BADFNZ

Thanks guys. I didn't even know there was an SDP section on MyPay. The balance in that section was different than my LES.

SDP question: I deployed earlier this year and put $10,000 into an SDP. I've been back for 2 months now, but according to my LES, my SDP balance hasn't changed from $10,166 for 3 months now. I'm hoping this is a mistake as I should be accumulating interest until 90 days after RTB. This is my first time doing the SDP so I'm not sure how it works in regards to the balance on your LES and how accurate it is. Any help?

Would like to give a big shoutout to Marty and his team at Trident. I was very hesitant to pull the trigger on the IRRRL, mostly due to lack of knowledge and lack of trust in the "no-cost" refi. Even though Marty was at a going-away lunch for an employee, he gave me a call and talked me through everything and calmed my fears. He either really cares about customer satisfaction, or really hates his employees, but either way I came away impressed I was able to lower my payment by $450 with $0 coming out of my pocket for the refi. I highly recommend you give Marty a call, shoot him a PM, etc. Even if you're on the fence, he'll take time out of his busy day as a mortgage company owner and airline pilot to answer your questions. Do it!

Marty, thanks for the explanation. I will give you guys a call this week.

I just got off the phone with my current lender and they assured me there's no such thing as a no-shit no-cost refi, and that mortgage companies are probably just giving enough of a credit to cover the costs. This makes sense. They quoted me a 3.375% rate with a $500 credit, or a 3.75% with a $3000 credit. They said any VA IRRL loan is going to have a 0.5% VA funding fee plus any title costs which differs by state. So I'm guessing the answer is "it depends" when it comes to whether or not you'll incur any costs with an IRRL.

So I just got off the phone with USAA. They said the only way they could offer $0 closing costs would be if my original mortgage was through USAA. If my mortgage is currently with someone else, then there would be normal closing fees.

When you say $0, does that mean that the fees were just rolled into the new loan? Or that it was a no-shit $0 closing cost/fees loan?

Any more info on these no-cost refis? Almost sounds too good to be true so I'm skeptical. We bought our house 2.5 years ago when the rates weren't as low (4.25%) but would love to get a lower rate now to lower the payment. Only downside is there's a good chance we'll PCS in the next year, so paying closing costs makes any refi worthless to us.

What exactly will be in March? Accounting date? PRFs due to MAJCOM? Actual board date?

So obviously not the same guys involved in the crash last week? I thought it was the same outfit.

Anyone have a good contact email for Memphis Downtown? I'm downrange right now so my hours don't really coincide with theirs, plus the wifi calling is shitty here. I can't seem to find an email address on their website.

Any more rumors of the '08 board being moved up to this Fall? Haven't heard or read anything besides what was posted on here.

There are bases that allow concealed carry RIGHT NOW with no CBTs, SF training, or "sign-offs". Stop talking out of your ass. And who knew that you can only neg rep 4 times in a 24 hour period.

One hell of a head-scratching first post. You, I mean your "friend", are probably f*cked.

Post the info in the thread. I'm sure there are several people that are interested.

And? It's still a BUFF and I'm sure there are exactly zero Bone pilots that would like to fly one.

This is coming from a Capt who spent a couple years as an exec, so feel free to disregard the rest of my post. The answer is "it depends". If you have only top 10% strats, then you'd want to include them all. If you have some top 10%, some top 25%, and some top 50%, I'd say include only the top 10% and 25% strats. Of course, this will vary based on how many of each you have. If you have 7 10% strats and 1 top 25%, then omit the top 25%. If you have 2 10% strats, but 5 top 25% strats, omitting all but the top 10% to paint a better picture would look awkward. When writing it, keep in mind your overall goal. If it's to get a school slot, then obviously you're going to have to paint a rosier picture. If you're just trying to prove that you're not in the bottom 10% of your YG, then throwing in a top 50% strat (who gives these out anyways) wouldn't hurt anything.

So in EUCOM/PACOM, good deal TDYs just came with the territory. In AMC, they were "shady". GTFO. If you have a glutton of flying hours, not enough days in the year to kill them, and are overmanned with co-pilots, what's the harm in taking the keys to the jet over the weekend and shooting some pro at Travis/Beale then enjoying Wine Country after you land? I'm not a tanker dude so I have no dog in this fight, but I see no problem with this and don't think it's "shady" at all.

Why not ask your CC? I'm sure he'd be more than willing to provide you a few and even give you a few pointers.

I think the problem with Welsh is he didn't live up to the hype. Once he won the nomination, people were quick to exude his greatness from previous experiences working directly for him, in his MAJCOM, Wing, etc. Out of the gate, he killed Blues Mondays, which only set the bar even higher for him for the rest of his regime. Then he kind of held the status quo for the rest of his term, and didn't do anything earth-shattering, so everyone was left wanting more. We thought he was going to be this huge breath of fresh air, but it turns out that maybe once you become CSAF, the political weight is too much to make any huge change. Compound that with the fact that a lot of negative shit went down AF-wide under his watch (Mollygate at Laughlin, Little Rock, F-35 procurement, etc) and today is the result. It's a bit depressing because I feel this was the one chance we had to see a difference, and if Welsh can't do it, maybe it's not possible.

I think Big Blue could easily fix part of the pilot retention problem by getting rid of all 365s and BS 179s. The problem isn't the pay, it's the deployments. When I'm not downrange, what other job is going to pay me close to $100k to fly once or twice a week, occasionally click through some CBTs about lesbian trafficking, and work on a few OPRs? However, taking me away from my family for a year to have Afghanis try to kill me daily in a Cessna Caravan, or for 6 months to make coffee for some General at the CAOC, is not worth any amount of cash you can throw at me. I have no issue going to war with my Sq to help kill bad guys, but when you throw in the other bullshit deployments that we're all subject to, it makes me want to punch the second I'm eligible. Fix the miscellaneous deployments and you'll fix the retention problem.

Where is this land of ice cream and blow jobs?

Because the jig is up and people are seeing through all the smoke and mirrors. Most people see little to no value in signing for 5 years just to have Big Blue yank the rug from underneath you once your contract is up with 17 years TIS. At least offering $25k/yr and a "guaranteed" retirement sweetens the pot a little bit for those on the fence.

Pretty much. Big Blue is obviously lacking in many facets, but one thing they'll never fuck up is knowing when they have someone by the balls.