hindsight2020

FUBIJAR SWITCH: ON (ALL CREW) As a Reservist, I disagree with the general notion that the majority of AD officers are above average in their ability to beat income potential in the civilian sector. Not a chance. That's optimism bias talking. All my AD bro's pound their chest and proselytize that they would be bank rolling in the civi sector tomorrow, while the more tempered of their compadres look at them, having just got out from industry and into the military themselves, with this "you're a fool" look. With the incredible amount of engineering and liberal arts majors amongst our officer ranks I can tell you very few of these people would be able to chase a Captain's salary just 4 years from the start of the race. I know because I make 50% of what my AD peers make while performing the same duties and I'm knee deep in the civilian sector hiring day to day. AD cats are just blowing smoke, yall make crazy money for the risk of getting blown out of the sky, more likely die in training for the majority. I got two degrees in engineering and in order for me to make senior Capt's pay and entitlements, would take me the better part of 15 years and a multiplicity of layoffs and "relocations". You guys have nothing to complain about. Frankly I think most officer ranks are overpaid. A 20 year pension is an afterthought frankly. Look I'm not bagging on my own plate, I have a vested interest in keeping some form of a civil service retirement alive by the time I hang up the flight suit, but y'all gotta step away from the "FU I got mine" for a second and concede military and civil service retirements ARE out of line from the eroding trend of civilian pay and retirement vehicles. I'm not saying go Greek on the austerity measures and watch the exodus from the all-volunteer force, but stop acting as if the military service you provide keeps you from exceeding your income potential as a GROUP, because it DOES NOT. Come to the guard/Reserves and try to make that argument to the citizen Airmen that do take on TWO jobs and make less than you, and we got Air Force wings and science and math degrees out the ying ya too bra'... You make silly money for what you do. QOL is terrible at times, but you make silly money. The median individual income in this country is 50K and most people in non-technical degrees have median incomes way lower than that, and we got plenty officers with lib art degrees. I asked my AD bud one day: "hey bra, would you do your job for 60% of what you make and no retirement till 60yo +0/-5? He said "Hell no." Who's the patriot again? We all recognize the opportunity cost of military service, but don't act like you're Jesus. FUBIJAR SWITCH: OFF

Oh, you mean Total Farce Integration?....or was it Totally Fucked Initiative? We have a list at work, gets us chastised by the middle boss all the time. I don't think they like the big f00kin' Burger King logo we put in the cubicle next to the list (you know...TFI..where you can have it THEIR way.....). :D Ditto on the senior dude space shuttle launch. You just described mine and every other AFRC unit getting anal probed with this thing. Heck, in ours middle management punched ahead of the implementation date. That's what looked scary. We got no Captains left. The workhorses, the people doing the mish, gone. Some took the UAVs, some went to fly something else and mixed it in with the airline gig or whatever 9-5 they got going on at home station. Either way, for the asspain of a commute, they rather commute to a purebred ARC unit than spend a day in TFI. Proof is in the pudding.... They keep whipping people with the "beatings will continue until morale improves" but the TRs are like "eff this" and dodging the draft of TFI-related participation surge like it's going out of style. I'm simply amazed people haven't gotten paper for it up to this point. Of course our big daddy boss at Robins thinks this thing is working like a charm, his single-degree-of-freedom-neck execs are playing "I got a secret" with him, and to tell ya the truth, somebody ought to let him know he's about to inherit a little f00kin disaster of a manning problem. Can't hack the mish with a MAJCOM where everybody is a copilot/wingman and 1-3-level maintainers, all at the same time. And the AD leadership that's getting hired to fill the experience exodus wants CHEDDAR baby,they don't want to give up the lifestyle afforded to them by that over-compensatory paycheck (by their own admission). They ain't doing this chit for charity, they can't even spell T-R. They got wives that don't work and kids that grew up on tricare prime man, they didn't get this gig to work on the weekends. Didn't ya know? Active duty doesn't get paid on the weekends! <---NO lie, f00king AD scheduler told me that to my face without blinking once. I about went UNION on his #$$ before the ADO basically chastised me for "discussing pay issues in the presence of AD bubbas, we don't do [we don't bother them] that". I digress. Even the cats we hired the last 2 FYs. When they get back it'll be like "WTF happened to the squadron I interviewed with?" Nobody owes anybody anything and all that jazz, but man as a bro and an officer I just can't stand being part of that corporate behavior very much longer. I'm too looking for avenues into better deals. TFI may or may not be worth an ART/AGR; diffrn' strokes for diffr'n folks. But what I DO know is that TFI is NOT worth just 96IDT and 14/15 AT. Naw to the Heall....

Bingo. --break break-- Additionally, for the guy with 17.5 in, no way in hell a unit is gonna willy nilly gonna let you walk in and go on a set of 6 month orders (RPA/MPA) and reach sanctuary on their watch; they're gonna watch you like a hawk. Alternatively, they might make you sign a conditional agreement where you agree to waive sanctuary, as a condition of employment with the unit. For a guy with 17.5 years? Yeah right, he'll rather stay AD. There's no way life can get that much tougher for a guy in the last two years of service staring at a primo retirement check for life. If you got less than 3 years to go, man just tough it out. Yeah they'll probably deploy you, just think of the prize. Now, if your thinking process is that you're just addicted to the gig and want to continue to do it 'til they kick you out the door, and that's worth more to you than an AD retirement check, by all means go Reserves, sign that waiver of sanctuary away, and keep hacking the mish for king and country. I warn you though, grass in the AFRC/ANG is starting to burn up. Google TFI (total force integration) and talk to people who have otherwise been lifers in the ARC and get their perspective on the abortion they're committing on the Reserves. This ain't your grandaddy's guard/reserve gig anymore. It's part time regAF brother. Old timers are jumping ship and more and more just-off-AD guys are taking their place, "just happy I don't have to deploy anymore", and accepting the AD way of doing things and the chit deals and disco belt shenanigans. Just be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

Lots of people with AD service behind them do it. People with Active duty service time usually do that upon entering the civil service. They "buy back" their creditable years of active duty service so that they can count it towards creditable years of civil service for retirement purposes; which is of course how the 1/3 of the civil service retirement gets calculated from (the annuity portion...1% per creditable year times your high three salaries career-wise..or is it latest three?....oh hell who cares, it ain't the CSRS cheddar primo 75% pension anymore so who are we foolin'...TSP can suck it.) The option of buying back those years is penalty-free for a couple of years from your starting date as a civil servant. Basically it's a grace period where you can "mull over" the idea of buying back your active duty service years. After that period and every month/year thereafter, the decision to buy back those AD years incurs penalties. The longer you wait, the more expensive it becomes to buy back your AD time. Of course the concept is that you will not be able to attain an AD retirement so you elect to buy back that time towards a civil service retirment. If you have an AD retirement you cannot buy back your AD service years towards a civil service retirment. Of course this is a moot point for ARTs/AGRs, as you cannot be employed as an ART if you are AD retired. Some people have done so but there's money that gets discounted from your AD retirement check for every day you work in the reserves while AD retired. As such, nobody pursues those oddball setups, it's a money loser. If you're close to an AD retirement you might be better off seeking an AGR and attempting to reach sanctuary. Of course, the unit and AFRC in general is going to watch your manday accrual like a hawk, they don't want to allow you to fund an AD retirement off the Reserve gig, if they can help it. But some people are able to swing it. At any rate, that's pretty much the skinny on it.

Oh brother where do I begin with my soapbox....I'm a trougher in my unit and the answer to your question is you'd be f00ked. As a bum you are the Air Force's mexican illegal worker, off the books and cash only. Greatest "part-time" full time job in the world until you get sick. I choose not to have children at this point in my life (testing my wife's patience and commitment to this marriage every yard of the way), though I don't see how that would alter your equation since you would have the same economic hardship if the bum money pot went away tomorrow regardless of your health status. Remember, unlike full-timers, they don't owe us a paycheck, all they owe ya is 96 IDT (if that) and 14 AT; good luck feeding the family on that lawnmower money of course. You can't get insurance for that probability [bum pot running dry] either. I don't even think you could even get unemployment from the state, since technically you've always been and would still be a TR and thus "gainfully employed", though we know the latter is bullchit. That said, having a bunch of young military aircrew on public assistance and food stamps like a freggin' regional airline pilot probably doesn't do the AFRES/Guard a whole lot of PR service now does it? Not what kids are thinking about when they read the brochure and all. Remember, the difference between young enlisted TRs and young officer TRs is that the former considers it a temporary condition 'til they finish college and get gainful employment and/or commission. But for the young officer TR that's the end of the road, college is behind ya, that line of work was supposed to be the source of gainful employment. We're "smart" enough to operate military aircraft, but I got no employment options that match my AD peers' income on the outside to save my life, and civilian employers give ya the finger when you even suggest doing mil duty inside the hours of M-F 8-5 as a junior employee. It just doesn't add up. Bumming/troughing is not for the faint of heart. Troughing with kids in the mix is outright self-imposed hardship, and few pursue it for longer than a couple years. Most of the cats I know who troughed with kids either ended up looking for 365/yr MPA opportunities outside the unit, got lucky and got full-time positions before the wife divorced them, or got jobs on the outside and started min running the unit and/or gave the unit the one-finger salute. I'd say if the risk of being unemployed as a bum puts your family on the street, man I'd just try to get a job that would entitle you to unemployment/disability compensation. I know if I had to deal with kids and my wife couldn't swing the bulk of the household cost (in my case she makes a little less than what I make as a trougher) we'd be up the creek. That or don't shelter your kids from the harshness of this life that puts mommy and daddy in the position of not having access to a high-falutin' cheddar job. I'm honestly pulling for ya; we're the zambonis of this organization,polishing the turd deals for a couple RPAs, taking all the chit deals the senior field graders don't want to touch. We gap-fill for the TRs who no longer deem the very job that gave them a leg up in life and career as worth the hassle anymore, for other than retirement points. We're the ones that get treated like active duty fodder on 70% of AD pay. We're the ones volunteering at our own economic expense and/or out of economic hardship. We're the ones above whom they're trying to build the TFI sellout of the Guard/Reserve, since the TRs are like "EFF THIS GIG". I know if the post office offered me a GS-12 today I'd quit this gig on the spot and go deliver mail for a living and go look for a non-TFI tac flying job for play (IDT) money, min run and min qweep. That'd be the life... Good luck to ya, may the ART/AGR Gods land us a job before our families collapse from the economic pressures that the bumming lifestyle carries.

Funny you should ask. In my unit, ALL the TRs live out of state. Some sooo out of state it would give the AF audit agency a freggin' heart attack. Not a fighter unit though. And yes, most of them do min run the unit severely. Yes, it is a source of tension. And no, I don't know how long it will last now that TFI is here. What follows is not a PC thing to say and I shouldn't be airing the dirty laundry in front of guard wannabes, but fighter units can and do tell their dudes: "bro, you're putting 8-10 days a month and you'll like it, you're flying an F-16 and that comes before your wife and kid". That's why they get away with the 50-mile rules et al. Because flying an afterburning jet part-time still beats sitting airport reserve in Newark for 20K/pop or working cubicle city on a lack-luster job; most dudes gut-check and do it. But when you're in a heavy unit flying 50s equipment, turns out, that threat goes in one ear and out the other. You try imposing a 50 mile rule and good luck. You'll get people lined up for the job for sure, there's plenty of wannabes chumping at the bit, but you won't get the quality of people you would if you back off the commute restriction. Like everything else in life, there's no free lunch. Simply put, people with leverage and options fly F-16s for the sake of flying F-16s; people who fly noisy rattle cans fly noisy rattle cans for QOL, job security and travel flexibility. You'll get people relocate the wife and kids to bum fok north dakota, at a wage loss no less, for an part-time F-16. For the privilege of driving a '57 caddy with chittier avionics than a 1970s piper cherokee? It just doesn't happen...

I'm a trougher in the Reserves, and NO, people aren't pulling down 50K 'easy'. The previous poster caveat was that his unit has an alert commitment. He also is still in training, so he's going by what his bubbas at the unit are selling him. A year makes a lot of difference between what they tell you is the case when you interview and what the overarching reality is when you work that first day after MQT nearly 2 years later. At any rate, alert commitments, full time support of AD MAJCOM contingencies et al, allow a healthy money pot to be accessible to the supporting RC units and their members. This is not the case for all tanker/fighter units though. Your financial success as a bum will be directly dependent upon the airframe you fly, the mission assigned within that airframe, the amount of other bums in your unit attempting to do what you're doing at the same time, the state of affairs among the airline crowd (the furloughed O-4/5s) and your willingness to be away from home to get paid. The best way to find that information out is to talk to the bums in your unit and getting the skinny. The money may be skosh and that sure as hell should be a consideration prior to getting into said unit. Bumming is not for the faint of heart. In general you'll make around 60-70% of what your regAF counterpart gets paid and you'll put more days a month than they do. Multiple weekends a month is not out of the ordinary. There's no sick leave or worker's comp. You get sick a week and can't fly/show up? You don't get paid period. It's freelance work at its rudest. 60% of senior Capt doesn't sound bad, 60% of 2LT and now you're grazing non-technical hourly wages at the local factory, and you're a freggin' mil pilot. I've known Viper pilots do the mexican house antic, 3 to a house 'cause one works for Eagle and makes jack, the other can't get Lowes to take him seriously when he puts -16 driver on his resume, and neither can get a cotton-pickin' manday at the unit. Now, all that said, none of us had to ask for a day off to go off to wherever for a week. Every day you're unemployed is a day you have off, so might as well look at it glass half-full. As a bum, you're getting paid in the ability to say NO to the AD BS. You know, relocations, deployments and disco-belt shenanigans. Now, with the advent of TFI even that apparent benefit seems to no longer hold true, but I'll leave that out of the scope of this thread. Historically, fighter guys have a tough time getting enough days out of the unit to bum successfully. Getting on full time orders for a year to go to asscrackistan doesn't count as bumming either. Bumming is how much money you can pull without having a civilian job and no continuous orders over 30 consecutive days (hence no paid tricare, no leave accrual, no BAH type I). MQT is also not bumming. Everybody gets UPT, FTU, MQT (to varying degrees). Bumming starts when your unit starts feeding you out of their RPA pot and not on the AD MAJCOM MPA money (i.e. the devil's money). I made 45K taxable income last year, which is probably closer to 50K when accounting for the fact that my mil pay include tax-free fractionals of BAH and BAS. That was working 2-3 weekends a month, 3-4 mandays a week (which is way above average to the Guard weekly allowance), averaging about 2-4 more days a month at work than my regAF buddies. For my rank that's about 65% of what they make. I wouldn't call this 'easy' money. Conversely, one of my squadron mates, higher rank by about 1.5 years, spends half his year playing warrior with PACAF and is on full time orders for the duration of that stint. Great, that kid probably pulled about 65-70K. But he was gone as much as his regAF counters were and they still outearned him by about 10%, and they got more leave and medical allowance than he did. So as you can see it's a scale and not a set number. I made 65% and got to carnally know my wife on my own time and when it damn well pleased me. He made 90% and was gone more than AD and missed Thanksgiving, Xmas, the anniversary and Easter, and I sure hope nobody got to carnally know his pretty thing of a wife in his absence; and this is as a "Reservist" mind you. That opportunity cost sucks in my book, but to each their own. So I do think it's possible to clear 45-50K as an LT bumming, but it's burning weekends, and may be outright impossible in units without a decent money pot or with too many bums fighting for the same money. At that point it becomes a choice of either accepting being gone to get paid, or not. Which is kinda AD in nature, and that's really not why I got into the Reserves for. YMMV. If I were you I would do myself a favor and do a long-term look and gut check as to why you would want to pursue bumming. My experience is that long term, bumming outright sucks as a financial plan and is a bad idea. The vast majority of us are doing this to get in line for a full-time position at the unit because we value homesteading and it's probably the only other way we're going to attain a six figure income after vesting our lives into a particular profession in some of the garden variety Guard/Reserve locales where these units are located at. Locations where outside of niche fields or medical, people ain't making jack for money. Alternatively, some people bum to offset an eroding airline industry, either following a furlough or anticipating one. Whatever the situation, all these men and women have probably agreed said status would be temporary. I know too many folks getting into the unit behind me come with expectations of 250K houses and $1000 between two car payments, snicker and pant heavily at the indignity of attempting to fulfill these "expectations" on the grace of whatever bumming they could get out of the unit. That's nothing but piss poor planning. So most do an honest assessment of how long they would be willing to bum for, and if financial landscapes do not change within the time their household could have a tolerance for bumming, they opt out or pursue civilian employment elsewhere and usually leave the unit for another unit closer to the civi employer where they could still min run and get their 48 UTA, 48 TPs and 14/15 AT. I suggest you do that math TODAY versus the day you start bumming at the squadron and your wife gets indignated 'cause your 'job' ain't bringing in half what y'all need to be set like she thought life after college "is supposed to be". That full time job may come in two years, or it could take upwards of five and now you're behind the eight ball financially compared to your age peer group, and your wife is pissed. Good luck to you.

I'd be careful with that ^^ statement. Part of the reason the pilot profession outside the military "union" gets paid so poorly (how ironic, pay protectionism is the devil incarnate around these circles, except for when talking the highly justified expense of us aviation super heroes...) as a median worker is precisely because of that attitude. I guarantee you if the Air Force decided tomorrow to adjust the pay scale to account for the fact that you'd do that job for free, your outlook on the other 90% of your Viper pilot day (CBT, chairforce meetings, snacko, PME, CBT, briefs, briefs.... briefs) would start to chafe you just a tad more, lickity split. Heck, even the flying would start to feel a little less awesome than accidentally falling on ms. america's slutty drunken wet poon in vegas. For the rest of the peanut gallery that doesn't get the opportunity to add military aviation to their resume, working for a living and [insert your passion in life here] for self-actualization on your own dime and time is not a bad compromise at all. Getting to love what you do for a living is a great privilege, but it's uncommon, precisely because it's not always economically viable. That doesn't make the majority morally bankrupt. It just makes you lucky. And to your credit, you concede you were lucky in having the opportunity of getting to be in your specific vocational position. ---break break--- Somebody mentioned attitude. This is a pet peeve of mine. Flamesuit on. The problem people have with internalizing the role "lucky" has on your life is that it dilutes the weight of this "attitude" concept we keep crutching on. Most type A's are what I call "luck denialists". You have to be one by definition. The thing about attitude is that as much as people get the sense that it is a requisite for "success" (wiki 'optimism-bias' for a phsycological "etymology" of where our affinity for this concept of "attitude" really stems from), in reality all attitude does is make us copacetic about the fact that we can't all be Lebron James in our collective and professional lives. Put simply, life ain't kindergarten, we can't all win just by virtue of participating. "Attitude" bridges that deficit and appeases the losers. Also note that it is usually only the winners in life that complain about other's attitude. Why is this? Simple. Winning as a social currency has no value if the loser can demonstrate the playing field is not even (and we know life ain't...). Then winning just becomes a predictable outcome of enviromental factors, and a nominal work ethic; the latter which the majority of people confuse with "attitude". This diluted social value is something the winners can't afford. Otherwise Lebron James wouldn't get the mad jack for putting a an inconsequential leather ball through an inconsequential metal hoop. One can achieve a great deal of "success" without a pollyanna disposition. I'm a bitter skeptic of human interactions, yet I've managed to complete two college educations, compete for and attain a shot at pilot training, and complete a qualification course that bestows upon me the privilege of serving my country in a flying capacity. <-- This I "LOVE", my airframe? Meh, I rather do acro and fly single-seat, and teach others the joys of "pure" flying the way that can only be exchanged while upside down with a prop or no engine at all up front :) Just some random thoughts from your neighbor's friendly devil's advocate. this manifesto is not sanctioned or representative of the views of baseops.net or their affiliates :)

Ditto for the BUFF. MX and Ops are not playing for the same team. The meetings looks like Treaty negotiations, they even sit juxtaposed to each other at the table, that's psychology 101 stuff. Here MX is wicked undermanned, plus high turnover and lax policies on letting people leave in the past decade (in fairness, prompted by the very underfunding of the airframe in the perennial thought that the plane "is going away") has created a local go/no-go rates that are pathetic and completely unreliable for Ops to do the lord's work with. It's frustrating and ops people are rotting away going dead on chit. it sucks. oh well, back to minding the shop, gotta make sure that front row of cans and cardboard cutouts look spotless, so I can collect my paycheck....

With the increased participation Guard and Reserve unit now require under the recent TFI shenanigans, I think people overestimate the real world outcome of civilian employer's compliance when it comes to giving you a job, holding a job for you, and promoting you. The reality of the matter is that the Guard reserve gig was modeled after the airline pilot schedule, for the 9-5 types the model is ackward at best. I'm a bum right now but I've done some sniffing on the civi employment and let me tell you, there is no way one can do the 9-5 thing and comply with the participation requirements (6-8 days a month, sometimes lumped together) most units require and expect the civilian employer to be kosher with ya. yea you can play hardball and tell them you're gonna take a week a month off for your Guard/Reserve duty, but good luck having the political good faith relationship with your employer to move up the food chain. They don't mind 6-8 days when you do that on your weekends or at night (so long it's after 5..yea right), but you touch that 9-5 and you're gonna get pushback and if you think it's as easy as going to court and saying 'hey these guys are asking me about my military affiliation' you've hit your head. They can come up with a ton of reasons why your impinging on the 9-5 is not conducive to their business functionality, and the court will side with them for telling ya it's not working out. I just don't buy the idea that people would have a leg to stand on by trying to prove their guard/reserve status is the reason they didn't get the job, or that after getting the job telling the boss 'hey i need a week off every month for the unit' and the boss kicking you out the door and you having a case in court. You'd probably lose. As much rah rah post-911,most 9-5 employers I've come to find rather reserve unfriendly when you ask them to 'do more with less', just like your Guard leadership asks you to......just sayin'......

pushitup, If you're on the Buff, all I can say is embrace the SUCK brotha'. Palace Chase is not happening for people with more than a year remaining on their ADSC, and as it pertains to the nuclear assets, with the re-birth of SAC in the form of GSC, nobody is going ANYWHERE. It used to be that buff co's rusted away for years then got sent to ALO gigs (and not even the decent locations, that's for Eagle drivers...) but nowadays you're a nuclear asset FIRST, an officer SECOND, and a pilot THIRD. It sucks to be in the nuclear business these days. Yes I said it, for the people who don't like it being said, volun-effin-teer to this side of the house, the water's warm. A lot of dudes from my FTU class have wanted out since hitting the squadrons and honestly there's no out as of recently. Even getting the AETC gig is highly skosh nowadays, some older types coming up on their 10 year ADSC were getting the AETC deal under an ADSC extension that encompassed a 179 TDY enroute to MC-12 to suckysandland as an appetizer followed by the aforementioned 36 month ADSC extension to AETC. How you like them apples? At least you'd pick up more flight time in six months of King Air flying than in two tours in the BUFF, but I digress. I honestly don't know how the cross-flow thing works. I assume your best bet is to talk to your AFPC POC and start researching your options. But I'm telling ya, if you're in the Buff right now, not only are they holding on to folks, they're funneling a lot of folks up north for the new squadron stand up. Minot's got such a backlog on the flying right now it's not even funny. Like slacker said, you're pretty much looking at lottery ticket odds if they let you out of the community, let alone AD, with your ADSC balance and airframe qualification. Good luck brother.

Um, so what's the point again? That we get paid the same for presumably "less" effort than non-pilot LTs? In some circles that's called "coming out ahead". It is in my book, and I did my graduate studies the "inefficient" way (i.e. NOT by buying it online at ERAU) way before the AF came into the picture. So I know a little bit about working twice as hard to get to the same place and the impact it has on one's work "ethic" and sense of responsibility. Make no mistake, do not fall for the crutch of associating minimalism with incompetence. Don't accuse me of being incompetent when you don't ask me to perform, when really you need my statistical existence to temper your own underperformance as an AF officer. Volunteerism is for suckers (relatively speaking). If you want to make an equitable comparison, let's acknowledge the reverse halo effect that goes on in the AF when it comes to LTs. You wanna bust my chops cause I don't have platoons to lead but expect me to keep the rusty LTC on the left seat honest, all the while cracking LT jokes all day and getting told one LT on board puts the ORM sheet on yellow by default (I wish that one was a joke) , and I'm the one whose got 3x the hours flown in past 30 days over grandpa? A crappy CAPT/MAJ will always be ill-served to have competent LTs, it undercuts their appearance of leadership and they can't have that. Showing up your superiors has always been frowned upon in life, military is not an exception. They need me "dumb". Good leaders are not frightened by excelling subordinates. If the AF had a prevalence of good leaders, LTs wouldn't have such pejorative reputation. To compare flying an airplane to leading men into a shooting hell is just not equitable. Of course the Army LT will eat my lunch leading men into combat (although barring a big yellow streak in my back I bet it is statistically more likely I could be monkey trained to meet the same standards to perform his job than his statistical chances of him being able to be monkey trained to perform mine), but that has no relative bearing on the level of responsibility of the job I perform. Bottom line, you need me to play idiot til the morning I pin on double bars, then I'm EXPECTED to be a leader. Meh, I rather take naps and watch porn in my free time and stick to doing less with more 'till someone starts taking me seriously. If pinning on CAPT is their litmus test then so be it, that's their burden not mine.... I'll qualify my statements by saying if you can't get enough SA in 4 years of doing the same job to at least appear competent, then you are a village idiot in any capacity

Ditto. PCS to Havana beats Minot any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

No the B-1 isn't slated for that mission, though it could physically do it. And no it isn't odd, it's retardedly predicatable, ACC and their hard-ons for afterburners and any semblance of fast movers at the expense of red headed stepchildren that are to reconstitute under SAC II, crayolas and diapers in hand....

Um, there is a reason the Reserves feel like AD nowadays, it's called TFI and an AFRC leadership who doesn't have the spine to tell the AD to suck it 'cause they got their own stars to acquire and selling out a bunch of volunteers is politically easier than growing a sack. The AD bean counters are a bunch of cheapos who think they can tap the Reserves like it's freggin AD and they honestly got another thing coming. I can always go work at Lowe's (proverbially) in spite of myself, and mother blue still has the manning disaster and the pissed off crowd with the high turnover/low proficiency. As far as AEF, at my unit we were able to sell them on 3 stints of 40 last year and it was all voluntary so nobody got punked on our side of the house. Of course that's because most people at my unit are field graders who don't particularly care about "flagpole deployments" and AD won't mobilize us because they know it would throw their books out the window with added entitlements and pay, they won't touch it with a 10 foot pole. In that regard we got them by their cheap nads. They need the added manning bad, but they won't pay us and do not want to activate us 'cause they know the asspain it would bring upon themselves. God, I love my union job almost as much as I love this country ya cheap bastards Long term however, you are correct, the RC is not the good deal it once was. It is still better than AD in QOL when you normalize for the whole Service, but the flying club days are LOOOOONNNG GONE. It is incumbent on the Guard and Reserve units to proactively retain and foster leadership on individuals who are friendly and vested on the Guard/Reserve way of life, this is crucial to our survival as the premier retainer of experience and better-than-AD-it's-not-even-funny product delivery. Way too many expat AD douchenozzles not vested in the Reserve life are encroaching the ranks and folding the line like cheap suits every time the AD (like clockwork) comes running from down the street with their weekly rendition of "the redcoats are here, we need you to sacrifice for the cause!!". There are very specific reasons the Guard and Reserve were once great deals, and we need to make sure as an organization that these TFI "initiatives", while futile to dismiss, are incorporated with strong "union" protections. I'm not talking about good faith verbal understandings, as mother blue is a cheap whore not to be trusted, but with no-sh$t anal retentive MOU/MOAs where the rubber meets the road. One cannot expect AD to figure out and be understanding of the idiosyncracies of Guard/Reserve life, we as a collective have to hold blue's hand and color that b%tch with a big fat purple crayola. That requires brass to back it up, so our leadership has to be equally forthright about the Guard/Reserve realities. Anything less than that and yes, Guard/Reserve will cease to exist as a worthy alternative to the "do less with nothing, every shoe is a warrior, mission support is the mission, bombs on target be damned" AD has desecrated itself to become these days.

Oh I hear ya, which is standard baby boomer bullsh$t. Then they have the nerve to adjudicate the label SNAPS on the succeeding generation....If it's good for the goose it's good for the gander right pops? Look out for #1 is what I get from their "leadership", f00kin noted. Gen Y out.

Honestly, it's not as common as the commercials make it out to be and rank and age makes a WORLD of difference. I turned down a college teaching job last year because the bumming schedule and pay was much better than having to tap dance with a civilian employer just to break over min running the unit as a co-pilot, putting me at upgrading in 6-9 years...oh and I make more money showing up to one employer than if I had to go to two jobs, never mind the hassle of commuting. Granted, I'm also doing it to pay my dues to an eventual full-time job at the unit (before my wife gets sick of waiting and leaves my underemployed @ss lol) otherwise I'm f00ked time-value-of-money-wise. In general, aside the civilian airline schedule (which can be painful in itself) it just doesn't add up. I tell ya, when you consider the kind of participation you need to have at the unit to be worthwhile particularly when starting out, the chunk on non-taxable income you make in the military versus the comparative civilian income you'd have to make to equate take home pay, and the restrictive weekday schedule most civilian employers demand outside an airline schedule, it really does become a zero-sum game, at least it has been for me. That said, to answer your question, at least in my unit they are few and far in between, but they are college professor, a doctor, a nurse (I think), one doesn't even have a job (spouse picks up the tab), engineer/software development folks and plethora of real estate agents. How they do it? In my CGO POV they don't, they're majority field graders and their participation is not much more than the IDTs and AT they're alloted. It's easy money (that's about to change unfortunately) for them and their underparticipation be it voluntary or economically driven, does not affect their careers as it does mine [the young guy with upgrades to look forward to]. So there ya go. Is it possible? Yes. But in my opinion there's no middle ground, you end up min running one for the sake of the other, and when you throw in commuting into the mix, most get burned out long term and act accordingly. This is why some of the older crowd are of the opinion that young guys shouldn't be allowed into the mix, that the Reserves should be something people pulling chocks from AD after a substantial commitment have the sole access to. Clearly this would change the face of the Reserves, and not for the better, and won't ever become a reality, but it does highlight the difficulties of attempting to develop civilian and military careers as a young guy without the benefit of 10 years of govt cheddar behind you.

But that's the thing, your squadron mates are BLUFFING. As a Reservist I can piss into the wind and hit 10 AD dudes who swear up and down they could make soooo much more money the second they punch out. But they do their bean checking like good altar boys every year and every year there they are staying put. Under the economic conditions of 2009, none of them are going to move an inch, I'd buy stock in that bet if I could. As to airline employment compensation returning, it's not conjecturing, it's historical trending. It's going to continue to go down the tubes...Now, it doesn't mean the majority couldn't learn to tolerate the job so long as you could pay the bills somewhat, but it won't be ever again the obvious win win choice under which many AF pilots long before punched for. If you think cabotage, open skies, ab initio, career regionals, and eventually the hobby pilot crowd is NOT the future and logical conclusion to the so called "cyclical" nature of the airline business, I got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to lease you. Like I said before, this guy's clearly pissing in your cheerios [he's arguing for your paycut], but he's not doing it JUST because you're a pilot, which is a pilot way to feel among shoe clerks actually... If you think of it, you've just got a taste of what is like to be an airline pilot when it comes to having to deflect, defend and protect yourself from the constant waves of impending economic realities set on eroding your purchasing power. The only difference is that government workers, military pilots in particular, are just not accustomed to the idea of being vulnerable to tracking backwards in pay and benefits ['I can make soo much more money outside' chest-thumping diatribes aside], after all that's one of the central personal economic rationales behind public service, flag waving aside..... And no I do not subscribe to the idea that the average military pilot is guaranteed by virtue of a mean educational level and some abstract valuation of social skills, the ability, and more importantly, the entitlement, of an above average income outside the military. If anything, among my own experience as a reservist that there's a whole lot of real smart individuals working military and civilian jobs consecutively, currently incapable of attaining the mythical "big time" income all your AD brotha's yap all day they could attain the second they separate...There's a lot of chaff in [the AD folks] that school of thinking IMO.

Well I agree the guy missed the outcome of taking out the ACP because he tied it primarily to the airline job comparison, when in reality is has a lot more to do with people's historical expectation of said bump in pay, but I'll fart in this church and say that in so far as the airline-military opportunity cost is concerned, from the perspective of an AFRC pilot this guy shacked the airline analysis so hard it's not even funny. I'll go ahead and disclaim I'm no airline cheerleader, and this article makes scathingly accurate portrayals of the evolution of the airline business. To suggest that because he didn't include the dead cat bounce the airline hiring had circa 2005-07 he's not accurately portraying the airline job opportunity cost is really to miss the point of the article which is highlighting the overall slope of the earnings and benefits of airline jobs on the whole, which is not good. People need to stop dismissing the abortion of a system airline seniority and the race to the bottom is, the system is cyclical but the mean is not trending up, it's trending DOWN! Adjusted for inflation airline pilots have and will continue to see erosion in earnings and benefits, and that will never return to previous levels. The inelasticity of civilian and military pilots alike to fly "because of the love of it" will continue to ensure that management can get away with such tactics. The airline business, from the perspective that has been historically portrayed, is DEAD and the analysis of this fact on the article is dead on. As a young trougher I also take exception to being lumped under the same category as the aforementioned senior pilots, furloughees or not, as if to infer we have equal access to the same earnings and seniority protections. The reality is that we do not, by virtue of timing they share a much larger buffer than a candidate in my demographic who would otherwise begin an airline career today or in a couple of years. See I got an excel spreadsheet too but mine is nice and grounded in reality, for it takes into account job stability criteria. According to my little excel spreadsheet to compare a 20 year stint in the AF with any tenure at a 121 operator (expat job contentions are not considered in my analysis) is outright disingenuous as the expectation of consecutive employment in the military is equivalent to that of a crooked post office worker (ie. solid as concrete) whereas airline pilots, particularly the younger in seniority, have a probability of consecutive employment similar to oh say..... an ice cream cone vendor in Siberia. To even make the effort of extrapolating an airline income pattern for 20 years is so unrealistic it's comical. Bottom line, you can't juxtapose the two, the airline option is statistically incapable of treading water against the amortization of a government job. If analysis of gaps in employment were somehow averaged and quantified into y'alls "excel" dreams, you'd see you're still better off financially doing 20 in the AF even without the ACP versus taking an airline job (if you could get one worth holding onto anyways). As to the expat opportunities, gimme a break. Yeah some people might go for the 10K tax free in sandy (but hide your bible) dubai, but to suggest that the majority of military pilots, considering their family make-up and tendencies, are more inclined than less inclined to go after such jobs, is just inaccurate. So we disagree on that front. Is it a viable employment option? Yes. Is it statistically relevant to the point and discussion under which points were made in said article? Hell no. Look, I fly with a bunch of the aforementioned senior AFRC dudes and the reality is that these folks recognize they are lucky to even have their jobs and those who retained employment post sept 11 are just quietly minding their business while the junior guys commiserate about the death of the dream. Heck, I know more people on said mil leave with NO intentions of going back to that job than guys chumping at the bit to sit right seat in your garden variety ERJ. I even know first year folks at continental who said "f00k this" and went on to seek civilian employment in federal agencies, and would take a full-time job at the unit in a heartbeat. So from where I sit, everybody with more than one mouth to feed, regardless of the kind of wings they wear on their bag, and who would be in the demographic of being affected by the dissolution of ACP were it to happen tomorrow, is balking at the idea of spotty employment at a 121 outfit. The guy in the article got that right, kicked it right between the nads. Therefore the bellyaching on this thread about ACP going away has more to do with anybody's bellyaching towards getting a paycut (airline pilots especially included), than it has to do with the supposed misfire this guy committed by writing the article. ACP goes away tomorrow and a whole lot of people would punch, but it wouldn't be to take an airline job, which is circular in reasoning, because if that's no longer true then would they punch en masse? Of course not, they'd stay and do the job till 20 and get the pension, pension they wouldn't get at the airline, and we already debunked the myth of working an airline job for more than a decade at a time for the 401K/TSP cheerleader types in the room. So hate the dweeb cause he's arguing for your paycut, not because you think his analysis towards airline employment is flawed, cause he shacked that.

You're correct, the bone isn't nuke anymore...lucky f$cks...of course they're broke as hell and sold their soul to the devil to be in country and nobody who's young gets to fly worth a d$ck (even worse than the buff), so it all evens out in the end. And yes the buff will continue to do its posturing with pacaf regardless of mighty 8 tucking under SAC deux. The additional squadron in minot and the AFRC taking the schoolhouse is all part of the plan to substantiate the "smooth" transition to doing more with less....and of course it is an abortion that will rear its ugly head in about 1.5 fiscal years. As to buff centcom taskings to the desert...yeah I'll believe that when it actually happens *puts foot in mouth with foolish confidence*

It's uglier than that. They got us (AFRC) slated to pick up the buff schoolhouse mission on the CHEAP, since they won't cough up the full time jobs (yet..haha ), which is standard for ACC; give the Raptor guys a bl$wjob but cry bloody murder if a buff needs a new brake assembly from the last time we dragged a 12 foot torch down taxiway Alpha 'cause our anti-skid relays were built no sh%t in '62..... mother f%ckers, dang it I digress.... So they'll bleed the 11th to man up the leadership up in minot and min run the conventional thing between posturing in guam and praying to holy Joseph and doggiestyle Mary AFCENT doesn't whine they need us to suck sand at peter puffin deid, which in my biased uneducated opinion is not gonna happen for a slew of reasons that have nothing to do with wide enough real estate down there. So yeah the buffs will remain mighty eight property under SAC part deux and everybody will get asked to it for king and country while we watch cool videos of raptors and light greys pushing it up on the money it would cost to make every Cadillac at barkatraz terminal RNAV GPS legal, RVSM and SELCAL cape, you know like your garden variety C-172 .... and I won't even address on this forum the PRP shennanigans they got in store for the AFRC/AD associations.. brother the plot of Dr. Strangelove got nothing on this sh%t.....10 months ago everybody wanted to stay in the community to avoid ALO/Pred now they're giving up their first born for a U-28 TDY with option to punch, you can't make this stuff up ....merry Xmas btw

Bingo. That leading edge is a disaster for transonic flight. The concept is very much an extension of vortex generation applications. Great in theory for extending the usable AOA range, but rather limited in its ability to optimize, or even make possible, supersonic flight. Wave drag issues and a highly dynamic set of mach critical sections on a leading edge of that shape is counter-productive for a dedicated fighter. I can see the utility for marine applications where sonar considerations lend themselves to organic architecture, rather than internal moving parts, to affect a shape, but for flight, not even a halfway decent choice. Of course the 20,000 man hours some underpaid dupe spent running CFD code on that leading edge could could keep our whole economy employed for a month lol. Essentially, a delta wing could do the job better, it's cheaper, was discovered I think a day after the caveman sparked fire, and even looks sexier (FWIW). This reminds me of those 32-word title masters dissertations I had to endure about the regurgitation of the millionth decimal place optimization, and I could always come up with two carbon epoxy boards and a ruler in one hand and a fist on my other hand to punch myself in the face during said defense to pretend to my advisor I cared about my job (I didn't), and make a planform to achieve 95% their desired result in the time it took them to pitch the profs the idea in the first place. Then again that's kinda why I gave up on trying to get a soon-to-be-offshored Lockmart job and followed my lazy heart to my true calling, become a government pilot *grabs some cheddar cheese while dos gringos plays in the background* Oh that's intellectual property above and my billing rate is $3,547.34/post. Here to help

Enid, OK almost cost me my relationship. The number one reason I opted to pursue the Reserve component was the inherent hardship for a working spouse to develop his/her career. In my case after 6 months of living in Oklahoma my significant other decided to bolt back home. I do not subscribe to the validity of long distance relationships and like clockwork it took a toll on the relationship. Someone above spoke about commutes and having weekend arrangements to see each other. well, that's not for everybody and not my definition of being married to somebody. I think outside careers where one is not expected to be the primary income provider (teaching) or highly in demand, relatively high portability medical professions (nursing...and even that's a stretch if you want to get into management), I'd say the stay at home types is the only kind set up for success to the PCS shuffle and the base locales. I know there's plenty of "exceptions" out there but in general that's the way things are. In our case, my fiance is taking a paycut due to the location, but since I'm a reservist there's an implied homestead, so that makes her happy. If that was also not the case, forget it, it'd be a deal breaker. I think a lot of people with working spouses outside nursing and teaching feel the same way we do and would have the same tribulations we would if I was AD. Honestly, if u want a safe bet, marry a nurse, teacher, or somebody who does not intend on making a subtantial income contribution to the household via his/her employment field. Outside that, it's a ticking bomb.

See that's great, but that's textbook min running the unit. I recognize there is a difference in what's expected of booms, but for pilots, forget it, that schedule leaves ya way behind the power curve, not to mention that would only work if you don't commute. If one were to commute then there are the idiosyncracies of getting travel paid, you won't get the unit to pay your travel costs for a double-TP every other week, not gonna happen. You'll get airfare sponsored for annual tour chunks if you get creative, but the aforementioned schedule will not work for a commuter, it won't break even (a young guy won't). Most people lump a chunk of TPs on the ends of UTA weekend or lump said TPs with a set of man days (x-country trips and such) so the unit will cover their travel, but what happens in both scenarios is that they are burning the periods but physically aren't in the squadron more than 6 times a year, so you're rusty half the year and dead on half the beans anyways, not to mention that's a stretch of days that may spill into the week; good luck selling your 9-5 job you're gonna work a 3-day week this week cause your guard trip spills into Monday... unless you like to drive like a bat out of hell on Sunday just after an 7 hour sortie where you were basically dusting off from being dead for a month. Don't get me started on actually getting your employer to sign off on your annual tour chunk (if you're gonna burn it all at once) without never hearing the end of it...they can't do sh%t to ya legally but it sure is a pain in the @ss and in the world I grew up in someone's gonna shortchange ya at work long term for it and good luck proving it. It may be physically possible, and workable for some AFSCs, but sure is not economically solvent at all from where I sit. Of course, I will disclaim that I enjoy this kind of flying more than what I could potentially be doing in town in any capacity, and since enough mandays are available I'm hard pressed to invest time in any proposition that would minimize my participation at the squadron or would make me commute at all. To each their own of course I just think short of airline gigs and real estate (the only cases of folks I know who have 9-5s and have enough flex in their schedules to make worth their whiles) there's not much wiggle room for a healthy participation at the unit without incurring in break even or loss scenarios in time and money...and the Guard/Reserves was about QOL right? otherwise gimme my BAH and tricare and we can all be overworked and underested but you can call me good on the 1st and the 15th.....

9-5 a challenge it can be alright. I turned down a college teaching position for the bum lifestlye because the numbers didn't add up. Do not underestimate the full cost of commuting, many people do. In my case at the end of the day I had to either live in the small town said employer was located or commute from my unit city. The commute cost for the latter option was such that after tax income I would make more as a bum AND not have to drive 2 hours roundtrip every single day on top of that. The assumption that one can fully supplement income with the drills is also flawed. There is no real 50/50 in the guard/civi job combo. People end up leaning against one and min running the other. The only way to give true max effort to get 50/50 is to work all days of the month, good luck with that. Most of the 9-5ers in my unit are top heavy dudes, who generally min run the squadron cause even a weekend at the unit is crazy easy money (for them) and therefore worthwhile the commute expense and time, and probably don't need the extra dough as much as a 1lt does. As a young guy myself, forget it, you'd have to min run the unit. With the exception of airline gigs, most civi jobs (not to include DOD contractor jobs) want you there 9-5 which means you'll never get a day sortie during the week and won't be able to partake in the good deals or otherwise truly supplement your income without incurring into the whole "i havent sat down in my home couch on the afternoon in 21 days" scenario. As to regionals, to each their own, but screw first year pay, I have a dude in my unit that's long gone from 1st year pay and that guy hasn't still worked a trip in years he's leaning so hard on the bum thing, rather than working those supposedly "OK" post-year one regional scales. So in my opinion, as a young guy, it's a great harship managing a civilian ground job in town while attempting to have a semblance of useful participation at the unit, adding a commute of any kind to that mix is outright masoquism. Those who do like the aforementioned mix either don't like being home and/or don't have or care to have a family and time to spend outside work and travel to work, or are so rank heavy that the hassle of making it into town for those odd end UTAs and TPs is cost effective and worthwhile.