SocialD

That's the method we used for most of last year, but then early this year we got told we had to start doing it the way Duck outlined.

It may seem that way, but I just love to complain about shit that wastes peoples time. It's not even my time really, it's the poor ARMS guy that has to do all the CMS cases. Also, these are just ADDITIONAL pay cards that they recently gave us and we don't even have to use if we don't want...I've made it the last 10 years without them just fine. Many in my squadron do not even use them because it's not worth the massive pay cut to use them. Only reason I'll even use them this year is for pre-deployment spin-up stuff. If you want to have a QOL super drinkoff wrt AD vs my lifestyle, I'm down lol.

Might be showing my (or her) age here but is Cathy Rico still in charge of UPT orders? Either way, if you haven't already done so, reach out and explain your situation to whomever hands out orders from NGB these days. They may say no, but then again they may have something available for you. In the grand scheme of things they don't really care when (within reason) or where you go, just that they plug you into a class date. I received a call from Cathy's assistant one day who gave me the option of Columbus, Laughlin or Sheppard, with dates spread out over 4 months. I took Sheppard because it was the first date available. My info is dated circa 2005ish so take it FWIW. I'd actually consider the trade to be 180 from your example. Having been to both towns, I'd take Laughlin over Vance in a heartbeat. Lake Amistad, New Braunfels, Austin, Hill country are all much better than...OKC.

One other gem I forgot to mention is that they didn't take any TSP contributions out of extra pay cards. I have every possible pay type set to 70%+ contributions and it still didn't make my contributions for me. So we got that going for us, which is nice...

Apparently our finance was to busy to answer any one of the 4 or 5 numbers I called numerous times throughout the day, but out OG says the additional pay cards are still a thing. Could it be that local finance means they're not actually processing them and they mean you need to go through the CMS case process? Right now the process is that I input an AFTP into AROWS, then I send an e-mail to our ARMS NCOIC, and (ONLY on the 1st or 15th of the month) can he input a CMS case for each pay card. Then sometime in the next 3 or 4 months I get paid. Don't forget they'll fuck up the withholdings and you'll be taxed anywhere from 30-40%. But this is a non-issue "because you'll just get it back when you do your taxes..." Love me some free loans to uncle sam. I was paid out for all of mine last FY. Great waste of man hours but the only way to get paid these additional pay cards. This year, I plan on just doing all the additional AFTPs in one quarter and submitting them all at once. This seems to be about the least amount of ass pain for our ARMS guy. Reference above (plus another sad incident I found out about today)...I take back the nice things I said about finance.

Ok so you made me question things and I just took another look. In a rare instance that I'll stick up for our finance, they seem to be getting it right. So what I'm getting paid with each pay card is ACIP of $21.67/pay card, which is the equivalent of the old rate of $650/month. Then a few days later I get another pay card (labeled AVIP/DIR Com SP) of $11.66/pay card that makes up the difference and brings me up to the equivalent of $1000/month. So on my cursory look, it appears they have it nailed down, but I'll be sure to send out a message to the guys to make sure theirs is correct. In defense of finance, they're just trying to play the shit hand they've been dealt. A SMSgt in finance (who really knows her shit), when I asked when this would be fixed, said they've been told that they're just going to have to deal with it until the new finance system is rolled out sometime in 2021...

I haven't heard anything about them not processing our additional AFTPs. But when I did process those additional AFTPs it took over 3 months for them to pay it out. My plan going forward is just to do all the additional AFTPs at one time so they can all be processed at once and lessen the pain! I'll ask around on Monday. Welcome to the part timers world...our flight pay has been fucked for the last 2ish years. I've all but given up on trying to keep up and just hope they're doing it right.

I was hired at AAL and DAL with 950 hours in the Viper and about 1,750 hours total. A few of my squadron mates were hired at just over 1,500 hours in fighters. If you meet the mins then low hours are not a problem.

Lol, I feel like this deserves it's own thread. Our base doesn't work Fridays, so our "Friday shirt" is actually a Thursday shirt. Of course we launch most of our X/Cs or squadron TDYs on a Thursday, so we get lots of double takes when we land at an AD base.

Ya, there are some dudes doing some pretty drastic things just to fatten up their W2s. That said, many of the "strategies, gimmicks and premium flying" can often make you way more money while working the same, if not less...maybe not your bro-in-law money though lol. My "gimmick" has me working the same number of days (12), 2 fewer nights away from home (8) and makes me $4-6k/month more than if I just accepted my originally assigned schedule. Some months I don't feel like working as much, so I'll knock off one of those trips, work 3 fewer days and only take a $1,500 hit in pay from my originally assigned schedule. Some guys in my category go to the other extreme and instead of work 2 x 6-day trips (originally assigned schedule), will try to pick up additional trips and try to get as close to 100 hours as possible. Those dudes are working an additional 6 days and only making an additional $2-3k over my strategy. They will likely end up in an early grave. They won't employ my strategy of dropping my entire schedule and pickup up more efficient trips because they're too scared of coming up short. Better for me since they're usually senior to me.

Someone posted a video of the flyby on the OFP FB group...no way in hell that the flyby was the only caused of the firing! If it was, then things are much, much worse than I thought, which I didnt think was possible.

I noticed they put in a change to the fine print. If you curtail an order/bonus early you'll be penalized for a few years before you can sign another bonus. I can't remember the exact details, but I see what you did there HAF 🤣. Still no one year big bonus.

BeERholder Huggy...the Beerholder! But it's true. I flew with a Captain on the 737 that absolutely hated flying WB international. Hated it so much that he bid back to the right seat of the 737 as soon as he could. Sat there until he could hold the left seat of the 737. Having flown the 737 and now WB international, I can't imagine flying our domestic system right now. Life is just so damn good on the 330. That's the great thing about this job, there is a little bit of everything for everyone. To each their own. Oh man, flightinfo. I wonder what ever happened to General Lee...

I guess I'll be the naysayer here. The ANG hired you to be a part-timer, if they wanted you to stay longer, they would provide more orders for seasoning. Hell before we had an alert mission (read: tons of orders), they shipped guys out the door after seasoning and said good luck! When we interview, we are very clear about being a part timer and want to know what your plans are for full time employment after seasoning. By utilizing all your AT/AFTPs/UTA days in between the two sets of seasoning orders, we generally have our dudes through the 4-flug by the end of their seasoning. If you have that done, I'd say jump to a regional to start racking up total time and work toward getting hired by the Legacies. If your unit has the orders, you'll likely be able to drop orders half the month or every other month no problem. This way you will build up TT faster and still stay actively engaged in the squadron. Get your line number at a Legacy asap! Then, once you're at a Legacy, or maybe after you get 1500TT at the regional, drop orders and go to the IPUG. You'll be just fine. WRT to which regional. If able, I'd go to the regional that allows you to be home based at both jobs. If not, I'd live near the guard and go to the regional that provides the shortest/easiest commute.

Start reading here.

Go on the OFP facebook page and they'll tell you about the time they were out flying CT in their hun and lost their one radio, then lost their nav equipment, then clouds rolled in and everywhere for 1000 miles was down to PAR mins. They only made it home that day because of a form approach. They'll also concoct these "what ifs" like and entire base with hundreds of fighters needed to get airborne asap and how form takeoffs will speed up the process. I'd actually argue that they'd slow it down but whatever. In practical use, I haven't done a form to/lnd in over 7 years. In my decade and half of mil flying/SOFing, I haven't experienced a situation that would have required one. I actually liked doing them, but I really don't see the need for them. While I think it can be done safely, there is always an element of danger with doing them. Right now, I don't see the the benefits outweighing the dangers. I learned fix-to-fix in tweets but by the time I made it to 38s, it was no longer a checkride item. I've only actually done it once in the Viper and that was more just to see if I could still do it. I think it may help with understanding bullseye, but I also think it could be dropped and people would still quickly figure it out. There is nothing dangerous about doing them, so I don't see a problem with teaching it in UPT.

Now imagine your OSI shop and your jury are filled with mindsets like Pawnman... Don't say a word and get the best lawyer you can afford (or maybe not even afford). Guilty until proven innocent is alive and well.

I don't necessarily disagree with you about shortcomings in our scope, but some of this is a bit misleading. It's important for prospective candidates to understand the numbers. I'll also preface this with the fact that we'll likely never be the widebody airline that is UAL. Also, when looking at the numbers, UAL has about 2k fewer pilots and AAL has roughly the same number of pilots. Our parking of jets is mostly the 747s (which everyone is parking) and some of our ERs. While we are plenty short on WB airframes, we're still adding 350s and 330s to the fleet. A decent amount of our ER flying is moving up to our 330s which is a good thing. Despite our "lack" of scope and "parking" of aircraft, I've held the 330 for 4.5 of the 6 years I've worked for Delta....yes I'm aware UAL has a 1st year guys on the 777. We also have 1st year guys in the left seat....there is a reason for both. Your numbers wrt our "top rate," leaves out the fact that we don't band like UAL and AAL, so our 330/764 pilots are not included in that number. For some reason, many at DAL are adamantly against banding our 330/764 with the 777/350. But for reference my 330 rate at DAL is 209/211, my rate at UAL would be 219 and AAL would be 213. Sure it's a few bucks less an hour, but it's disingenuous to leave them out of the numbers. Having recently compiled all the data from AAL and UAL buddies, I figured I'd share. It's tough to really nail down the UAL numbers since they band their 75/76 to their 764 fleet and neither AAL or DAL do. But a few UAL 75/76 buddies gave me their best guess, based on the number of 764s in their fleet/trips in the bid packet (ie...not all their 75/76 pilots are always getting paid that rate), so take it for what it's worth. UAL ~31%, AAL ~20% and DAL ~20% (only 7-8% at the 350/777 rate). That said we have a few more WB Captains (including 330/764) than AAL and about 50 shy of UAL. The reason for that is we do our long haul flying with 2 CA/2 FO, while UAL/AAL mostly do 1 CA/3 FO. Clearly they beat us big time in the WB FO department. Another factor that helps us along is that both UAL and AAL utilize their WBs on domestic route much more than we do, so that brings down the crew ration a bit. Having left AAL, my "crystal ball" time to WB Captain is pretty much the same at DAL and AAL. Again, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but it's important to know the true numbers, rather than the standard cockpit rhetoric. As Karl said...go to the one that lets you drive to work.

Are you sure you don't work for OSI? Head over to the WTF thread for plot thickening posts. Which brings me to my next point...watch putting your dick in crazy! Same. They won't let little things like facts get in the way of their predetermined outcome.

I also have no issues with management being rewarded handsomely...if they produce without leaving the company a dumpster fire and not fucking over their worker bees. If they do those things, then they should actually be held responsible/accountable...not gracefully walked out the side door with $62 million in severance and a slap on the back.

But hey, management bonuses were paid out and the stockholder got their money, so it's all good...

It's the same reason 737-8/9s have to fly so fast on final...it's a bandaid. They're milking that cow for all its worth.

Ya, that was just a play on the old joke that somewhere along the way, Boeing fired all the engineers and hired lawyers. I find your post to be spot on.

The only reason for the this rusty coat hangar abortion that is MCAS is Boeing trying to squeeze blood out of the turnip. Here's hoping more heads roll and they reevaluate the engineer to lawyer ratio on their books. This is what happens when you care more about profits (and investors) than the people who provide those profits. It's mind boggling that someone can saddle a company with a clusterfuck like this and bail with millions.

But seriously, glad you had a good experience. I've never had any issues other than just trying to get the mil leave lady to understand my combo of orders/pay cards when returning from a deployment. My first time out was for a deployment at 8 months on property but I was off probation. Just got a call asking if I understood how the whole process worked and they pointed out where to look when I returned.