Aviation Continuation Pay (ACP - The Bonus)

[Buddy Spike]

8 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

17 minutes ago, Buddy Spike said:

It's all about luck and timing.  I was hired at 33 also but my Sen@65 is only 141.  Guys getting hired now with 30+ years to go will be in the top 1%.  

141 is still incredible!

There's a site called myaacareer.com that can give you a good idea of your career earnings.

This assumes I only want to live in DFW and upgrade when it's available there, flying long call for my whole career (73 hrs) and contributing nothing to the 401(k) except the 16% the company gives us.  Starting at year two.  It's nearly an eleven million dollar career, and that's with AA which is bottom of the barrel in terms of earnings potential and work rules.  

[Hunter Rose]

So how many folks are planning on working until 65?  I plan on sipping Mai Tais on the beach NLT 55 personally. 

 

How many years does it take until you’re earning $200K at a Legacy?  

Edited June 21, 2018 by Hunter Rose

[HossHarris]

Gross or take home?

I’m close to $200k in year 2 at delta, gross before taxes, when you include profit sharing, 401k company contribution, and per diem. 

Edited June 21, 2018 by HossHarris

[Buddy Spike]

10 minutes ago, Hunter Rose said:

So how many folks are planning on working until 65?  I plan on sipping Mai Tais on the beach NLT 55 personally. 

 

How many years does it take until you’re earning $200K at a Legacy?  

This starts at year two for me given the above assumptions (moving to DFW and staying, working 73 hrs only).  Salary only add 16% for 401k.

 

[HossHarris]

And if you want to start sipping Cocktails on the beach at 55, all the majors have pretty strong disability insurance. 

[raimius]

3 hours ago, Flyingnut said:

   I think I might need a sanity check and wanted the brain trust's weigh in.  I'm leaning towards taking the bonus.  A little background.  Late to rate so I just qualify for the bonus this FY.  I have 4 years and 9 days until retirement (continued to 20) and a DEROS in 2019.  With three years left most of my math says transition afterwards would be fiscally smoother staying.  I'm worried about a few things; finding a guard/reserve unit that would even take me this long in the tooth, if I had to stick it out in the regionals for a few years(I have a few flying skeletons), 4 years of lost seniority, and finally is anyone worried about stop loss?  Thanks in advance! -FN  

Can you do better than a 50% base pay pension for 4 years of work, compared to 4 years of another job? Money and QoL

[Guardian]

Those of you in the guard familIar with the bonus, if you stop in the middle of one of your years in the bonus do you get any credit for that partial year?

Any ideas?

[SFG]

16 hours ago, Termy said:

If I offered you $1.6mm to stay in with the only stipulation being you could only take $50k a year of it out would you do it? I’d stay in personally if you can avoid 365 and your family supports. 

Minor thread derail but people’s “expected earnings” stuff for the airlines never seem to discount to present value. In other words, the fact that by staying in a couple years you might miss a couple years of $300,000 in your sixties isn’t that big of a deal. 

Google “net present value of an airline career vs military retirement” and read the first page of links... you’ll make a lot of net present value of an airline career vs military retirement” you’ll make a lot more money if you accept the facts.

Try $300,000 a year in your 40s.

[SFG]

New study is out...

[Termy]

8 hours ago, Klepto said:

Google “net present value of an airline career vs military retirement” and read the first page of links... you’ll make a lot of net present value of an airline career vs military retirement” you’ll make a lot more money if you accept the facts.

Try $300,000 a year in your 40s.

I hear you and I’m a fan of facts! Looking forward to reading the study you posted below. I’m not antiairline and the big money at all-just in the case I responded to (late rated with four years left) I bet the difference isn’t giant. And no, he won’t make $300,000 in his 40s. He’s probably right at 40 now making this decision. 

[SFG]

7 hours ago, Termy said:

I hear you and I’m a fan of facts! Looking forward to reading the study you posted below. I’m not antiairline and the big money at all-just in the case I responded to (late rated with four years left) I bet the difference isn’t giant. And no, he won’t make $300,000 in his 40s. He’s probably right at 40 now making this decision. 

Reread my post and I came off way more blunt then I intended. I actually didn’t intend to come off that way at all. Thanks for the moderated reply.

You’re right. 300k in 40s would be for a guy who gets out at end of UPT commitment.

[BashiChuni]

Sign me up

[SFG]

"Air Force enlisted pilot implementation initiatives

The committee directs the Secretary of the Air Force to provide a briefing to the House Committee on Armed Services not later than March 4, 2019, on the plan to implement the enlisted pilot aircrew requirements of Section 1052 of the FY17 NDAA for the MQ-9 enterprise of the Active, Guard, and Reserve components of the Air Force. Furthermore, the committee directs the Secretary of the Air Force to submit a report to the congressional defense committees not later than April 1, 2019, on the costs, benefits, and feasibility of authorizing enlisted Airmen or Warrant Officers as pilots, navigators, or weapon systems operators on all Air Force aircraft or rotorcraft platforms. The report should also assess and explain any policy or guidance impediments that would preclude enlisted Airmen or Warrant Officers from serving as pilots, navigators, or weapon systems operators."

[Disco_Nav963]

Because any enlisted member with the chops to do those jobs should go to OTS and get the higher pay they deserve.

::headdesk:: 

[Guest]

It’s all part of Goldfein’s master plan. He’s already got all the officers jumping ship for the Legacies/Majors/LCCs. Now he wants to provide the regionals with former enlisted pilots so every airline will be forced to give him a seat on their Board of Directors!

[disgruntledemployee]

If they have degrees. His scheme wont survive 1st contact when enlistments are up and the AF has shit on them.  They'll take their very valuable skill and get real paid.  The Es that go pilot will be smart enough to get the degree while they can. The pay jump for those guys is even more.  AF better have a supp flight pay to make them par or else.

He must be thinking that keeping Es would be easier than Os.  He'll be wrong.

Out

[hindsight2020]

Correct. He's banking on the notion that the Es are smart enough to fly the airplanes but dumb enough to not be able or capable to get an online (or hell even brick and mortar) 4-year degree, thence making them non-competitive for major airline work. An absolutely checkers move and mentality on the part of senior management. You can't make this shit up. In all reality the AF is so insufferably ethnocentric that they'll end up shelving the idea anyways for a completely different and biased reason. I guess the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The clownshow continues.

 

[BFM this]

17 hours ago, Klepto said:

"Air Force enlisted pilot implementation initiatives

The committee directs the Secretary of the Air Force to provide a briefing to the House Committee on Armed Services not later than March 4, 2019, on the plan to implement the enlisted pilot aircrew requirements of Section 1052 of the FY17 NDAA for the MQ-9 enterprise of the Active, Guard, and Reserve components of the Air Force. Furthermore, the committee directs the Secretary of the Air Force to submit a report to the congressional defense committees not later than April 1, 2019, on the costs, benefits, and feasibility of authorizing enlisted Airmen or Warrant Officers as pilots, navigators, or weapon systems operators on all Air Force aircraft or rotorcraft platforms. The report should also assess and explain any policy or guidance impediments that would preclude enlisted Airmen or Warrant Officers from serving as pilots, navigators, or weapon systems operators."

Maybe I'm missing something, but this appears to be congress' checkers move, not AF leadership'.  Yet.  I'd imagine that congressional staffers hear and discuss the same batch of bright ideas that we churn through, so this is just congress asking "hey, what about this one?", to which the AF as duty experts can weigh in and shed light on why it's not a wise move.  

[tac airlifter]

2 hours ago, hindsight2020 said:

In all reality the AF is so insufferably ethnocentric that they'll end up shelving the idea anyways for a completely different and biased reason. 

I don’t understand what this means, could you explain?

[hindsight2020]

55 minutes ago, tac airlifter said:

I don’t understand what this means, could you explain?

I should have put ethnocentric on quotes, as I'm not using the term literally but figuratively. I meant to say that the air Force is obsessed with one drop rules and degrees of separation in everything they do, regardless of fiscal realities or combat readiness. 11f centrisms in pilot training pipelines being the historical perfect example of this obsession with elitism. Enlisted flyers or the warrant discussion would be another one. 

So then, even though the reason the idea is stupid is because an enlisted flyer would have a bigger economic incentive to jump ship with his training than a comissioned officer, the reason they'll end up shelving it will have little to nothing to do with this reality. But dead is dead so what does it matter anyways. That was my point.

Edited June 24, 2018 by hindsight2020
Grammerz

[ThreeHoler]

Big AF does not want enlisted pilots because of one thing: airline wage gap. I’ve been to several HAF briefings where they said exactly that...no E pilots because they know retention would be even worse.

[ThreeHoler]

But who knows what Congress is thinking because they’re probably not.

[Majestik Møøse]

On 6/24/2018 at 1:42 PM, ThreeHoler said:

Big AF does not want enlisted pilots because of one thing: airline wage gap. I’ve been to several HAF briefings where they said exactly that...no E pilots because they know retention would be even worse.

 

On 6/24/2018 at 1:43 PM, ThreeHoler said:

But who knows what Congress is thinking because they’re probably not.

The AF knows it’s about money.  Every pilot at HAF has read the airline pay charts out of morbid curiosity and knows how much money is out there to be had.  But the story they’ve sold to Congress (with our help) is that it isn’t about the money, it’s about additional duties. So Congress (and Enlisted dreamers) think “if money’s not the problem, and pilots just want to fly with no officery  stuff, let’s bring black WOs and The Flying Sergeants.”

Now the AF is chasing it’s own lies and using excuses like “we don’t have the data on how many guys are going to the airlines after they separate” or “the previous guys in charge underestimated airline hiring” to cover their asses. Which in itself is contradictory, of course.

Edit: I’m not fixing it.

Edited June 26, 2018 by Majestik Møøse

[SFG]

2 hours ago, Majestik Møøse said:

 

The AF knows it’s about money.  Every pilot at HAF has read the airline pay charts out of morbid curiosity and knows how much money is out there to be had.  But the story they’ve sold to Congress (with our help) is that it isn’t about the money, it’s about additional duties. So Congress (and Enlisted dreamers) think “if money’s not the problem, and pilots just want to fly with no officery  stuff, let’s bring black WOs and The Flying Sergeants.”

Please. Let’s not play the race card.

[pawnman]

19 hours ago, Majestik Møøse said:

 

The AF knows it’s about money.  Every pilot at HAF has read the airline pay charts out of morbid curiosity and knows how much money is out there to be had.  But the story they’ve sold to Congress (with our help) is that it isn’t about the money, it’s about additional duties. So Congress (and Enlisted dreamers) think “if money’s not the problem, and pilots just want to fly with no officery  stuff, let’s bring black WOs and The Flying Sergeants.”

Now the AF is chasing it’s own lies and using excuses like “we don’t have the data on how many guys are going to the airlines after they separate” or “the previous guys in charge underestimated airline hiring” to cover their asses. Which in itself is contradictory, of course.

It's our own fault.  When they first started studying the whole retention problem, everyone in the trenches said "it's not about the money".  End result?  No real increases to the bonuses, because we've already told CSAF "it's not about the money".