Aviation Continuation Pay (ACP - The Bonus)

[di1630]

Anyone heard rumors on the FY20 ACP?


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[MCO]

21 hours ago, pawnman said:

Weird, because our DS gave us the timelines for this board.  150 day was October 4 and PRFs were due to NAF last week.

Will it just limit the number of APZ looks someone gets, or is the intent that an 06 guy and an 03 guy are treated the same for promotion purposes?

Yeah they gave out timelines with no PSDM. None of the wings have anything more than a timeline, which makes it hard to do PRFs. Your wing probably did what ours did and had people write PRFs so that there was something to hack on once the PSDM dropped.

The way it was explained was there will be no more APZ/BPZ. 5 years of IPZ and when you get promoted you aren’t tagged differently regardless of what year in the zone you were. Everyone getting looked at is supposedly treated the same as well.

Without the PSDM though we don’t know for sure, and we don’t know which years are going to be the new IPZ. Basically that means we aren’t really sure who is meeting this board. I know for you that would mean a decent chance of another IPZ look if this all happens this board. There is also a chance they push it to next board, but I doubt it with this much delay.

 

EDIT: if a mod wants to move this to the PRF thread I’m not opposed

Edited November 23, 2019 by MCO

[KWings06j]

Did they say where the 5 years of IPZ start? Ie is year one the 2BPZ or the current IPZ?

[IDALPHA]

3 hours ago, MCO said:

Yeah they gave out timelines with no PSDM. None of the wings have anything more than a timeline, which makes it hard to do PRFs. Your wing probably did what ours did and had people write PRFs so that there was something to hack on once the PSDM dropped.

The way it was explained was there will be no more APZ/BPZ. 5 years of IPZ and when you get promoted you aren’t tagged differently regardless of what year in the zone you were. Everyone getting looked at is supposedly treated the same as well.

Without the PSDM though we don’t know for sure, and we don’t know which years are going to be the new IPZ. Basically that means we aren’t really sure who is meeting this board. I know for you that would mean a decent chance of another IPZ look if this all happens this board. There is also a chance they push it to next board, but I doubt it with this much delay.

 

EDIT: if a mod wants to move this to the PRF thread I’m not opposed

4 extra years to do ACSC in correspondence to prove your leadership potential!

[MCO]

11 hours ago, KWings06j said:

Did they say where the 5 years of IPZ start? Ie is year one the 2BPZ or the current IPZ?

No idea. Rumor here is 1BPZ is the new first year IPZ, but for all I know someone made that up.

[SFG]

9 minutes ago, MCO said:

No idea. Rumor here is 1BPZ is the new first year IPZ, but for all I know someone made that up.

Wow. I think this will really fork this year’s previously known as IPZ group. Will be more BPZ and APZers if that’s the case, for better or worse.

[ThreeHoler]

Like everything else it won’t really matter or change anything because people who are already APZ have OPR(s) that no longer have a command push or strats as a result of being passed over. So, unless there is some way to fix that, the people currently APZ (new IPZ window) will not get promoted at any significantly higher rate.


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[SFG]

15 hours ago, Homestar said:

Nothing wrong with attempting innovation in the UPT enterprise. We can’t stop calling for QOL and compensation improvements tho. 

Agreed. Context: “spending another 25-100 million $$ per year for the next decade trying a dozen different ways to produce our way out of the problem.”

I’m all for innovation, QOL improvements, and attacking this thing from multiple angles.  It’s spending wads of money to try to widen the mouth of the pipeline when a fraction of that could double the bonus and stop the bleeding instantly that makes me hurt for the guys and gals on the line doing more and more with less and less. How much longer can we sustain take rates well below the 65% that we require to maintain a healthy force, when we’re way beyond unhealthy? I bet if we retained more seasoned pilots we could increase production at a fraction of the cost of some of these other experiments. I’m not disparaging PTN or UPT 2.5 or whatever... I’m talking about stuff like contract UPT, new UPT bases, diversity outreach etc. Stuff that might be good, but is not the solution we need right this minute and is costing $$$10s of millions of dollars. We have not yet gone to Congress begging and pleading. They must think things are pretty darn good now that we’ve leveled off. 

The big lie is that we can’t compete on compensation. No, not that improvements should not be happening with or without a crisis, but QOL is where we will never compete.

[SFG]

13 minutes ago, ThreeHoler said:

Like everything else it won’t really matter or change anything because people who are already APZ have OPR(s) that no longer have a command push or strats as a result of being passed over. So, unless there is some way to fix that, the people currently APZ (new IPZ window) will not get promoted at any significantly higher rate.


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Yeah, Commanders’ attitudes will need to change along with the change in policy. I wonder what would happen if we hid year-groups from Commanders 😱

[pawnman]

1 hour ago, K_O said:

Yeah, Commanders’ attitudes will need to change along with the change in policy. I wonder what would happen if we hid year-groups from Commanders 😱

They can read dates on your OPR and training reports.

[Negatory]

31 minutes ago, pawnman said:

They can read dates on your OPR and training reports.

Also relatively easy fix, mask everything but the most recent 3-4 years or so.

[SFG]

4 hours ago, brawnie said:

Also relatively easy fix, mask everything but the most recent 3-4 years or so.

How dare you innovate.  This would risk having us rate guys based on their performance and not based on their year group or what jobs they did or did not have in the past or whether they were going to a board or not.  Be safe out there folks... it's about to get weird!

[FLEA]

15 hours ago, K_O said:

How dare you innovate.  This would risk having us rate guys based on their performance and not based on their year group or what jobs they did or did not have in the past or whether they were going to a board or not.  Be safe out there folks... it's about to get weird!

I would actually be a big fan of expunging rank and YG on boards. Let the record speak for itself. 

 

[SurelySerious]

24 minutes ago, FLEA said:

I would actually be a big fan of expunging rank and YG on boards. Let the record speak for itself. 

 

Wait, how else would we know if “it’s their turn”?! Should also apply to TRBs in certain airframes along with “they need it for their PRF.”

[genie90]

Anyone heard rumors on the FY20 ACP?

[SFG]

17 minutes ago, genie90 said:

Anyone heard rumors on the FY20 ACP?

I’d expect late Jan or Feb. They have to have a bunch more meetings, release and clarify some new initiatives, and the CSAF needs to have his annual state of the Air Force spiel first.

[Hunter Rose]

Annual retention report is out.

Active Duty grew the pilot force by 54. At this rate, we’ll be where our manning numbers need to be in a mere 13-15 years!  What a stupendous job Aircrew Task Force!

The Generals need to cry uncle. They need to ask Congress for a bigger bonus, or if stuck with only a $35K bonus they need to offer it with a one year commitment and renewable annually. 

Edited November 25, 2019 by Hunter Rose

[SFG]

1 hour ago, Hunter Rose said:

Annual retention report is out.

Active Duty grew the pilot force by 54. At this rate, we’ll be where our manning numbers need to be in a mere 13-15 years!  What a stupendous job Aircrew Task Force!

The Generals need to cry uncle. They need to ask Congress for a bigger bonus, or if stuck with only a $35K bonus they need to offer it with a one year commitment and renewable annually. 

If that’s the case then requirements grew by 150, because we were just briefed that we’re an extra hundred short this year (~2100). Statistics. Hah! Depends on what you want to say I guess.

[FLEA]

2 hours ago, K_O said:

If that’s the case then requirements grew by 150, because we were just briefed that we’re an extra hundred short this year (~2100). Statistics. Hah! Depends on what you want to say I guess.

I would like to see more creativity. I think you could keep several people around for at least a tour or two if you combined a shorter bonus with a garunteed offer for TERA but I'm not sure the service secretaries can offer TERA. (I think they can because they can force shape). 

 

Edited November 26, 2019 by FLEA

[Bigred]

4 hours ago, Hunter Rose said:

Annual retention report is out.

Active Duty grew the pilot force by 54. At this rate, we’ll be where our manning numbers need to be in a mere 13-15 years!  What a stupendous job Aircrew Task Force!

The Generals need to cry uncle. They need to ask Congress for a bigger bonus, or if stuck with only a $35K bonus they need to offer it with a one year commitment and renewable annually. 

If Altus is indicative of the rest of the Air Force, that 54 is all of us former gold wingers who switched over. I can count at least 5 dudes I know of in the C-17 and KC-135 pipeline.

 

It helps but no where enough to really even make a dent in that ~2100

Edited November 26, 2019 by Bigred

[Majestik Møøse]

2 hours ago, Bigred said:

If Altus is indicative of the rest of the Air Force, that 54 is all of us former gold wingers who switched over. I can count at least 5 dudes I know of in the C-17 and KC-135 pipeline.

What’s the draw for you guys to do ISTs to the AF?

[Bigred]

14 hours ago, Majestik Møøse said:

What’s the draw for you guys to do ISTs to the AF?

Career timing and post military opportunities. In the Navy, if you don’t screen for squadron command the odds of flying post department head (ADO) are almost zero. 
 

For me personally, I’m a senior O-4 that flew helos in the Navy and I was looking at a non-flying desk job for at least three years. With no guarantees of flying afterwards (even though I volunteered for UPT instructor, etc), and the Air Force offering me the chance to fly heavies for at least the next four years, it was a no brainer. Even if I don’t fly till I retire I’ll have a lot better shot at the majors afterwards instead of slogging through the regionals for 5-6 years waiting on flow through. 
 

The same applies to a lot of the guys I know that have swapped over. No real aspiration for command but happy to fly our asses off for the rest of our careers. That, and the 75 day tanker deployments are quite ok when compared to 6-9 month boat deployments.

[billy pilgrim]

I didn't previously know this, but AGR 11Fs get the $35k/year bonus as well.  Some guys are paying it back to get their seniority started at a major.

[Guardian]

Good thing about guard paying back bonus, you can pay it back very slowly with no interest. At least that’s what I’ve heard.

[kona4breakfast]

2 hours ago, Guardian said:

Good thing about guard paying back bonus, you can pay it back very slowly with no interest. At least that’s what I’ve heard.

My unit didn't stop my orders in '13 when I went to school. Overpaid me 6 weeks ADOS and didn't catch it until the end of the FY. It took me until last year to pay it back 😎