Aviation Continuation Pay (ACP - The Bonus)

[osulax05]

DFAS posted the 2017 paychart. No increase to ACIP. 

[pawnman]

2 hours ago, osulax05 said:

DFAS posted the 2017 paychart. No increase to ACIP. 

Merry Christmas, boys!

[F16Deuce]

2 hours ago, osulax05 said:

DFAS posted the 2017 paychart. No increase to ACIP. 

This is my surprised face.

[Vprdrvr69]

20 hours ago, osulax05 said:

DFAS posted the 2017 paychart. No increase to ACIP. 

I'm shocked. Guess GC and his cronies have it all figured out. I can't thank dipshits like him enough. As a 2nd year UAL guy now, I pick up a 3% pay raise in Jan, which on average months, nets me 150% what I made as a AD Major. In Feb I get a nice 4.4% raise again (thanks DAL bubbas). Then, in mid-Feb I'll receive a profit sharing check that exceeds GC's entire monthly pay, whatever his rank actually is. Shortly thereafter I hit year 3 and pick up another 23% pay hike. 

On top of it all, I average over half of the month off and currently live three miles from Lake Tahoe. My family finally has a home and is happy. Even my fu(&;ng dog is a happy camper. Life isn't perfect but it's pretty damn good and exponentially better than it ever could've been on AD. I do USAFR shit on the side because I want to and don't let it detract from my life. It doesn't pay and also doesn't interfere while still letting me do something worthwhile. There is no comparison between where I was and where I am.

I didn't post to brag. I posted to help those facing such a grand decision and turning point in their lives. Take the leap. Life is good. If you don't, mama blue will be there to coddle you and GC will be there to continue ass probing you with big black veiny!

[HossHarris]

You can always come back .... probably

[Gazmo]

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 .

The ARC is going through their own problems. I Palace Chased to the ANG over a decade ago and open ART/AGR positions at the time were non-existant. My unit had at least a dozen bums brown-nosing as much as they could to prove their worth so the unit would even think about hiring them into the next opening. More than half of our full-time positions were filled by Lt Col's (furloughed airline pilots) who got hired into lots of vacancies (from the 99-01 airline hiring boom) after 9/11.

Today, it's full-timer mass exodus all over again. We can't fill full-time jobs with anyone other than 2Lt's fresh out of UPT. It's great for them. A GS-13 job as an Lt is not so shabby cash for someone with very little responsibility. We can't even fill AGR jobs. Noone wants to be stuck in a long tour in the event a legacy calls them.

We've got part-timers who are taking non-flying jobs (both inside and outside the unit) to finish out their last few years to get to 20 for a Guard retirement. We've got others who are pushing the button right at 20 when in years past, they'd go to 28 as a Lt Col. You have to understand that a 15+ year FO at UPS who makes near $20k a month loses a lot of money to drop a trip to come do duty at the unit or even more to do a 30 day rotation in CENTCOM.

AGR's get the same pilot bonus Active Duty gets and they are just now giving incentive bonuses to ART's, but at the end of the day, very few besides the ones who don't have enough flight time to get to major airline, are interested.

The ART program is antiquated and not on par with the pay/benefits of a commercial airline job. There are specific job series groups who get special payscales and better retirement benefits (ATC and LEO), but for some reason they chose to keep the pilot series the same as every other GS (aside from a flat 30% locality across the country). The 30% bump up was essentially supposed to be a bonus, but the powers that be at the time didn't feek it was smart to add a bonus on top of locality. For people that live in higher cost of living areas upwards of 25%+ locality, the "pilot bonus" is pretty much non-existant. Other job series get a better FERS retirement. ARC ART's are still at a 1:1 ratio (1% of your highest 3 years for every year of federal service). I believe ATC gets 1.7:1. $100,000 with over 20 years for us is $20,000 per year; for ATC it's $34,000. Quite significant. Their justification was that ATC controllers have a shorter federal career. Um... hello. So do us pilots!

The old ANG is gone. We're pretty damn busy and we're only manned at about 30% full-timers. We've got traditional guardsmen getting 150-200 days of mil duty per year on top of having civilian jobs. It's not a flying club anymore. All of the complaints about ancillary training, additional duties, shoe clerk driven policies, you name it... we live with it also and just imagine trying to keep up with all of that doing it as a "part-time" job.

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[Duck]

Quite a few of my friends in the ANG side have just outright quit or transitioned to non-flying positions inside the unit and outside.


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[Vetter]

3rd year NB FO.  Worked 88 days this year and flew 559 hours.  I grossed $169k.  Good luck Air Force!

[alohacessna]

16 hours ago, Vprdrvr69 said:

I'm shocked. Guess GC and his cronies have it all figured out. I can't thank dipshits like him enough. As a 2nd year UAL guy now, I pick up a 3% pay raise in Jan, which on average months, nets me 150% what I made as a AD Major. In Feb I get a nice 4.4% raise again (thanks DAL bubbas). Then, in mid-Feb I'll receive a profit sharing check that exceeds GC's entire monthly pay, whatever his rank actually is. Shortly thereafter I hit year 3 and pick up another 23% pay hike. 

On top of it all, I average over half of the month off and currently live three miles from Lake Tahoe. My family finally has a home and is happy. Even my fu(&;ng dog is a happy camper. Life isn't perfect but it's pretty damn good and exponentially better than it ever could've been on AD. I do USAFR shit on the side because I want to and don't let it detract from my life. It doesn't pay and also doesn't interfere while still letting me do something worthwhile. There is no comparison between where I was and where I am.

I didn't post to brag. I posted to help those facing such a grand decision and turning point in their lives. Take the leap. Life is good. If you don't, mama blue will be there to coddle you and GC will be there to continue ass probing you with big black veiny!

Zoum you are welcome for that extra raise! The AF can't even come close to competing with the airlines on a monetary level. I had no idea separating that I would be making as much money as I have been. I flew a greenslip (think overtime)  the other day to fly a 3.5 hr flight from LAX to ATL then Deadhead home. Total time gone from home less than 12 hrs, it paid 25 hrs. On second year pay including retirement contributions, profit sharing and base pay that trip was worth $4500. 

This year was mostly at second year pay for me. I grossed $150K base pay, with another $22K of retirement contributions. I expect that my profit sharing for this year paid out in February will be worth around $30K...Not bad for for second year pay and it only gets better each year. You can bet from a financial position leaving AD was a no brainer. The rest of the QOL stuff is again no comparison with AD. 

[Magellan]

Maybe if General Chang and his cronies realized the people they are treating like dirt have a skill set that earns them as much as a VP of Human Resources for a major company on the open market and that they can't just change dollar amounts to solve the problem.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/vice-president-human-resources-salary-SRCH_KO0,30.htm

If the AF tried to compete by seeking to compensate with job satisfaction and Quality/Control of Life they could manage these problems in a few years.

Until that paradigm shift happens no amount of congress approved money to pay pilots will fix the impending crisis.

[Guest]

Obviously not going to happen but I'd like to see the CSAF offer the 35k/yr on a year-to-year basis until Congress authorizes a higher dollar amount. At 35k w/no contract, I'd stay in past my UPT commitment. Signing up for another 5 or 9 years of getting bent over by AFPC takes a higher figure.


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[Duck]

Obviously not going to happen but I'd like to see the CSAF offer the 35k/yr on a year-to-year basis until Congress authorizes a higher dollar amount. At 35k w/no contract, I'd stay in past my UPT commitment. Signing up for another 5 or 9 years of getting bent over by AFPC takes a higher figure.


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But how would they be able to non-vol you to a 365?


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[Guest]

But how would they be able to non-vol you to a 365?


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They wouldn't. Of course our CSAF has also promised to get rid of additional duties. Of course, that's not working out so well. At McChord the burden for SABC was supposed to pass from the OSS to the MDG. MDG says they can't support at this time, and now the responsibility to provide trained SABC instructors falls on the individual Airlift sqs.


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[Duck]

So they would have to rely on shoving "service before self" down people's throats...


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[pawnman]

4 hours ago, Duck said:

So they would have to rely on shoving "service before self" down people's throats...


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Well, that's never failed before.

[brabus]

MDG says they can't support at this time, and now the responsibility to provide trained SABC instructors falls on the individual Airlift sqs. 

MDG can't support one of their core functions, so some ops guy should do it...where the fuck are Wing Commanders who actually have balls and crush this kind of bullshit?  Wait, doing actually leading may jeopardize their "upward mobility," so never mind, nothing to see here.

[Spartacus]

19 minutes ago, brabus said:

 

 

MDG can't support one of their core functions, so some ops guy should do it...where the fuck are Wing Commanders who actually have balls and crush this kind of bullshit?  Wait, doing actually leading may jeopardize their "upward mobility," so never mind, nothing to see here.

At my base I got an email the Thursday before Thanksgiving saying that the MDG would be closed the next day (Friday) and then min manned the following 3 work days before Thanksgiving so that MDG personnel could be with their families. Never mind flight ops were happening on all of those days. Unbelievable.

I was at DSU the first fly day after Thanksgiving and it was satisfying watching the MDG/CC awkwardly tell everyone that the same thing wouldn't be happening over Christmas and that he would make sure that the med clinic would be open on all fly days for now on. Pretty sure our WG/CC chewed him a good one. 

I think we all have stories like this to share, and I think we're all fed up with it. Stuff like this needs to be fixed to improve QOL, but it never will be. Hence, one of the reasons for the mass exodus. 

[Fuzz]

1 hour ago, brabus said:

 

 

MDG can't support one of their core functions, so some ops guy should do it...where the fuck are Wing Commanders who actually have balls and crush this kind of bullshit?  Wait, doing actually leading may jeopardize their "upward mobility," so never mind, nothing to see here.

I'm going to say this WG/CC is good and "gets it". He regularly polls the line flyers when he does wing certifications for new crew quals and has actually fixed problems when told about them. For instance DTS worked on about 6.9% of our computers and was making filing vouchers a pain in the ass. He found out about it and put the comm squadron to work fixing it. They identified the problem and while it still happens becuase their weekly patches override the fixes but at least now it's just a quick call to fix it. Anecdotal I know but also our med group is pretty undermanned so this may be thier "somethings gotta give".

[brabus]

The MDG saying they're too undermanned to provide MEDICAL training so other groups should pick up their slack is akin to MX being too undermanned, so finance troops should help launch jets, or ops is undermanned on SARMs, so the med group should supply airmen to augment them, etc. There are only two acceptable end states here, the wing cc tells the MDG/CC fix it, or the requirement for SABC training is deleted. There is not a single valid COA that leads to some ops, mx, etc. dude being "the SABC guy."

Edited January 2, 2017 by brabus

[Gazmo]

Our leaders have become spineless. Noone wants to go against the grain in fear of ruining their careers. I have no interest in commanding in an Air Force that shuns commanders for doing their jobs.

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[di1630]

I just checked the history of the last time ACIP went up......1999. My $840 now was worth $1,217 back then.

However my base pay is better. Still, you'd think they'd target aviators a bit better. It's the little items neglected that add up.


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[Duck]

There is such a huge split between the Rated and Non-rated Officer Career fields. You get your first real good picture of that while at SOS. I went there already feeling jaded at the system, ops tempo and leadership in the Ops world. Even back then before the airlines were hiring, I knew few pilots who were planning on staying in. Imagine my surprise when I found out that a ton of Officers in the AF couldn't be happier. Working 9-5 (sometimes), deploying maybe once in their career (The Deid BPC) and making almost six figures. These dudes were happy. Their biggest problems were what they needed to do to make the next Wing Quarterlies... When they told me what their job consisted of, a report, updating some slides now and then, EPRs, etc. I realized that we were in two completely different military organizations and they would never quite get it.

Before anyone jumps off a cliff, I know some other non-rated career fields have it tougher.


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[nsplayr]

33 minutes ago, di1630 said:

I just checked the history of the last time ACIP went up......1999. My $840 now was worth $1,217 back then.

However my base pay is better. Still, you'd think they'd target aviators a bit better. It's the little items neglected that add up.


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Almost every payment or budget item in the government should be pegged to chained CPI to account for inflation. So often programs or departments or specific payments erode over time simply due to bureaucratic and legislative inaction and gridlock.

Even when the intent is not to cut, cuts take place because dollar amounts don't matter much, purchasing power is what matters. 

If legislators want to cut budgets, great, but make them vote for cuts rather than allowing them to slowly and silently enact cuts by just failing to allow payments to keep up with inflation. 

[Dogs-N-Guns]

41 minutes ago, di1630 said:

I just checked the history of the last time ACIP went up......1999. My $840 now was worth $1,217 back then.

However my base pay is better. Still, you'd think they'd target aviators a bit better. It's the little items neglected that add up.


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It's actually worse than that. ACIP for the "over 6" and below hasn't changed since 1990. In 1999 the "Over 14" category was added. That means the $650 for the "over 6" category in 1990 should be $1200 in 2016. 

https://www.dfas.mil/dam/jcr:1cce686c-5296-4756-8496-5c92debbb566/MilPayTable1990.pdf

[Karl Hungus]

2 hours ago, Gazmo said:

Our leaders have become spineless. Noone wants to go against the grain in fear of ruining their careers. I have no interest in commanding in an Air Force that shuns commanders for doing their jobs.

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Judging by how many bright and shiny "HPO" IDE-selects (you know, the future CCs the AF so desperately needs to fix this mess) are 7-day opting out of IDE... you're not the only one who isn't motivated by command.