Aviation Continuation Pay (ACP - The Bonus)

[General Chang]

On April 21, 2017 at 0:09 AM, TnkrToad said:

I've harped on this before, but one of the many problems with the current ACP program is that it only--at best--helps keep folks on AD until 20 yrs service (so we can have enough folks for O-4/O-5 command, staff, grey beard line flying, etc.) . . . and it's not even doing this well.

The bigger problem, as I see it, is that Big Blue is doing little-to-nothing to keep people on AD past 20 yrs. Given the impact that O-6s and above can have on their commands/the AF, the leadership problem we all like to complain about is likely to get substantially worse.

Data points: right now, there are 128 total Command Pilots/163 total pilots (the rest are Senior Pilots--how one gets to 21 yrs of service, without meeting the minimal requirements for Command Pilot rating is beyond me) with 21 yrs of commissioned service in the AF. In other words, these are folks who stayed in past 20 and (aside from passed-over Majors) competed for O-6. At the end of FY13 (just three and a half years ago), there were 374 Command Pilots with 21 commissioned years of service (out of 405 pilots total in that year group).

In other words, the number of pilots bothering to stay on AD past 20 and keep the Big Blue ship afloat has dropped by about two thirds in the past 3.5 years. This is across all 11X AFSCs. Certain pilot communities are especially hurting. The '96-ish year group, for instance--the current crop of recent O-6 selects--is healthier on 11Fs than 11Ms. Somehow, this never shows up on the official Air Force website or even Air Force Times, though.

Bottom line, whenever you look at stats of how many pilots short a community might be, take a very critical eye. Senior AF leaders are wringing their hands over a 1,500 pilot shortage, with most of that shortage being in the 11F community. Theoretically, this means all the other non-11F communities combined are just a few hundred pilots short. That might be true--it's possible that the total 11B/H/M/S/R population is vaguely close to the raw total required. If the Air Force is comparatively healthy on overall numbers of non-11Fs, the only way I can make the math work is that there are gross overages of pilots in the year groups who haven't yet been offered the bonus.

A pilot community where there are overages of Lts, Capts and junior Majs--but almost no senior Majs/Lt Cols/Cols to lead them and/provide staff top cover/fight for new aircraft and/or capabilities/etc.--cannot be healthy.

Big Blue must do more to keep adequate numbers of 11Xs in all year groups, leadership levels and 11X communities, if it's going to have a hope of getting healthy.

TT

Absurd and incorrect re: O-6 numbers.  Re: community health, yes, younger fighter pilots are short, but all other communities are currently relatively healthy, although we can see some concerns in the distant future (hence stop-loss discussion).  Wait to see the bonus take rate numbers in October.  Much more money offered this year.

[General Chang]

On April 21, 2017 at 3:12 PM, Fuzz said:

Depends on your definition of healthy, what the bean counters consider healthy to make their stoplight charts green or what we need to get the mission done. The C-17 is 105% manned on paper except they reduced our crew ratios from 3.0 to 2.5 and closed 2 squadrons. Yet our mission taskings havent decreased anywhere close to reflect our current manning, but according to AFPC we are overnmanned.

The 2.5 more accurately reflects the needs of the C-17 community.  Thousands of hours of research by personnelists went into these numbers.  

Even more research was done on the 2.0 crew ratio for the C-130.  While maintaining the 1.75 was argued, the increase to 2.0 won the day.  A minority in the community successfully argued the lack of navigators should create a higher crew ratio, so AMC A-1 caved and agreed to raise it to 2.0 (100%+ manned at the squadron level, I might add).  MAF is extremely healthy, again thanks to the efforts of number crunchers to keep the communities healthy.

[Goblin]

The 2.5 more accurately reflects the needs of the C-17 community.  Thousands of hours of research by personnelists went into these numbers.  
Even more research was done on the 2.0 crew ratio for the C-130.  While maintaining the 1.75 was argued, the increase to 2.0 won the day.  A minority in the community successfully argued the lack of navigators should create a higher crew ratio, so AMC A-1 caved and agreed to raise it to 2.0 (100%+ manned at the squadron level, I might add).  MAF is extremely healthy, again thanks to the efforts of number crunchers to keep the communities healthy.

Can you just stop please? We all get it, you're hilarious.

[Clark Griswold]

14 minutes ago, General Chang said:

The 2.5 more accurately reflects the needs of the C-17 community.  Thousands of hours of research by personnelists went into these numbers.  

Even more research was done on the 2.0 crew ratio for the C-130.  While maintaining the 1.75 was argued, the increase to 2.0 won the day.  A minority in the community successfully argued the lack of navigators should create a higher crew ratio, so AMC A-1 caved and agreed to raise it to 2.0 (100%+ manned at the squadron level, I might add).  MAF is extremely healthy, again thanks to the efforts of number crunchers to keep the communities healthy.

A1 question(s) for you General Chang... is your primary data source to determine this RAW?  

If I understand it correctly, RAW is just matching AFSCs (from individuals) with billets to determine if they filled.  This misses an important point that it does not characterize the duties of the individuals (primarily operational/support vs. administrative) so while you could say MAJCOM X is healthy in AFSC X, Y and Z you would be missing what do these people actually do, to reference the Bobs.

Is there any other data point on an individual SURF that could capture this?  

[HU&W]

1 hour ago, General Chang said:

The 2.5 more accurately reflects the needs of the C-17 community.  Thousands of hours of research by personnelists went into these numbers.  

If personnel has thousands of hours to spend on something like this, I think they might be slightly overmanned.  

[Bender]

If personnel has thousands of hours to spend on something like this, I think they might be slightly overmanned.  

At the minimum definition of "thousands", that is literally a full-time position for an entire fiscal year...doing nothing but studying the C-17 ratio.

For my trick next year, I will study a different, single topic and fvck that up too.


Bendy


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[Sprkt69]

2 hours ago, General Chang said:

Thousands of hours of research by personnelists went into these numbers.  

Ah, so that is why things are working out so well

[Duck]

Thousands of hours... 20 hour work-week... hmmm... so they started his F up like 30 years ago?


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[HossHarris]

34 minutes ago, Duck said:

Thousands of hours... 20 hour work-week... hmmm... so they started his F up like 30 years ago?


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No no. 

 

It was a large group of idiots working in short bursts of ignorance to fuck things up. 

[herkbum]

Thousands of hours of research by personnelists went into these numbers.  

Proof of trollness


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[08Dawg]

4 hours ago, Danger41 said:

I think the 12x community definitely deserves some form of bonus. I also think the Cyber guys deserve a hell of a lot more than that.

Thought there was some talk of it, but I haven't seen anything official yet. 

[pawnman]

5 hours ago, General Chang said:

Absurd and incorrect re: O-6 numbers.  Re: community health, yes, younger fighter pilots are short, but all other communities are currently relatively healthy, although we can see some concerns in the distant future (hence stop-loss discussion).  Wait to see the bonus take rate numbers in October.  Much more money offered this year.

"Much more money offered this year"...you mean the $35K vs $25K?  After there were discussions of $60K?  Because that's not "much more money" in the face of what the airlines are paying.  And Delta won't send you to Afghanistan for a year to not fly planes.

[Champ Kind]

"Much more money offered this year"...you mean the $35K vs $25K?  After there were discussions of $60K?  Because that's not "much more money" in the face of what the airlines are paying.  And Delta won't send you to Afghanistan for a year to not fly planes.

He doesn't know.

Don't feed.

[Jaded]

6 hours ago, General Chang said:

Absurd and incorrect re: O-6 numbers.  Re: community health, yes, younger fighter pilots are short, but all other communities are currently relatively healthy, although we can see some concerns in the distant future (hence stop-loss discussion).  Wait to see the bonus take rate numbers in October.  Much more money offered this year.

Just saving for when October comes around. My gut tells me that the bonus take rate will continue to decrease regardless of the extra bonus money, but I don't have the insider information that you have, being the A1 high ranking guy you totally are. 

[icohftb]

When did the bonus get offered last year?

[DC]

Running functions in Excel is nice for making numbers match a desired reality. By his description, that's what A-1 has been doing.

Actually solving the problem would take talking to and listening to folks who are bonus-eligible and finding out what it would take to get them to stay. (Hint: it's gonna take more than money)

[flyusaf83]

3 hours ago, pawnman said:

"Much more money offered this year"...you mean the $35K vs $25K?  After there were discussions of $60K?  Because that's not "much more money" in the face of what the airlines are paying.  And Delta won't send you to Afghanistan for a year to not fly planes.

Or a whole $3k increase for 11Rs.  Yeah that extra $250/mo (before taxes) is really gonna keep us from bailing to Delta.  

[Guest]

This is a great opportunity to gauge the effectiveness of the bonus. Based on what I've read so far, the 11H C-130 guys are only going to get 28k, while their 11M brethren will get 34k.



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[Gazmo]

The 2.5 more accurately reflects the needs of the C-17 community.  Thousands of hours of research by personnelists went into these numbers.  
Even more research was done on the 2.0 crew ratio for the C-130.  While maintaining the 1.75 was argued, the increase to 2.0 won the day.  A minority in the community successfully argued the lack of navigators should create a higher crew ratio, so AMC A-1 caved and agreed to raise it to 2.0 (100%+ manned at the squadron level, I might add).  MAF is extremely healthy, again thanks to the efforts of number crunchers to keep the communities healthy.

MAF is "extremely healthy"? Are you living under a rock? I spoke to a major at a tanker unit a few weeks back who said he was the only major that he knows of in the past year PCS'ing to a follow on assignment. Everyone else at his base is getting out.

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[WheelsOff]

11 hours ago, General Chang said:

The 2.5 more accurately reflects the needs of the C-17 community.  Thousands of hours of research by personnelists went into these numbers.  

Even more research was done on the 2.0 crew ratio for the C-130.  While maintaining the 1.75 was argued, the increase to 2.0 won the day.  A minority in the community successfully argued the lack of navigators should create a higher crew ratio, so AMC A-1 caved and agreed to raise it to 2.0 (100%+ manned at the squadron level, I might add).  MAF is extremely healthy, again thanks to the efforts of number crunchers to keep the communities healthy.

Simply put, no. You and the clown show don't have a fucking clue. Why don't you visit an actual AMC squadron at a base of your choosing and try that "logic" again. 

[Lord Ratner]

MAF is "extremely healthy"? Are you living under a rock? I spoke to a major at a tanker unit a few weeks back who said he was the only major that he knows of in the past year PCS'ing to a follow on assignment. Everyone else at his base is getting out.

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Rumor has it that Fairchild is PCSing the first major in five years who wasn't going to school or on an adsc.

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[matmacwc]

Dudes should chill, he will be proven wrong shortly.

[pawnman]

11 hours ago, WheelsOff said:

Simply put, no. You and the clown show don't have a fucking clue. Why don't you visit an actual AMC squadron at a base of your choosing and try that "logic" again. 

He can come down to Dyess.  I'll show him around a bomber squadron, you show him around the AMC squadron.  We can talk to the dozens of pilots who have active airline applications and are just counting the days until they can separate.  I can also show him that WSOs are a more scarce commodity than pilots in both the ops squadron and the FTU.

[sqwatch]

When you guys lose your shit over a troll, it makes me think you are retards.


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[cantfly]

12 hours ago, sqwatch said:

When you guys lose your shit over a troll, it makes me think you are retards.


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Forrest Gump, Ernest Goes to Camp, or Sling Blade retarded?

Edited April 25, 2017 by cantfly