Hacker

I don't know that any of them are yet even certain if they're going to furlough or not. That being said, Purple is currently planning on filling classes from the hiring pool throughout the rest of the year.

I have owned, rented, been in clubs, owned in a partnership, and looked into several places in between. Aircraft involved have been a 1948 Navion, a 1964 Cherokee 235, a 72 KCAB Citabria, a 1949 T-6G, a 1943 PT-19, and a 1943 SNJ-4 for the relevant club/owning/partnership/sponsorship routes. Each of these routes had their pluses and minuses, and there are good reasons to be found for each path depending on how much money you have to burn, how often you plan on flying, and what you plan on using it for. What I have settled into currently is a partnership/club membership (a fractional owner who leases the airplane to a club) in the PT-19 and a sponsorship in a CAF T-6. Both avenues work well for my balance of cost-vs-use frequency and type. Plus, as others have mentioned, the club (and the CAF) are fun groups of people to fly and socialize with, and also facilitate other flying events like ride-giving, fly-ins, airshows, formation flying, etc. For quite a few years I was heavily leaning toward an RV-8, even having done pre-purchase inspections on a couple potential candidate aircraft and getting some type training and fam from one of the Van's enthusiast groups. I don't have anything bad to say about the aircraft or the community -- I think it is an exceptional combination of value and performance, and would probably have been a good fit for me had I not stumbled into the PT-19 and T-6 opportunities I ended up going with.

I heard from a bro who works at one of the adversary air contractors that his company spent last summer roaming through several Central and South American AF bases surveying the condition of numerous A-37s that were for sale. Reportedly, most of them weren't airworthy or in nearly good enough condition to be made airworthy cost effectively.

None of the things I posted implied that a fighter crossflow guy would not be successful. I certainly don't believe that, and I know a number of crossflow guys who made outstanding fighter pilots and leaders, Danno being one of them. I was saying that a specific sample of people from a specific timeframe who crossflowed didn't all share those same levels of success, and that those statistics should be considered in evaluating the success of such a program, and equally considered when contemplating doing it again in the future. It would be ludicrous to develop policy based on statistical outliers.

I think @HuggyU2 is interested in the difference between the A-37 and the OA-37. My understanding, just like the A-10 and OA-10, is that they are the same aircraft, but designated differently for mission/accounting purposes at the top organizational levels. A little bit like the difference between the U-2R and TR-1, but for different reasons.

It is important to also remember that the guys who crossflowed in the 90s were all UPT T-38 trained. There's an additional data set of rotary-wing background guys who were hired by a couple of the A-10 ANG units in the 2003-2006 timeframe, most of whom also struggled substantially in IFF (and I understand performed similarly in Hog FTU). Again, based on the guys I flew with as an IFF IP, their struggles were not a talent issue but an experience issue. There's a small subset of guys in the heavy world currently who were assigned out of the T-38 track 8-10 years ago, and the number in the RPA community who came from 38s is an even smaller sliver.

I don't know the total numbers, no. So far as I'm aware there was only one board, and those guys were going through IFF and FTU about the same time I did in the 98-00 timeframe.

Results were mixed, to be fair, but skewing heavily toward being not very successful. I've posted on baseops previously about the half-dozen guys I knew who'd done it and the difficulties they faced in the fighter world. All high-achievers, fantastic dudes, and excellent officers (and obviously great aviators in whatever heavy platform they came from), but the majority not particularly well suited to decisionmaking at the speed and G of the fighter business. My take, based on the guys I personally interacted with, was that it wasn't a talent issue so much as it was an experience issue, but that the experience early on in a pilot's career was important to their performance further on down the line. All that being said, it was the only time in "recent history" that the writer's idea was actually attempted, so I'd think that the data would be useful to evaluating the hypothesis.

It is interesting that Maj Byrnes' analysis doesn't incorporate or consider the results of the late-90s fighter crossflow program.

Now, all of those women who weren't joining the Air Force because of that blasted 3rd verse of the song will decide to become Airpersons. Mission-critical issue solved. Leadership at its finest.

Elon is comparing some future theoretical capability that might exist with a capability that is operational and actually sitting on the ramp today. As someone far smarter than I once said, "the F-35 is a great 2000s fighter". Such a comparison is difficult to take seriously.

Meanwhile, there is a multi-day backlog of freight going both directions at Purple ramps across Asia, and there aren't enough airframes or crews in the system to move anything close to the demand.

How's your side of the cargo fence handling China travel? UPS recently negotiated with their union for volunteer on China trips, no-penalty removal for people with scheduled China trips, and 150% pay for those who do volunteer. Purple, right now, has business as usual.

OP would be way better off sticking it out at his regional, upgrading to Captain and packing his resume with 121 MTPIC time, adding check airman to his resume, perhaps working on a union committee or some other volunteer work. All of that will be more important on the resume and the "career airline" application than the A320 type or the bump in pay at Frontier or any of the ULCCs.

There was a *lot* more baked into the decision to drop Amazon than is displayed in those numbers. Amazon was playing a very smart game, using FedEx lift to move its lowest yield packages (thereby taking real advantage of the cost negotiated with Purple to move them). The "revenue potential" that was lost (which was only 3% of Express' overall business) was producing only razor-thin profit margins anyway. What most folks didn't realize was that at the time of the divorce with Amazon, Purple had more domestic business than it had airlift to accept, and that other business had higher profit margins than the Amazon packages. Without Amazon, Purple is now free to go after that business that had previously been rejected. What has *really* been hurting Purple financially recently is the combination of the China trade war, Brexit, and TNT integration. Those three have been massive punches to the bottom line, and are what is really responsible for the "we made less profit than Wall Street folks think we should have made" doom-and-gloom news of the last two quarters.

I'm wondering when the 737 Max passenger-to-freighter conversion will be announced...and if Purple will be the launch customer, hehe. Fred loves a good deal...and I bet there'll be a fire sale of customer return Maxes at some point.

APC started in early '05. If anyone wants to do any archaeology and learn more about their airline's past, the "new" FlightInfo.com forums go back to about 2001. If you think APC is a monkeycrap fight, go check out ol' Flightinfo's archives!

Don't forget that at UPS *everyone* is on the widebody pay scale and at FedEx about 69% of pilots are on widebody pay.

There are several repatriated export-sale Tweet airframes languishing around that could be made airworthy if you really wanted to.

OP, if you don't know why, you haven't been paying attention. Good luck.

More likely "material failure" related to the engine getting thrown around post-crash after it separated from the wing. If you watch the entire video (and with the understanding of the limited info the NTSB video provides) there are some clues to this, especially that the tips of the blades are not curled, as would be evident if the engine were turning at impact. Props rotating and producing power at impact are usually curled forward, while props rotating and not producing power at impact are usually curled aft.

With the exception of the MD-11, all initial aircraft and domicile assignments for newhires are based on the last 4 of SSN (9999 highest, 0000 lowest). Newhires put in a dream sheet before day one of indoc, and available assignments are handed out in seniority order. MD-11 assignments are selected separately, before day one of indoc by the company, and this is where previous experience is involved. Because of the finicky landing performance of the airplane, and the accident record at FedEx, they are looking for specific experience to send newhires to the airplane. For some reason they like Navy carrier guys, C-17 guys, and of course KC-10 guys, but that's not all inclusive.

Those evil airsoft pellets!

According to Salon: https://www.salon.com/2019/09/09/were-starting-to-see-the-scale-of-trumps-personal-corruption-and-its-massive/ That's some world-class "reporting".

"We care how things look, not how things are" is far from a UPT-centric problem. That is a core AF competency, unfortunately, that is going to take a generation to un-screw.