hindsight2020

"I turned down 100 grand because their bidding wasn't [line/PBS]"...said no one, ever. just saying. It reminds me of my back and forth I have with other airplane owners when it comes to Lycoming vs Continental (for the record, go Lyco!). It's a captive audience argument, since in order to get the airplane you want you have to accept the engine they come with (on the non-experimental side of the hobby at least) or just do without. Ditto for these airline considerations. You can't cherry pick it, so why cry over spilt milk. But maybe I'm wrong, and there are folks out there who wouldn't apply to an airline because it has PBS (the one usually hated more, anecdotally at least).

Yeah I can't speak for Guard 11F units. I don't doubt you may be correct on the scorecard for Guard 11Fs currently flying and invol IAs. I thought @EvilEagle had already provided examples of his own unit (non-TFI?) where they send the backshop people to them, instead of the flyers. So by that metric alone you already have data that non-TFI fighter ANG has already bought into the bad deal. I think we're mixing apples and cantaloupes here though, at least on the AFRC side, which is what I can speak for. The Bama situation as you state, wasn't an invol IA from my understanding. We're talking about invol mob IAs here. The loss management policy (the euphemism that AFRC uses for what essentially is a de facto STOP LOSS policy) was pretty clear on the COAs. Nobody has the ability to 1288 out of an invol IA who didn't have it approved BEFORE the IA tasker got assigned. So the "deploy or 1288" conversation wouldn't be an option here. Again, generally those ultimatums are done in the context of a primary duty, combat coded in-AFSC deployment, or even yearly participation requirement discussions (we lost 4 this month alone to that btw; I think closer to 7 for the year). IOW, you have to have a separation date or retirement date approved in the system BEFORE they drop the IA tasker on the unit, otherwise they will not honor it. If you're tagged, you will be given whatever amount of days the regs state past the return date of the IA in order to separate/retire. So even if you drop paper as a result of the tag, you're still going. That's what absolutely spooked the herd here 2 years ago, and leadership had to start the Baghdad Bob routine ever since on the topic... fwiw, we're currently sending an O-5 active flyer IP to fill a AFE flt/cc job normally filled by an AD O-3. Nevermind a duty position effectively run by an E-6. Nobody in that IA to date has ever had AFE background, or even secondary AFSC from a prior-E life or the sort. The continued O-4 leaving the position LOL'd when they did the initial handshake phone convo. Even he couldn't believe they would be so brazen as to put an ARC O-5 flyer in an CGO nonner job. To quote the propaganda arm though: "It's not science fiction.....it's what we do every day." To be fair to the system, this was an 11th hour volunteer, who at the end of the tour will have an AD retirement in the bag as a TR. Getting it a good two years ahead of schedule, and can go back to his topped out WB FO gig. To finish the fairy tale there is to miss the real point. That being that, those guys are gone. There's no more, otherwise we wouldn't be running around with revolving "open until filled" AGR vacancies. When, not if, they get to the first true invol, this place will collapse overnight. Leadership is playing a dangerous game of chicken with its human property, when what they should have been doing two years ago is telling AFRC leadership to sack up, push back on the COCOM and turn this AD pork barrel graft off before our own squadrons start popping red in those god damned slides as manning combat ineffective. Everybody acts like that's an idle threat and merely the sport kvetching of supposed perennial malcontents (ask me how I know). But the second this hits the pavement it's "all hands on deck" again and "more with less" rah rah speeches at the beginning of the year. Meanwhile the support functions are still shit and riddled with OCP-wearing apathy, people are preemptively getting out, SG keeps pickling guys off and acting like they're doing the Country a favor, and ENRON mark-to-market accounting run amok still shows manning green on the slides at the Wing. There's zero integrity in this entire dynamic. BWTHDIK, they're probably right...

Jesus Christ what a mess. Talk about a toxic environment. Btw, the term you're looking for is RSC = Reserve Service Commitment. It's the ARC version of an ADSC. The main difference is that an RSC can be served part time, but it expires by calendar just like an ADSC. So if you're stuck with an RSC, you technically can fulfill it by min running the snot out of the unit and it expires just as quickly as if you were full time/active duty. For an AGR, an RSC can be problematic as it can stop you from getting a curtailment approved, which affects civilian employment. I know of someone who couldn't take a Delta CJO over an aviation bonus RSC they wouldn't cut him loose from. For TRs in an environment of no invol mobs, RSCs mean nothing. But as your co-worker found out, in this brave new world of active duty light, RSCs are a big problem for TRs. Caveat emptor. RSCs are incurred for similar (but not all) things AD incurs an ADSC for. GI bill transfers, formal schools to include initial qualification training in a different MDS/MWS. Palace Chase (2:1 on the balance of whatever ADSC you had at the time of PC approval ) is another popular one. Aviation bonus (AGR or TR bonus) is another one. And so forth. Your buddy probably had a palace chase RSC balance and the rest is history. Green-on-blue is a sore subject for me, as I lost a friend and OTS classmate in 2011 to those mfckers we're told to "aid and advise". CENTCOM IA nonner taskings are thus a trigger topic for me. I would quit, and leave a retirement on the table over it. My monkey my circus. I've been taking paycuts for 5 of my 13 years in order to retain the ability to say no; I'm certainly not about to start making exceptions to that policy in this hiring environment. What you describe is real though, and I know that calculus goes into many airline dude's ledgers these days. We've all done our time, and there is no lack of volunteerism on our part if we are called to do our primary duty. But the rest of that rent-seeking fucketry, yeah count me out. What the ARC is doing right now is neither good faith nor good business imo.

Buddy, the wheels came off this bus a long time ago. There's no turning this Titanic around. It gets even more ludicrous on our side of this mess. So first of all, AFRC volunteers for these nonner IAs, which is the original sin, but that's what happens when you promote Active Duty sycophant blue falcons to AFRC leadership in Washington. At any rate, it then realizes it can't do so legally, so it cooks up a new partial presidential mobilization authority in order to do so. Meanwhile on active duty land, our "mirror NAF" executes a flank and takes its own bodies, those the ARC members are supposed to replace-in-place during a wartime tasking in the first place, and manages to fence them out of those very COCOM rent-seeking nonner IAs. So the TRs end up doing the Active bubbas invol IAs, and the Active folks are fenced out from them while getting active duty points on "nights and weekends" too. How u like them apples? Nevermind that TR probably got out of Active Duty precisely to regain control of his life and away from those very dynamics. You literally cannot make this stuff up. And when you take the senior managers to task about the legality of our charter, and I quote the O-8: "you're dealing with outdated information, Major". Basically sit the F down, which I find myself doing a lot of these days.... To the ARC leadership, TFI (TFE is the actual name today BTW) was never the bug, it was the feature. This is a decade long decay and it has worked to morph the strategic reserves into the expeditionary reserve, and unsustainable abortion, that it is today. The Air Guard folks need to take some serious accounting of their situation. I know it's du jour to believe the Guard Bureau retains the kind of rebel without a cause atmosphere that shields people from the indignities of AFRC life, but those days are over. This IS coming to a Guard unit near you, as it has already to some, so plan accordingly.

The ARC? Let me put it to y'all this way. We're losing people over flu shots, SG gatekeeper fucketry, and OBOGS. And that's before they added that individual INVOL mob bullshit grenade. LOL it's total chaos. Leadership says we're good though, mainly because we have the last remaining bastion of lost decade guys finishing active duty retirements, taking these on a voluntary basis. But that pot is drying up right quick. Oh and the cherry on top: Turns out AFRC actually volunteered to cover these rent-seeking CENTCOM nonner IAs. You cannot make this shit up. This job should be enviable. Leave it to the ARC to fvck up a two car funeral. If my wife hadn't got sick, as much as I hate admitting it, no doubt I too would have punched to Cat-E Shangri-La, go sit short call in MIA over a plato of arroz congrí with a goddamn smile on my face. And I don't even like flying airliners mind you...the hassles and nonner antics are outta hand.

yeah it was tongue in cheek. I was talking about the MC-12, but the barrel dive reference meant to draw a parallel to the Q400 thing. Unsat overall indeed on that one.

"Attempted" aileron roll was more like it. But the MIF is Fair (3+) so "barrel dive" is good enough. No fighter/FAIP follow-on, press to next block. LOL

Yeah I ran outta pop up books for all y'all lol

You guys attribute too much virtue to our senior leadership. Occam's razor: when you view the world from the prism of economic self interest, you realize that perpetual war and its rent seeking is not the bug, it's the feature. As such, there is no failure, only profit. Sure, we the pawns eat the opportunity cost. People are getting paid off our idealism, check that, RAIDING the cash registers on the backs of that naivete, and you guys are quoting Sun Tzu? Lol.

Do u even barrel roll bro?

The place is run by lifer locals mostly. Taxes and COL are sticker shock for most gringos. The weather is great if you are from the Caribbean or have that Kenny Chesney "affinity" for Caribbean living as an anglo. Housing is expensive and different (concrete construction, not wood, AC is generally modular, not central), electricity and water costs will knock your socks back so get accustomed to ceiling fans. These days the economy is so depressed with the looming Title III case and all the churn due to Hurricane Maria that you could snag a semi decent deal on a little hacienda in the outskirts. Aguadilla housing (my old man's hometown and my summer home growing up) is generally pretty cheap compared to the more urbanized areas like San Juan, which is a concrete jungle by the interior island's standards. Problem with PR housing is you'll get your a$$ handed to ya on resale. Things are not going to improve for at least 10 years, so if you going down there for a career you better have family reasons. As you probably surmise I'm originally from the place, and I bailed after high school before the second diaspora started in earnest. It will always be home, but it's not a good place to economically prosper, if you want to have something better than social security retirement that is. I suppose it would be a good springboard to other positions within federal service. This is not unique to CBP/AMOC critters. ATC, civilian pilot time builders, lawyers working for the fed, everybody uses PR as an entry way and "mini vacation" while junior in career, then they all bail back to the mainland when the transfer opportunity presents itself. From that perspective, all the economic negatives become a non-issue since you're not spending more than 5 years there anyways. Certainly better way to spend your low paid "juniority" years than sucking hind teet in provebial McAllen or Laredo. You do lose some constitutional rights as a US citizen establishing residency on a colony. Send me a PM for more on that, lest the MAGA crowd on here gets triggered about it. Again, for locals or family ties lifers, it's a no-brainer. My cousin from another mother employed a dude last year (part 91 management company, prior 135 certificate) who no kidding commuted from SJU to a Republic regional FO job in IND for 5 years. Obviously that didn't pan out so well (dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life actually), so he threw in the towel and flying down there full time but at least gets to bang the esposa more often. The place is like hotel california, you can check out any time you like, but you[r heart] can never leave! 😄 PM me if you want the specifics of how taxes work for a federal worker in PR. Bottom line, it's not a favorable tax situation, but it's a sunk cost if you wanna live down there and have an employer whose check actually doesn't bounce...oh wait we shut down the government over the holidays never mind! LOL Good luck.

Just trough dude. civilian employment is a PITA to juggle under anything but the most inconsequential military reserve commitment (basically part b IMA or cat E).

You have to understand that Enidstan is a former oil "boom" casualty of the 1980s. They are exceedingly skittish, like Minot, in allowing excess housing inventory to be built for a gritty transient population of energy blue collar workers. I understand where they're coming from regarding the housing stock. The DoD happens to be the welfare employer of the area via pork barrel, so servicemembers are the pawns. Captive audience dynamics abound.

An AD OG not so many moons ago was yet again faced with that question as we BS'd amongst each other in the bread van on our way to the parking row. His response to the collective question about that proverbial technician/pilot track inquiry was : "We already have that, it's called the Guard/Reserves". As the sole Reservist in that van, I just quietly shook my head. They don't get it, and never will. For those who fell off the math bus, it is increasingly difficult to attain an Active Duty retirement by that metric. Not impossible, just laborious to a non-starter degree, given the nuances of double commuting and the pay/QOL deltas of major airline flying work. Furthermore, that second class treatment of the flying track disincentivizes the retention of tactical combat corporate knowledge, and dilutes the value of it (80 cents on the dollar by my last count, in the ARC), if one is to suspend disbelief for one second and assume 100% experience retention of separating members into the ARC component. And Lord knows it isn't...hell we have people quitting with no 20-year letters over ¡flu shots! I shit you not. Airlines are that frothy. A true technician track would allow someone to attain an active duty retirement while remaining in ops for the duration, with the recognition that O-5 may be just as scarce as it is in the FTS component of the ARC flying unit ecosystem. But recalcitrant AD just won't barter with their human property as a matter of principle, so we have what we have today. A completely fraudulent and gratuitous apathy toward point blank hemorrhaging of the experienced demographic. It is terrible stewardship of the People's money, and completely uninspiring as a fellow "pilot who happens to be an officer". This particular iteration of the see-saw has convinced me that nothing will change. If they are unwilling to stem the loss in this environment, there really isn't a single additional variable that would compel them to do so. They'll stop loss and then allow it to get worse, while they continue to run the clock offense until the next airline hiccup. The only people who could take them to task would be Congress, and they seem aloof as to the criticality of this manning deficit if we were to get mouth-punched with a peer fight today. So do your 12, fly your ass off, then punch to make whatever life and vocational priorities are the center piece of your life. We managed to pull ourselves out the ropes of Pearl Harbor like Rocky in the fourth movie, so I guess we can keep winging it like that when China sucker punches us. "Late to the melee...", the American Way it seems. LOL

Is Tinker depot part 145 though? I understand y'all are majority civil servants, but isn't Tinker still mickey mouse AF MX run, to include military procedural fucketry standard? Genuinely curious, wife's born/grew up in Midwest City and I dropped more BUFFs at TIK that I care to recall, so I'm familiar with the area.

Your shitty PRF won't be a problem for O-5 in the Reserves, hell we promote convicted deviants. Your lack of ACSC in correspondence however, will 100% guarantee your non-promotion. I'm telling you, it's that binary. It's a matter of opportunity cost. A reserve retirement is not that lucrative when you have to wait for it until 60 (or high 50s as a disbursement buydown for certain 90 day chunks of orders post-2008), to the degree that O-4 vs O-5 would make a difference in your life. All you're doing with reaching for O-5 is increasing your MSD in the reserves, which for an airline guy may or may not be worthwhile, depending on if the airline treats you right or you get sodomized in the *next (not *if) airline musical chair stopping period. That's more of a airline timing and industry thing, than anything inherent to O-5 considerations on the mil side. Active duty retirement via the Reserves? Sure, you probably have an incentive to push through the bullshit ACSC side quest (which gets worse by the decade). Of course that also requires looking for O-5AGR in the line, where a lot of people time out waiting on a younger guy sitting ont the controlled position, and have to go looking for some retirement desk job just to get the TIG and go back to their airline. I'd certainly wouldn't do that just to get O-5 since I don't have a turbine job in my back pocket like MLOA airline guys do, but that's me and my reasons for sticking around in the military full time vice rummaging through civilian commercial aviation. So do ACSC, and you'll make O-5. Don't, and you won't. It's not the end of the world, but it is that simple. Meaning there's no decoder ring here like there is on Active Duty. No excuse for not knowing this in the AFRC side. I'm not defending it; I'm exceedingly UNINSPIRED by every administrative aspect of my career, and it is tough as an intelligent individual to accept that mediocrity. I'm only here because I'm still having fun in the flight line. They touch my "baby" single issue vote, and I vanish like a fart with the wind so fast all they'll see is the outline of my prior self like Wylie coyote. I digress, my point being, the outcome track is open source, so it's an easy decision to formulate in the ARC. No decoder ring needed.

See bolded. Bro, kudos on one of the most candid and on-point assessments of female military pilot dynamics out there. I've said that shit offline a couple times and get tar/feathered. It is def not a politically correct assessment, but it's hella repeatable and easy to illustrate for those without an axe to grind, let alone those who resemble the remark. Let's not even get started on how these dynamics create tension and a sense of inequity in the squadron when it comes to deployment cycles, work schedules while in garrison, and even post-separation working expectations, especially in the dual pilot couple household. Again, my experience with acquaintances on the post-separation side of things, tracks 100% batting average what you highlight. Problem is that 'thirsty' won't see what they don't want to see. So you're spinning your wheels with these types. Or that poor fuck I know that forewent a Viper for a bomber so wifie T-6 FAIP could join spouse with him, even though wouldn't stop the lamentations in the bar when not in mixed company (aka wifie not there). Just a god damn self-imposed heartbreak. Not all baby turtles make it to the ocean; I used to say that about UPT grads, but Jesus these days it's the late rate Capts, priors, or FAIPS going into second assignment the ones that look in need of better adulting mentorship. LOL

Airline X? You presume too much. Robin Olds would have failed the Hogan.😆

At the end of the day, the only people who need to believe you in post af life is your wife, your mother, and your airline hiring board. The rest is ballwash. Lol

Good for the goose good for the gander indeed.

As to the first paragraph, that has been happening for years now. USERRA is a joke wrt hiring in the real world. Caveat emptor. As to the second paragraph, I haven't heard of it. If true, eh, fvck 'em.

valid. Not the right forum for this discussion.

Indeed. One of the things I'm most glad of is that my first exposure to aviation was civilian flying. UPT almost cured me from wanting to fly professionally for a living. I absolutely cherish my private aircraft ownership and also work hard to keep it as far away from anything work-related as possible. I enjoy the craft I'm allowed to draw a paycheck from the AF for, but at the end of the day it's tiring work. It would absolutely cure me from flying if I had to approach my own recreational/travel flying the same way. fwiw, I would say the same thing about airline flying. Just not my idea of a good time while flying. To each their own.

I was briefly involved in the attempt to galvanize support for the re opening of the flying club two duty stations ago, and the bottom line is that it comes down to money over risk. WG/CC don't want the hassle and the club would be a burden on the general funding if not supported by the IFT graft money. Good bad or indifferent, it was a straight up cash cow for the instructors involved, but once thatmoney dried up, the other facilities wanted nothing to do with upkeeping the airplanes, which is why you saw them die en masee when the money was gone. The ladies at the CDC outvote you compared to the couple cats that want to have access to general aviation. It;s not just the military, as a private aircraft owner myself and involved in GA for longer I've been in the military, I can attest to the fact GA is a hard sell to the pedestrians on the civilian side of the street. Costs of certified anything make it a troubling proposition. Also, since most people want automotive quality accomodations for automotive prices, the proposition of spam cans become a non starter quick, since it only offers automotive comfort at million dollar housing prices.

LOL The fvcking irony of that statement....