Hacker

There are several stories of essentially this happening at FedEx, although at purple it had nothing to do with anyone getting lost, it stems from that system bids are (and historically have been) very infrequent compared to nearly every other 121 airline. Sometimes it is every 9 months, or a year, or every 18 months. This leads to quite long training cycles. Thus, when a fleet is being eliminated (like what has happened with the 727 and DC-10), the training cycle for pilots does not flow perfectly with the rate at which airframes are being put into the boneyard. Thus, after the last airframes were flown into Victorville, the last crew holdouts on those airframes had sometimes quite long waits for their training slots in their new aircraft. There are stories of guys sitting for a year or more, getting monthly guarantee to sit at home and wait for their training class date.

I want to do the least amount of work for the most pay in the shortest time period. I don't understand the desire to do the "most amount of work" if the pay for less work over the same period is the same.

Honest question: why is this ("density") an attractive attribute? I completely understand the attraction to commutable schedules, as well as having schedules which both maximize pay and time off simultaneously. However, "density" implies a lot of work in a short period of time. Personally, I want to do as little as possible for as much pay as possible in a given unit of time. I want to maximize my credit-hour density, and not my actual work density. In other words, let's say we're talking about a 5-day stretch that is worth 35 hours of pay. Credit being equal between the two, I'd rather do four (or three!) flights with three long layovers in that 5-day stretch than 4 legs per day with 4 short layovers. My point is, "density" of work in and of itself isn't a measure of how to maximize the combination of pay and time off simultaneously. System form, trip rigs, min guarantees, etc, are what really determine this over the simple math of how many legs per day you're completing.

That is the best management logic for not giving a great paying contract that I've ever read.

17 years to the month later. Nice.

Here's hoping some of that huge Rogan audience decides to buy copies.

I did a stint at CPZ, too, after I retired non-current and had a great time yanking gear and hanging out with the 20-something Capts and FAs as an ol' 40-something dude. I enjoyed every day except payday; made under $17,000 my first year. Most importantly, learned a ton about 121 operations that made the leap to the majors much easier than it would have been directly from Big Blue's loving arms.

I never bought into this new-agey idea that profanity is somehow not professional. It is just one of the tools in the professional's toolbox. One that can be highly effective. What is unprofessional is when that tool is improperly used, and unfortunately it often is.

Clearly you/her and I have very different definitions of "taking care of our airmen."

Ya gotta admit, though, his FB post that started it was pretty damn funny.

When you see people blame "the cancer in AF leadership" for the retention debacle, this is one of the cornerstones of that cancer. At some point in the last 20 years, it became fashionable for commanders to be as "tough" on mistakes made by their subordinates as possible, in a combination of showing they're "no tolerance" or whatever and in an attempt to never allow themselves to be questioned by their superiors about a decision they made. CYA, essentially. Which, obviously, is a 180-degree turn from where AF leaders once were, mentoring and protecting their subordinates and being screens for them. I laugh at the fact that on DD175s, we used to put "on file" in that personnel part of the flight plan, partly in an attempt to protect our own AF pilots against adverse FAA action should they make a mistake. Today, I'm sure Commanders are practically eager to facilitate their pilots getting FAA violations so they never get accused of trying to cover something up under their command.

My violence is "principled", and your violence is "terrorism". Protest should make people uncomfortable....unless those people are elected representatives of the people, in which case it is illegal.

Hate to say it, but if you want to talk about "fundamentals", just about all the major passenger airline stocks that have been artificially kept aloft for the last 10 months are kind of short on "fundamentals" as well. Trying to play that card to somehow make the Gamestop and AMC price increases invalid is thoroughly intellectually dishonest.

Yep...and all of the failing banks and investment houses that were bailed out with taxpayer money in 2008 were also not based on anything fundamental. Still gets back to manipulation being okay for a certain group of people, but not okay for others.

I think this will be the fuze that really kicks off the next hiring spree -- not just at DAL, but industry-wide due to numerous places offering or incentivizing early retirements during COVID. There's a lot of pent-up demand that is hiding under COVID fears and governmental restrictions. What remains to be seen is if how rapidly that demand is allowed to translate into ticket sales.

Sweetness was also the CC of the 435th when you were in Valdosta in '05, wasn't he?

I love how these rumors are born and bred. For one, Rick actually *won* his case where he objected to what he found to be an unconstitutional order to kill an American citizen, and was reprised against by his local chain of command for that objection. Second, he just retired....not any "retirement in lieu of" or any of those shenanigans, but a regular ol' retirement. IIRC it might have been a couple years less than 20, when they were offering early retirements 5-ish years ago. Dude had/has his issues, but wasn't kicked out.

Envy is an ugly emotion.

Except for the fact that the pie size is not fixed....especially in a time when so much "free money" has been pumped into the system by the Fed. So, no...someone getting richer does not mandate someone else getting poorer.

Okay, thanks for clarifying that.

Perhaps I didn't ask the right question in my previous post, so let me ask from a different angle. Is your comment is a criticism of the gatekeeping that exists (and has long existed) in the warbird community which is a barrier to new people getting involved, or a comment on the Collings organization, specifically, with respect to how they operated their Wings of Freedom Tour?

Not that I'm aware of with the fidelity required to be of any value. Most of the checkout and annual re-examination processes rely on actual butt-in-the-seat experience. We are actually somewhat fortunate that in the last 25 years there have been a bunch of fighters that have been modified into 2-seat, dual control versions which allow real hands-on instruction in them. Before that, the traditional method of getting checked out to fly any of the big piston fighters involved a whole bunch of time flying the T-6, and a checkride where you takeoff, fly, and land the T-6 from the back seat. This was apparently supposed to provide such a poor view on takeoff and landing that it simulated the long nose of Mustangs, Corsairs, etc. Even flying the T-6 itself is considered a "harder" airplane to fly than most of the pig piston fighters because of some of its bad habits both in flight and on takeoff/landing. The joke in the warbird community is that to prepare yourself for flying the T-6, go get checked out in a Mustang or a Bearcat. In the larger airplanes, the multiengine stuff, the key is still to have relevant taildragger experience prior to getting checked out....but you still need time in the seat with the engines running to actually get a checkout.

Which is kind of the core problem, IMHO. "Black lives matter" as a concept is really not controversial in any way. Yes, anyone who believes that all humans are individuals and of equal objective value philosophically can confidently agree with that. We might disagree on the degree to which the statement relies on an unproven implication that society inherently values the lives of individuals with a certain skin pigment less than other individuals with a different skin pigment, but that's leading us down a different path of discussion Unfortunately, "Black Lives Matter", the organization and movement is something that is completely different and stands for something that is completely different than the plain English phrase means (as evidenced by their now-deleted "what we believe" webpage. So, just like with a lot of sophistry used in the name of advocacy, not being in support of "Black Lives Matter" (the organization) gets to be weaponized against whomever states it as "racist" (or whatever other word from the deplorables litany one wishes to arm themselves with) by intentionally co-mingling the concept with the org.

There are bad actors who make bad decisions in the judicial system, that have resulted in unequal and unfair treatment, obviously. To distort that to mean the system itself is fundamentally flawed, or that the system is rigged against a particular identity group of people, is not a logical step. Even worse, to declare that the current system is so broken that it has to be torn down and replaced with something more "fair", without being able to specify what exactly is broken with the current system, or what the specifics of that other system that would replace it might be, is a bunch of postmodernist nonsense. BLM isn't at all interested in simply ending police brutality.