joe1234

I truly believe that the guys up at headquarters understand that there is a manning issue, but the truth is, nobody above them is really clamoring for them to fix it. SecDef doesn't seem to care that much, and POTUS obviously has enough on his plate. The wars and high priority missions are getting flown and fought, we're losing an acceptable number of jets (enough that it doesn't make the news), and Congress is getting money flowed into their districts under the current status quo. I mean, let's all be honest, manning numbers are pretty much notional as it is. Until we start losing lives and jets because the few pilots that are left can't safely fly 200 hours a month, you're not going to see any revolutionary changes in the way we do business.

Not only would I not upgrade, I would start giving away trips.

Depends on the person. But let’s not sit here and pretend like the military route is always the right (or the best) choice. For a lot of guys, it turns out to be a mistake, though an ultimately profitable one.

I see no reason why anyone should ever feel guilty for min running their unit. The fact that we burn so many TP's on top of our normal UTA/AT requirement to stay current is plenty. But if you're chronically NMR then yeah you need to shit or get off the pot.

If you live in an area where both your mil job and civ job are located, then IMO it can be a pretty good deal to stay in the reserves. In a situation where a guy who got out might stay in a narrowbody to maintain their QoL with relative seniority, a DSG/TR can maintain a similar QoL while bidding up to a higher paying seat.

Widebody reserve F/O living in base. You could realistically block less than 100 hours of hard time in a year and earn 250k. Personally, I blocked around 340 and credited 850, and only dropped about 20 days of military leave last year on a narrowbody. Not making huge bucks, but I'm not working very hard either.

Personally I like PBS. I don't have to browse a bunch of lines.. I just tell it what I want, and make it less restrictive for the next bid, and so forth. Sometimes a few gems will fall through the cracks. But, I just trade into what I want if I don't like it anyway.

What's there to get? You extrapolated your personal bad experiences at Travis into being a MAF-wide problem, and how life is better being in U-2's. Which, I'm sure your new life is a great experience and all, but the problem was never the MAF, it was your priorities. I somehow managed to exist in the same MAF as you, at the same time, and had a much different experience. Because I had different priorities. It reminds me of the dudes who choose career over family and then bitch and then complain about how the Air Force ruined their marriage and estranged them from their kids. Like, no dude, that's your own damn fault.

That wasn't my experience at all. I had tons of epic fun trips with great crews, even more fun experiences at home, and never wrote any bullets or did any of that crap when I was on the road. But then again, you probably got good strats, awards, and PME opportunities. We all make our choices in life, I guess.

"Hey we're going to have a naming parties and roll calls to boost morale, so that makes it totally okay if we drop a short notice 365 with a follow on to Altus that causes your life to fall apart, right?"

See, that's the beauty of being a part timer. The military is far more attractive as a side piece than as a wife. When you get tired of the Air Force's shit, just ghost it for a few weeks until a nice TDY drops down.

This thread is almost 200 pages, but at the end of the day it comes down to 4 words: "Fuck you, pay me" There is a price point at which enough people will tolerate all the deployments and military bullshit, and we are nowhere close to it yet. Procurement programs out of control and eating up your personnel budget? Fuck you, pay me. Congress won't authorize a higher bonus? Fuck you, pay me. Profession of arms, service to the country, whatever, fuck you, pay me.

Binary in 2018, yeah, but I'm hoping my laziness combined with the desperation to backfill hundreds of vacant O-5 billets will outlast AFRC's resistance to change. It's going to be a battle for the ages.

I disagree with the implication that I should feel the slightest bit guilty for performing legitimate military duty just because it happens to fall on the first day of a long trip or splits up the middle of a reserve block. If my unit is begging for bodies because nobody wants to work Christmas, and I'd rather do that instead of going off on an airline trip, I should feel bad about that? Fuck that. 1) Drop your mil leave for legit duty that you actually attend, 2) do it with a reasonable amount of advance notice, and 3) be able provide documentation. Anything else is charity.

Literally the only regret I have in my life is going active duty.

"These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That's institutionalized."

Technically, non-compliance can be punished. Just write crazy shit into your OPR and see how many times they kick it back before they get frustrated and do it themselves. Then do that same thing year after year until they learn their lesson.

Seriously, I don't get all this hand-wringing over staying in a career where you're shit on, unappreciated, kept in the dark about your future, and probably being paid half what you're worth How many times do y'all have to eat shit and ask for seconds before you say enough is enough?

First of all, never tell anyone that you're even .001% regretful for where you ended up. If the response from internet strangers is any indication, the people around you will be incredibly vindictive if you let that little bit of info slip out. It's fucked up, but that's how it is. There are plenty of commanders who will be personally offended that your life's dream isn't to be exactly like them, and will try to fuck you over because you're "ungrateful". No matter how cool he/she seems, never assume because the consequences can be devastating for you. Second, there's temporary ways out. For example, TPS if you're a prior engineer. U-2/Global Hawks/ALO/Foreign Area Officer/etc. You gotta do your research but you're not confined to your squadron for the next 10 years. But you really gotta dig. Ask people who have done it before. Call up your functional and see what's out there. Call up any mentors or former instructors. You can probably even crosstrain to a heavy while still AD -- it's much easier to go fighter -> heavy than the other way around. Third, once you get to the end of your commitment, you can join pretty much any unit and fly any plane you're able to get hired for. Or, you can even crosstrain to a nonflying job and just be a 9-5 AGR/ART type dude living where you want to live. If you have no desire to fly airplanes anymore, then, well, there's more than one way to get permanently DNIF'd. Of all the things the military can force you to do, it can't force you to sign for a jet and go fly. Yeah, there's consequences, but unless you plan on making a career out of it. And that's active duty -- once you go guard/reserves the slate is kinda wiped clean (unless you did something really fucked up). It gets better.

Well, the age when most people go to UPT is the tail end of that "you can't tell me anything, I've got it all figured out" phase of life. So, I think it hits them twice as hard knowing that not only are they disillusioned, but everyone warned them beforehand and they still didn't listen.

I get it, everyone says this. But, I just never see airlines actually slow down military hiring because of it. Delta has been giving military guys shit for taking leave for years and hasn't seemed to slowed their military hiring one bit. FedEx to a lesser extent. American and United don't seem to give two shits either way. Not sure about SWA/JetBlue/Alaska. And this is before the bulk of the wave. We're not even at the peak yet.

You're supposed to show up and work the schedule when your airline gives it to you. You can take military leave on your airline work days to perform military duty, aka being on a military status. But if you're in a civilian status, you cannot submit mil leave for that purpose. If you're waiting for 2 months to start your flying training, then you are not "scheduled" for anything with the airline, so you can do your ART job, sell houses, mow lawns, go dance at a strip club, whatever (unless it's civilian flying b/c of FAA flying maximums). If you're an AGR, you can drop 5 straight years the very day after indoc. Yeah, it "looks bad", but guys do it all the time with no issues. Hell, I'd do it if I was still on first year pay.

Wait....so you actually think college and high school players don't do those things? College ball is 100x more corrupt and shady than the NFL could ever hope to be.

See, this is why friends don't let friends stay on active duty. Even if you're having a good run, your head is still in the guillotine, just waiting for that blade to eventually fall....

Yes, you can do that. I ended up with about 3 months of terminal. Get your TAP class scheduled and knock it out ASAP. You miss a week of work and you don't want to be doing that shit while you're in the middle of PCSing, separating, and job hunting all at one time.