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DLF: “It’s not the end of the world, but you can see it from here”

Pilot Board for Tulsa Vipers in November 2018! Attached is eligibility and requirements for the board. Visits are welcome! Good luck! UPT Board Nov 2018.pdf

I don't know anything about the pilot-physician program beyond it's existence, but I am fairly confident it will not help you get a fighter - that's still merit-based in UPT on AD. The best "guarantee" for a fighter is getting hired by an ARC unit that flies fighters. The AD, regardless of job type, is generally the antithesis of stability. Your alternative of part time ARC pilot and civ doc will likely be far more stable than anything AD will offer. Additionally, if you go pilot physician on AD, my bet is you do not get to "see the world" (at least any good parts); that's such a specialized position that I'm guessing there are only a few spots at very specific locations. Pilot physicians are not a normal position at any "standard" flying base. Additionally I'd look heavily into the program and what it entails long term - do you stay on a relatively normal flying track or do you do one assignment and then off to Walter Reed for you? Bottom line is the last time I heard of a pilot physician in the Viper world, it was 10 years ago and they had done one assignment as a pilot/flight doc, then went onto some medical-only assignment. Do your research, it may not be exactly what you want long term. There is pretty much no limit to what you can possibly do in the world with ARC vs. AD. There are ARC personnel working green door projects, at DARPA, doing 3 year assignments in Europe, working at AOCs, flying test, shooting ISIS in the face, fucking up travel vouchers, and torturing dental patients. The ARC "one weekend a month/2 weeks a year" is not the baseline these days for a lot of people...if you want to do more than that (and you have to has a pilot), there are limitless opportunities.

DLF when @HuggyU2 was there:

I would advise against the misconception that i had when i joined which was that AD got to "see more action" than the reserve. Unless you define action as the combative word gymnastics you use to spar with against the MPF airman holding your PCS orders. Yeah i got at least 3 air medals worth of that bull shit.

huggy, we know you have fond memories of the place. That's great. I did my time at DLF as both a single and a family man. And the latter almost didn't happen, thanks to that place. The Lost Decade affected us all, not just airline folks. So let's keep things in perspective. I don't think it's a matter of sympathy, but I can tell you categorically that assignment was a hard inflection point in both my personal and professional life. This isn't just about FAIP pussy grabbing on the weekends or some other sophomoric shit, it's about a lot of other opportunity costs that affect the direction of a household in ways I would expect a family man to understand. I also have it as fact I did a much longer consecutive stint than you did at the place, so I'm qualified to call bullshit on the implication the place is devoid of opportunity costs. Which is another way of saying: Anybody can hold their breath for 3.5 years (PCS outprocessing pussyfooting around don't count). It's not the end of the world, I don't disagree, but let's not be so dismissive the legitimate costs that the place carries on folks with other life circumstances. That's all I'm saying.

I met Stuck Barbour back in 2006 at Reno, in Box 102 when he was in college, and we were friends since then. He relished coming out there every year, and was well loved by everyone. The Box owner decided to do up a theme for Stuck on this year's T-shirt. Check it out.

With the Recent advent and popularity of super high deductible catastrophic insurance plans .... lots and lots of places are real happy to take tricare. Especially independent docs and specialists. They know they’ll get paid. We haven’t had any issues using tricare standard everywhere

Get real sick, run out of all leave, lose health insurance after a grace period. Have fun. Dont be an ART

Nowadays you can do all of the things you listed in the ARC, and fairly easily as well. The big difference is you can do these things generally when you choose to and no one will force you to do any of them (AD is opposite on both accounts). And to be clear, many dudes get retiremet the day they leave the ARC, exactly like AD. So with that knowledge, why do you really want to go AD?

Whatever, losers. I was in Del Rio for 4 years... long before the internet. Long before Tinder (thankfully). There were the guys back then that bitched about "being in the middle of nowhere" and couldn't seem to get over it. And there were the guys that realized the environment they were in was not downtown Manhattan. And those guys had smart, hot girlfriends. OK... a few weren't that smart... but I digress. In any case, Del Rio is larger than it was when I was there. And so is Uvalde. What's your excuse for not having a great date this weekend? Make some effort if it is so important to you. I'm not going to bore you with stories from long ago, but honestly... you're getting no sympathy from me. Boo-fuckin-hoo.

Hacker, Knowing you, you had a camera lined up on the mid-air, and have magazine-ready photos to prove it. Great to see you!! But 3 minutes in passing on the ramp isn't enough to catch up, Amigo. ICAS is only 76 days... hope to see you at our "event".

Because you’re flying with visual “contact” with ground references. That’s how it was explained to me years ago. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Eh, I would say not even close worth it, average overall. And no he’s not in he had to come to the squadron to outprocess. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Do not go Tech, for Tricare alone. Catastrophic illness? It will break you no matter how good Blue Cross/Shield look day to day (financially). Trust me, I’ve seen it.

What do you really want, you aren’t spelling it out. Unit switched airplanes, don’t like airplane type, struggling in UPT, want a full time job?

Is that the corollary to "FUPM?"

I always tell people that your scores, GPA, etc. are what get you the interview and they don't really matter much after that. Once you show up for the interview, we are trying to get to know you so we can make the decision based off the "whole person" concept everyone talks about.

Here’s another angle:

Where do they go next? Back to UPT.

Most important question of them all

Which airline? Dies their FOM address it to? If so, Does it expand the options?

More important question to ask is: if you were already hired by the reserve/guard, why would you want to switch!?!?!

Not sure I saw this answered, but here is the verbiage in the contract: -- N. Professional Flying Service This Agreement contemplates that pilots shall devote their entire professional flying service to the Company, except that nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to prevent any pilot from affiliating with the military service of the United States. -- Lawyer as you will.

Who loves ATAAPS?! Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk

Im CONUS to CONUS, out & back to PIT in the spring. From talking to my functional he suggested OCONUS would equal tdy enroute, otherwise expect O&B. Having been a MDS FTU instructor and program manager my guess is it’s not as much to do about the ability to flex RNLT dates (paperwork drill) but rather if someone doesn’t complete training for any reason - medical, performance, etc. O&B they can easily return you to your previous base, enroute is a much more complicated problem

My money is on the abbreviated syllabus that ends with an FEB at sometime before BFM-5.

I was going to quip that cancelling for black flag is a pretty Air Force thing to do, but if you have first-hand knowledge that it does get brutal, guess I’ll give it a pass.

If she’s a 1 now, she’ll be a 1 in 5 months too. (Binary, 1 or 0)

Another argument for the airlines, I guess. Totally cool to get with the help. You may have to eventually give up half your stuff, but the companies don't seem to care FWIW.

The ART is a CSO, the AGR already has a line number, and the AD guy wishes he did. 😂

Wouldn't that really depend on the crew chief?

You couldn't have waited 3 months to make it a full decade thread bump?