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Aviation Continuation Pay (ACP - The Bonus)


Toro

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As has been discussed here before, $35k/yr just corrects the bonus for inflation. It does nothing to help correct the additional ass pain that active duty has become since the original $25k/yr bonus. It doesn't move the needle for me one bit, but rather makes me more likely to find the quickest way off active duty as I come to the end of my UPT commitment.


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On 12/19/2016 at 10:51 AM, General Chang said:

Hopefully the fighter and RPA guys get excited about the first bonus raise in a generation.  Definitely a sweet pot of money on that rainbow: $35K/yr for 9 years!  I am pleased that the issue of "raising the bonus" finally worked out.  We had a lot of personnelists spend many hours to make sure our pilots are paid the correct amount via the bonus.  Very exciting that it finally happened.  Pilots, wherever you are at, please thank a personnelist.  That small gesture will make a world of difference.

 

Merry Christmas, all.

Sorry, I can't hold back anymore. Chang, you're an idiot! NO IT DID NOT "work out!" To the outsider looking into the pilot community you might think this is a good thing, but it is not!

Virtually nothing has been done to improve our QOL by the AF. Sure, we have a couple of civilians floating around the squadron trying to help out. Honestly, they suck. I find myself avoiding them because they are so incompetent and always asking me questions about how to do their job. They've even started to task me to get them stuff. I'm sure they'll get better but so far it hasn't helped. 

Other than that nothing has been done. I'm under a year until my commitment is up and with each passing day I am more and more convinced to leave this train wreck. It's not even a sinking ship to me anymore...it's a full fledged train wreck. The bonus situation ended up being a huge negative and I don't even think the AF realizes it yet.

Targeted bonuses to certain communities? Well, now you just pissed off those communities that aren't "targeted." $35K? Sounds like a slap in the face after the AF told us they were going for $48K. The House's first version of the NDAA had $60K. Now that $35K is downright insulting. The message that has been sent loud and clear now is that either the AF or Congress or both think that only increasing the bonus to compensate for inflation is enough. Well, it's not. I've been jerked around for a decade and I'm ready to live where I want to live. I'm ready to decide how I want to spend my time off, and not be told I have to engage in the mandatory fun or volunteer activities that the AF deems worthy. I'm ready to actually do the job I'm trained to do instead of a bunch of meaningless "tasks" that make those over me look good if I do a good job. I'm tired of SAPR or green dot training or whatever they decide to call it next. I'm not a rapist and I'm tired of being treated like a 2 year old. I don't want to spend a year away from my family in an awful location building power point slides for some guy that everyone bows too while also hating. I'm sick of this dysfunctional social experiment and I'm ready to get my life back. Good riddance. 

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On 12/19/2016 at 9:51 AM, General Chang said:

We have a plan to backfill the bomber community with additional UPT grads to make up for any shortfall you may see over the next few years due to staff demands.  It will be better for your communities as well, since new pilots have more longevity.  All-around win-win.  

 

Hopefully the fighter and RPA guys get excited about the first bonus raise in a generation.  Definitely a sweet pot of money on that rainbow: $35K/yr for 9 years!  I am pleased that the issue of "raising the bonus" finally worked out.  We had a lot of personnelists spend many hours to make sure our pilots are paid the correct amount via the bonus.  Very exciting that it finally happened.  Pilots, wherever you are at, please thank a personnelist.  That small gesture will make a world of difference.

 

Merry Christmas, all.

UPT grads won't solve my WSO problem.  It also doesn't solve my FTU manning problem.

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On 12/21/2016 at 5:44 PM, ViperMan said:

Nothing can solve that!

Har har, but the reality is I have a tougher time scheduling instructor WSOs than I do scheduling instructor pilots.  Probably because of the shorter ADSCs, but also because there's only one place that makes new WSOs (Pensacola) vs the half-dozen bases that make new pilots.

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The 11B exodus to fill white jet cockpits has already begun with no sign that it's getting better. Our line squadrons and FTU are already feeling the resultant pinch. All those guys were ACs six months to a year from IP upgrade, and now they're gone.  The Buff FTU is getting a T-1 FAIP and a new UPT T-1 grad in our next class, so it seems Chang's nefarious plan is already in motion. 

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11 hours ago, 08Dawg said:

The 11B exodus to fill white jet cockpits has already begun with no sign that it's getting better. Our line squadrons and FTU are already feeling the resultant pinch. All those guys were ACs six months to a year from IP upgrade, and now they're gone.  The Buff FTU is getting a T-1 FAIP and a new UPT T-1 grad in our next class, so it seems Chang's nefarious plan is already in motion. 

I just keep reminding myself that our functional at AFPC, in the webinar he hosted a few months ago, told us squadron manning was "AFPC's #1 priority", and of those squadrons, "FTUs are #1a, ahead of ops units".  I'm still waiting to see that prioritization have any effect on the manning.

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11 hours ago, Kiloalpha said:

To make matters even worse, there's only two Reserve Component units that those 11B's can apply their talents to if they felt so inclined. It's a direct loss of talent.

Especially since they located the B-1 Reserve at Dyess.  I know dozens of people who don't want to live in Abilene for the rest of their lives, but would have jumped at the chance to live in Rapid City permanently.

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14 hours ago, Kiloalpha said:

To make matters even worse, there's only two Reserve Component units that those 11B's can apply their talents to if they felt so inclined. It's a direct loss of talent.

Even further complicating the issue is that most of the 11Bs who do go reserves are min-participating TRs and fly their 737 or A320 more than a Buff or Bone.  Good on them, but bad on us for not doing what's necessary to make it worth their while to stick around on a more full-time basis. 

I know the AFPC functional, and I trust his intentions are good.  The intent isn't being met at the OG level.  We had two inbound instructors picked off for other on-base assignments just recently.  FTU Priority 1, right?  Not so much, it seems...

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16 hours ago, Kiloalpha said:

To make matters even worse, there's only two Reserve Component units that those 11B's can apply their talents to if they felt so inclined. It's a direct loss of talent.

That's not entirely true...every one of the AOCs has an ARC component...no better TET / MAAP / COD folks exist than 11Bs...unless its 12Bs.  Written tongue-in-cheek, but I know several who left AD for the airlines and the ARC and went to such a unit.

 

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On ‎12‎/‎21‎/‎2016 at 5:16 AM, pawnman said:

UPT grads won't solve my WSO problem.  It also doesn't solve my FTU manning problem.

...But, you see, the problem is that GC & his cronies are trying to solve their WSO/CSO/Nav problems with UPT grads (at least indirectly), but they refuse to acknowledge that they are doing so.

There were about 5,000 Navs (by this I mean Navs/CSOs/WSOs--whatever you wanna call them) in the AF in 2005. Now, we've got about 3,500. The OSS/staff/command/CAOC/deployed to Buttkrakistan to backfill Army guys/etc. workload didn't decrease by 30% over the last decade, so guess what? Pilot types have had to backfill billets that Navs might otherwise have filled. Ergo, we are trying to use UPT grads to solve the WSO problem . . . an expensive proposition that ticks people off and makes them all the more susceptible to the siren song of life outside of Big Blue.

Tying this back to the ACP discussion, I find it odd that there's so much handwringing over an 11F shortage, when the pilot shortages are across all MDSs. Sticking to what I know/my parochial interests, the Nav community that's taken the biggest hit over the past decade is the 12Ms. Not surprising--with the advent GPS/better avionics, one doesn't need 'em. Problem is that 11Ms are filling billets that 12Ms would normally have filled, at the same time the civilian sector is drawing 11Ms away from active duty at substantial rates, while at the same time MAF folks are backfilling CAF & SOF billets . . . yet global airlift & tanker requirements ain't really subsided. 

The resulting experience loss across the board is substantial. In 2005, there were 3,500 Command Pilots in the AF. Today there are 2,100. In '05, there were 1,900 Master Navs; today, there are 600. That sure looks like a helluva brain drain--notably in the mobility community--and given the current civilian hiring picture, I don't see our ability to retain experienced aviators getting any better.

While I fully understand that certain pilot communities are hurting worse than others, I can't escape the conclusion targeted bonuses for select pilot communities in FY17 ACP would be a galactically bad idea.  

Rant off.

TT

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Running with this discussion, what do you think about the overall shrinking of the CAF pilot/WSO force (fewer manned a/c in the future) wrt future staff bullets and strategy/force development? Will RPA pilots be able to lead development of future airpower strategies despite lack of "air sense" in the traditional regard?

No offense to anyone with this, just wondering since, despite the fact we all hate staff, there is a reason we send dudes to those billets. And for an 11F staff billet, I think there's a degradation in output when you put a non 11F in that position.


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On 12/23/2016 at 11:24 AM, 08Dawg said:

Even further complicating the issue is that most of the 11Bs who do go reserves are min-participating TRs and fly their 737 or A320 more than a Buff or Bone.  Good on them, but bad on us for not doing what's necessary to make it worth their while to stick around on a more full-time basis. 

 

Good luck getting AFRC to give more money.  ART jobs just aren't desirable like they used to be, even with superior qual/recruitment/retention bonuses. Everyone wants MPA while their apps are in at the majors .

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In 2005, there were 3,500 Command Pilots in the AF. Today there are 2,100.


There are also a lot of MAF O-5 Sq/CC types who are very challenged to get the toilet bowl because they spent so much time on staff / at school they never got the hours or the gate months to earn their final set of wings.
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5 hours ago, ThreeHoler said:

There are also a lot of MAF O-5 Sq/CC types who are very challenged to get the toilet bowl because they spent so much time on staff / at school they never got the hours or the gate months to earn their final set of wings.

 

Considering all one needs is 15 years and 3k hours (or failing that, 144 gate months), that's ridiculous. On the tanker side, there were guys coming out of their first assignments at Grand Forks the 2005-ish timeframe with well over 2,000 hours already.  Folks in the MAF community who can't build 3k hrs are a mystery to me; must've been folks who spent a lot of time at Mildenhall/somewhere like that which didn't fly much--in spite of a war going on. Even then, 12 yrs' worth of gate months ain't that hard to come by, even with school and a staff assignment. 

TT

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It would be a DOD policy since flight pay is the same for all services. I don't see the services lobbying DOD to increase it because nowadays they would view it as giving something for nothing. USAF, for example, will always want an ADSC in exchange for more money.


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It would be a DOD policy since flight pay is the same for all services. I don't see the services lobbying DOD to increase it because nowadays they would view it as giving something for nothing. USAF, for example, will always want an ADSC in exchange for more money.


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AF/A3 seemed pretty on fire about more money solves the problems...
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