet TDYs in EUCOM, because--shockingly--most places in EUCOM are more fun to visit than bases in CENTCOM. If a tanker's going to go TDY, it's typically going to go to a base with a lot of ramp space and a long runway, which tends to mean it's going to be near a reasonably large city, which typically means plenty to see and do. EGUN was sweet TDY-wise, because--you guessed it--USAFE, not AMC, owned the tails. Again, I'm sure the same held true for PACAF tanker units. 

If folks in AMC were taking the keys to the jet and going on boondoggles such as you described, that was a bit shady. I imagine there was a legit rationale for those training sorties--not the least of which was getting folks trained on Block 40, which required an overseas sortie--even if the crews took a bit too much license with the opportunities they were given. The tanker squadrons, awash with copilots and young ACs, had to (1) get their crews adequate numbers of hours--which might not have been accomplished if they simply filled user requests, and (2) give their crews some variety of experience--flying in the Pacific (remote/island destinations, tropical weather, dealing with customs, etc.) is way different from theater AR missions flown from the Deid. I'm sure those who went on these boondoggles ended up being much more well-rounded aviators than those who had 2,000+ total hours at the end of their first assignments, but who had done nothing other than fly locals when home and theater AR sorties one-to-a-full stop from desert locations. 

Thailand and Guam, while one can have great fun at both locations, are also hosts to exercises and real-world operations. Just because one can have a good time at a particular location doesn't mean nothing worthwhile is happening there. I'm sure China and North Korea would be very happy if we avoided "good deal" locations like PGUA, VTUN and elsewhere, in order to avoid the appearance of having a good time. 

TT

[Gazmo]

[Gazmo]

Technical difficulties posting. Let's try this again...

I'm not so sure what's so crazy about some of these tanker TDY's. Although I can say I've been to some really spectacular TDY locations, I can't say that our fuel was not a necessity. I've spent over week in Souda Bay with hops to Lajes in between. I've lived in Spain for two months when we were shwacking Lybia in 2011. We were one of the first of many crews to bring a tanker into Moron for that operation and yes, you bet your ass that in between 10-12 hour missions, I toured the countryside of southern Spain and sat on many of nude beaches sipping ice cold sangria and Cruz Campo. I even got to walk through the Rock of Gibralter. You can also bet your ass I may have brought back three dozen bottles of Spanish wine and maybe even a few dirt cheap bottles of Cuban rum we can't get in the US. I've spent many of days broken in Hawaii on the way to Guam to support PACOM deployment while I swam in a salt water pool and drank Mai Tai's at the Outrigger Reef in Waikiki. I've spent many weeks here and there in northwestern Germany supporting NATO training and you can bet your ass I took back as much dirt cheap German Reisling while I made $100 a day in per diem. I can go on and on, but you know what? Those are the times I'll never forget and what makes me think, "Wow. We actually get paid really well to do this shit!". Like I said before; at the end of the day, someone needed a flying gas station nearby and we were there doing the mission while noone else in this world wasn't. There was a day when AMC didn't give a shit when we landed with 35k+ lbs of fuel on locals. Now we land

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[Duck]

And for every time Gazmo and I had a cool trip like those, we had about 600-900 hours sucking it up in the desert. So in my opinion, Big Blue definitely gets the better end of the deal out of its aircrew, even when taking into account some of the sweeter deals out there.

[guineapigfury]

I hit the 10 year mark in a few months.  I'd gladly spend the next 10 years deployed flying the exact same sortie every day if it got me out of MQ-9s.  Can't wait to turn this bonus down!

[BADFNZ]

11 hours ago, TnkrToad said:

 

I suspect this all comes back to force management, which is the focus of this thread.

As I recall, around the '07 timeframe, the tanker community was flooded with pilots. Why? Lotsa pilots were getting produced, but the communities which really needed them (11F & 11S spring to mind--I'm sure others were hurting, too) simply could not absorb them.  The KC-135 community--and I assume C-130 & C-17 communities, too--got the overflow, because it's a whole lot easier to get someone through Altus/Little Rock, so they can serve a copilot, than it is to train up a Viper or Talon driver. I distinctly remember we had about 100 pilots for 15 jets, with a 7,000 hr flying hour program at EGUN. Do the math, and that only equates to 140 hrs in the seat, per pilot, per year. Not exactly a formula for success, when one wants to get and keep people competent as aviators. At one point at EGUN, there was a policy that two copilots would fly on each sortie, so that they could build up enough "other" time (even though time in the jumpseat is useless), so they would have the chance to eventually upgrade to AC & later IP. In that timeframe, we also started to deploy crews (but not jets) downrange, so crews could get more flying hours--on AMC tails, which didn't count against EGUN flying hours. EGUN was a sweet deal deployment-wise, because of the lunacy of having USAFE, not AMC, own those tails (and I'm sure the same was true of PACAF-owned tankers). 

Yes, there were some pretty sweet TDYs in EUCOM, because--shockingly--most places in EUCOM are more fun to visit than bases in CENTCOM. If a tanker's going to go TDY, it's typically going to go to a base with a lot of ramp space and a long runway, which tends to mean it's going to be near a reasonably large city, which typically means plenty to see and do. EGUN was sweet TDY-wise, because--you guessed it--USAFE, not AMC, owned the tails. Again, I'm sure the same held true for PACAF tanker units. 

If folks in AMC were taking the keys to the jet and going on boondoggles such as you described, that was a bit shady. I imagine there was a legit rationale for those training sorties--not the least of which was getting folks trained on Block 40, which required an overseas sortie--even if the crews took a bit too much license with the opportunities they were given. The tanker squadrons, awash with copilots and young ACs, had to (1) get their crews adequate numbers of hours--which might not have been accomplished if they simply filled user requests, and (2) give their crews some variety of experience--flying in the Pacific (remote/island destinations, tropical weather, dealing with customs, etc.) is way different from theater AR missions flown from the Deid. I'm sure those who went on these boondoggles ended up being much more well-rounded aviators than those who had 2,000+ total hours at the end of their first assignments, but who had done nothing other than fly locals when home and theater AR sorties one-to-a-full stop from desert locations. 

Thailand and Guam, while one can have great fun at both locations, are also hosts to exercises and real-world operations. Just because one can have a good time at a particular location doesn't mean nothing worthwhile is happening there. I'm sure China and North Korea would be very happy if we avoided "good deal" locations like PGUA, VTUN and elsewhere, in order to avoid the appearance of having a good time. 

TT

So in EUCOM/PACOM, good deal TDYs just came with the territory.  In AMC, they were "shady".  GTFO.

If you have a glutton of flying hours, not enough days in the year to kill them, and are overmanned with co-pilots, what's the harm in taking the keys to the jet over the weekend and shooting some pro at Travis/Beale then enjoying Wine Country after you land?  I'm not a tanker dude so I have no dog in this fight, but I see no problem with this and don't think it's "shady" at all.