ViperStud

Dude you are not quick on the uptake. I never said short term incentives don't work, just that 25k/ year isn't enough. No contradiction at all by saying if they double it then it might actually sway people. If they gave me 4 mil one-time I would have stayed in. How's that for a short-term incentive. Dude, nobody is going to say the bonus is bad. We like money. I sure do. You make a big leap from hearing that someone likes the bonus to assuming it swayed them. sqwatch never said it swayed him, you put those words in his mouth. Dude I'm done - this conversation is a waste of time because you twist everything anyone says to support your "if A then B" framework. Newsflash - not a single person has claimed the bonus swayed them yet. Use deductive logic and misquote us all you want, you're still spinning your wheels. NKAWTG - that's cute. Take shots at our range and loiter time all you want, we don't need sophomoric rhyming pats on the back to feel good about ourselves.

Still think you're going out on a limb with your first assumption - where are these people that were swayed by the bonus, the ones you claim are more likely to stay until 20 with the 9-year bonus option? Pure speculation on your part - and you do sound a little bitter that the option is on the table for some but not all (your) peeps. Regardless, I have a decent sample size among my current (outside AD) and former (on AD) peers. We've talked about this a lot. Not one person was moved by the bonus. Most of us went so far as to say it wasn't even considered as a factor. Show me that dude that changed his mind because of the bonus and I will say you got me. 25k/year is a life-changing bonus for a walmart bagger. Not so for pilots with their shit together who can easily demand low 6 figures outside AD either in the airlines or a myriad of other places. ETA: what I really meant to say last post was 50k/year til retirement, not for 5 years. Almost half a mil and now we're talking. Shit if that were on the table I'd probably be in Korea right now. Everyone has their price. Everyone I know has a price above 25k/yr.

Mine took 3 days to be reflected in VMPF after opening the CMS case. Should be easy if it applies to you.

Doesn't the note say that none of the above can take you beyond your 10-year commitment? Does that only apply if you incur said ADSC before your UPT commitment is up? Could be read either way. I fight my 3-year ADSC for advanced flying training, incurred before the expiration of my UPT ADSC and I won. They rewound my ADSC date to 10 years from UPT graduation. I'm now separated a full 5 months before my bogus ADSC for advanced flying traing was to expire, with no palace chase required because I was a free agent.

TT...having fun with my logic? Is that a joke or are you really that clueless? To answer your question, yes most of what you said two posts ago - I agree with. The 20 YAS option is worthless. Beyond the standard 5-yr option, it amounts to 35K (after taxes) up front plus 8-9K (after taxes) literally 6-9 years from now. Any "logic" arguing that those payouts are make-or-break is a moron. I agree that almost no one gets out at 16-20. Does that mean that the size of the bonus doesn't matter - not at all. Standby for words. What I'd love to see is a sliding scale starting at ~69K/yr for the top 1% of the year group down to zero for the bottom 1%. I'm very cynical, but still 90% serious. Why not pay talent and not pay the slouches? That is what corporate America does, and is exactly the reason why slugs sign the bonus - there is little demand for them in a free market. Yes, i get that this is a pipe dream because the process used to identify the top people needs work. It will never happen. Still, ideally we would pay to retain the good ones and not the bad ones. Ok - reality check. What they can realistically do is offer everyone 50K/yr for 5. They are too reactionary to really be able to target year groups and communities. I also believe out leadership lacks the integrity to admit there is a problem, regardless of the final numbers. They will simply delete some staff gigs and decrease pilot:jet ratios and say there is nothing to see here. Then the guys on the line suffer from even more do-more-with-less BS. It's a self-licking ice cream cone that takes truly dynamic leadership and a paradigm shift to solve. We've yet to see such leadership.

Not ridiculous at all - the $$ involved in the bonus pales in comparison to the pension: 25K/yr for 5 or 9 years versus ~50K/yr for life. As is, the bonus is peanuts compared to the pension. In my particular case, the bonus didn't factor one bit in my decision. I ran numbers sure, but I ended up making a decision based on QOL rather than money. Money will be there for someone with their sh!t together. I'm still waiting for one single person, either on this forum or in real life, to say the bonus is what swayed them to stay in. All takers I know were either career guys anyway (either because they love the life or want the pension) or slugs. AF leaders can't control completely the bonus offerings. They are capped at 25K/yr by law. This is why the only thing they could do was increase length rather than girth for fighter and RPA guys. I get what you are saying about unit cost for fence sitters and according to my logic it's astronomical when you start dividing by zero but you're missing my point - it's not about retaining people as much as it's about being able to forecast. I don't think the bonus keeps any MORE people in, but it sure lets AFPC know how many raw numbers it has committed for the next 5 or 9 years. By design or not (probably not), that is what the bonus actually does...at least, until that dude comes out of the woodwork and admits the bonus alone is why he stayed. Don't hold your breath for that.

TT, The beauty about statistics is 69% of them are pulled out of thin air. I love how you make up rough approximations and apply them to eligibles to make exact numbers of golden boys, slugs and fence sitters. Here's the reality - the golden boys and slugs are staying in anyway. A few fence sitters may be tempted by cash but I know a lot that are passing on the bonus. I've yet to meet a single person to say the money convinced them to stay so until I do then I propose that the bonus retained no one. The fence sitters I know that signed the bonus stayed for the AD pension, not the bonus money. Fact. Prozac, AFPC can't control QOL things like bases, ops tempo, and work hours due to shitty leadership. Our leaders, mil and civ, control that. We all know the shit leaders on AD (Rat, Yogi, he whose name should not be spoken), but the civvies are to blame too. Who in Nm is so influential that HO got vipers and we screwed out SOF guys with Cannon, at huge expense to the taxpayers (and troop morale) with the accompanying drop in FTU output at HO. Fuck politicians that put their local interests ahead of combat capability and bang-for-buck, and that's all of them. All AFPC can do is throw money at the problem. Increases in QOL in the current system are a pipe dream. Assignments will continue to go to BNRs and dudes that know their porch guys first, then to #1s then to rank and file. Maybe commitments will come into play too, but AFPC will never just hand good deals to free agents and screw over golden boys promoted in the self image of shitty 0-6s, the brass won't allow it.

The AF hates free agents too much. They can't plan at all with so many people holding their own cards. The current bonus does nothing to actually retain people, but it does create a nice pool of people who can't say no to orders. AFPC has not used that too much yet, but (and this is from the horse's mouth) if manning problems is some AFSCs get much worse they may have to. I think their only fix is to UP the commitment. Make it 12-15 years and you are putting people in a tough spot to give up a pension before hitting 20. This is all ball wash though - let's see what the final numbers are.

So 17k allowed, 17020# total per the driver. I'll make sure packing stuff gets accounted for either way so I get paid for the partial dity. Wouldn't it be funny if they don't adjust and TMO chooses to fence in over 20#. I kinda welcome it.

Where is it in writing that weight of packing materials doesn't count against PCS weight limits and how much do they deduct for said materials? Depending on which website you read it's either 10% or 2K lbs but I can't find source data, even in the JFTR. Movers just packed up my HOR move for separation and think we may be overweight. Good times. Should have thrown more shit away.

Alright, for all the nancies that I offended 2 pages ago, 2020 just summed it up. Toop.

Very much so. I misunderstood your initial intent. Kind of like my NPV discussion earlier - lots of assumptions on there but I get it. Over time though I believe the problem works itself out because when dudes see thin year groups around them they will likely benefit from higher promotion rates and chances to lead, big fish in a small pond theory. This is why I think the AF will always be OK as far as bodies are concerned: the more that get out, the better the opportunities for those that stay in, which will entice some to stay. I'm skeptical about AFPC's ability to adapt to moving targets on a year-to-year basis with the bonus. Look at the misinformation and confusion surrounding the last two rounds of force mismanagement. Not exactly awe inspiring. Even if they could pull it off it would create situations where dudes in the same squadron are on potentially very different compensation packages. That's less than ideal - creates a haves & have-nots club. Still in the end though I just don't think the bonus does what it aims to do. Most people taking it wanted to stay in anyway and I've yet to see one person here post that the bonus is what convinced them to stay in. Therefore, I doubt how effective a more targeted bonus that you propose would really be, even if AFPC could magically target the right group each year.

I think you went 0/2 on assumptions. Staff dude please chime in if you have numbers, but to assess health of a force based on # of eligibles is a huge extrapolation. I would submit that the tanker community is healthier than the fighter (particularly one I know, f-16) community based on several points: - We've closed about 1/4 of FTU capacity (Luke, Tyndall, etc) via BRAC the past ~5 years, which created part of our recent manning shortfall. We've gone to measures such as: -- Filling fighter staff billets with AMC bubbas, or left vacant -- sending no-shit zero fighter guys to the T-6. -- I've personally seen 5 Viper guys have orders changed from T-38s to a Viper assignment while either at PIT or about to PCS. -- as recently as last year told we're 700-1000 11F bodies short to fill billets - No fighter guys I know with the requisite hours are having too much trouble getting hired by airlines. In the past 6 mons I've seen guys dropping Southwest, Delta, American and United. - Why were 11Fs completely in ineligible for force shaping & VSP? My heavy bros are getting paid a nice chunk of chance to do what fighter guys are doing for free - separating. - I personally was moved up 4 VMLs to return from current white jet tour and get an assignment back to the Viper, the message went out AETC-wide asking who wanted back early because of manning issues in the CAF. I admittedly don't know as much about the tanker force, but saying it's hurting compared to fighter communities based on # of eligibles and not the above info is not looking at the big picture.

Him, Him. God bless the fam.

Flaco, it's all in the assumptions. I ran the same numbers while deployed, included AD retirement pay and airline 401k matching, calculated airline pay exactly based on guaranteed hrs per month, assumed modest 2%/yr raises, and ran the numbers for staying in (then going airlines) vs punching now for the airlines and getting a guard/reserve pension at 20. If you left out that piece you are missing a large series of cash flows. Also, I would argue against using 7%, I used 3. That's a realistic inflation rate to get all those cash flows in 2014 dollars, 7% assumes everything is invested which only works if you plan on living in a cardboard box with no expenses; it severely undervalues your income in later years. The numbers were in favor of getting out by a NPV of 300K to 550K depending on how long you plan on working. More than that if you go to the left seat. Anything that does not include ANG/res pay and pension, AD pension, and 401K matching is incomplete. Ended up not being a big factor for me since I'm not going to the airlines, but I strongly disagree that it is profitable to stay in. PM me your email if anyone wants to see the math.

Helodude, valid point and if I came off as insulting dudes for taking it that was not my point - I blame the scotchies and vino last night. I leave AD with no ill feelings, in fact I was very close to taking an assignment (my #1 choice, #2 location) and signing the big bonus. I'm not bitter at all about my time on AD, but I am cynical toward our leadership all the way to the top. I've got bros nearing retirement that are getting hit with 365s right as dwell time expires, in fact one of them got hit with one after submitting his retirement request. Big fight and got it turned off, but AFPC wasn't even playing by their own rules when they hit him. My sarcasm is because of this - there is a certain naïveté involved with at least 2 people I know that took the 20YAS bonus. I believe AFPC hates having free agents, and they (the 2 bros I speak of) think that no consideration at all will be given to who is & is not committed via ADSC when bad deals come down. Dudes 7-day opted Holloman like you read about. The community can't afford to keep going through several dudes to get one to take the assignment, so you think they won't start handing the worse deals to the bros that can't say no? I think they will have to, and that's the real cost of the bonus. The bonus is a good deal for those staying in anyway, and I was really on the fence, but does little to actually retain people. If you asked me a year ago I would not have foreseen me passing up a good assignment and the bonus, but the right job on the outside can change things quickly. Obviously the $$ wasn't enough. I hemmed and hawed a lot. If it was $50K/yr that would have made the decision a lot tougher. Yes, people will continue to do what is best for their families and every situation is different. Two things are total wildcards though. First, a lot of people the AF wants to keep are getting out, so manning policies/practices a few years from now are impossible to predict (not in a good way I think). Second, insults are not toward the bonus-takers but rather toward the bonus itself - I don't think it's retaining very many people. AFPC cannot affect QOL, the only thing they can do is throw more money at the problem, if authorized to do so. I'm willing to bet that happens.

In this case I disagree. So far everyone keeps mentioning the free money for what they were going to do anyway. They either love the AF, were staying for the pension or didn't want to pursue (or didn't have) options outside of AD. Other than the "free money for what they were going to do anyway" types, there are the ones that don't see the bonus as a good trade-off for the commitment that comes with it. To prove it's not binary, someone needs to step up and say the bonus swayed them to stay in. Where are you? KH is right, the money is not the same (relatively) as it once was. $1500/mo to commit to an organization you weren't ready to commit to without the cash? Like he said, double it and we'll talk. And they can finally do that next FY. Edit: fvcking Siri

I will add - if you were committed to the AF anyway than thank you, I just hope you're one of the good guys. Dudes that want to stay in and fight the good fight - good on you. There are two types that sign the bonus - you, and the dudes without options.

And this is why the AF offered it. One of the most coveted jobs - yet a job that I passed up almost 1/4 million $$ to do in the guard and control my future. A job that hundreds of others HAVE and pass up the cash to either keep their options or pursue the many other avenues that are there for a type-A dude who gets shit done. Congrats for playing into their hands, enjoy the 365 at 1.5 years left til hypothetical retirement. I leave AD with pretty happy memories of my time served. Awesome jet, great bros and shit-hot travels. That being said, if your reason to stay in is even remotely influenced by financial status, you fvcked up by signing the bonus. We have way better options than committing to big blue for 9 years. If you don't see that you belong in security forces.

I get it, kind of. But with all the on/off of force retention programs and all, what exactly is your basis for "trusting" our leadership? I passed on the bonus for the guard so I'm biased, but I think it's a bit fishy that "all of a sudden" this option showed up. If anyone thinks, in a climate of extreme fiscal belt-tightening, that our leadership is going to hook up the bros at extra cost to the DoD and taxpayer, I have some ocean-front property near Luke AFB that I'd like to sell you sight unseen.

And you call yourself a fighter pilot? Have you never been to Vegas? $12K on that is the surest bet in the history of the ACP. You think a year from now when it's $35K/yr that it will be a "coincidence" that they offered early this year? You take our "leadership" at face value far too easily.

Where is the info posted? I'm part of the no-take crowd and personally know more people passing on the bonus than taking it, but that kind of observation is worthless in the grand scheme of things. I'm interested how it shakes out with all the sport-bitching lately. I still think the per-year $$ will go up next year, since it finally can. I just keep seeing a lot of bros posting pics of their new Southwest, Delta, etc jets on Facebook.

Plenty of leave, but my job is full-time with the ANG, that was nebulous in my first post. Can't be on terminal and in the guard. I plan on my choking being subtle - simple email stating that MPF isn't reading their own rules correctly but I am gracious enough to explain their own regs to them. I'll have to find my sarcasm switch and turn it off. If I can do that I think I'll be fine. God forbid you call someone out for not knowing their job.

Interesting one here - so I am a free agent, my debts to society paid in full. UPT and PCS ADSC expired, PIT ADSC was wiped out by MPF, reference the past two pages. So I apply for separation and the MPF professional informs me that I show AAC 50 for a 3-year controlled AETC tour, and I haven't been here 3 years. Their interpretation of that controlled tour is that, although not an ADSC, it commits me here for a full 3 years. I've researched the regs (assignments reg, stabilized tour guide) and they are in my favor (it's a max controlled tour, not a min, plus no mention of it preventing retirements or separations, just a PCS). However, said MPF professional entertained me with several stories (WOMs) of people who were held up by this. Anyone out there have to fight this battle before? Was it as easy as showing them their own regs and watching their brains explode or was it more painful? What was the result? I've got a job on the outside lined up with a start date that I need to make; it happens to be before the expiration of my max controlled tour (interpreted by MPF as a min controlled tour). Thanks in advance for any war stories.

Posted this question earlier and it was deleted - guess I should have found a home for it. Anyway, if you separate and join the ANG/Res, can you then transfer post-911 GI benefits to the Frau/kids and serve out the ADSC in the Guard/Res? Don't want to sign an ADSC to transfer it now if I may separate in the near future, but have no problems committing to the ANG/Res once out of AD. Anyone been in this situation?