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Aviation Continuation Pay (ACP - The Bonus)


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10 hours ago, TnkrToad said:

A pilot community where there are overages of Lts, Capts and junior Majs--but almost no senior Majs/Lt Cols/Cols to lead them and/provide staff top cover/fight for new aircraft and/or capabilities/etc.--cannot be healthy.

No, no, no, no, no.... you forgot.  Leadership from on high, "You can be replaced."

People got the message, and acted accordingly.

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Well, our ORB dropped.  $15K a year for 4 year ADSC.  All my prior-e friends have signed up (except the ones within 2 years of retirement), and those with 2+ years ADSC's already.  Wife and I aren't decided yet.

None of the true Cyber Operators I know have.  So this all appears to mirror the same ACP issues you all have with dudes already staying are taking it.

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14 hours ago, TnkrToad said:

Bottom line, whenever you look at stats of how many pilots short a community might be, take a very critical eye. Senior AF leaders are wringing their hands over a 1,500 pilot shortage, with most of that shortage being in the 11F community. Theoretically, this means all the other non-11F communities combined are just a few hundred pilots short. That might be true--it's possible that the total 11B/H/M/S/R population is vaguely close to the raw total required. If the Air Force is comparatively healthy on overall numbers of non-11Fs, the only way I can make the math work is that there are gross overages of pilots in the year groups who haven't yet been offered the bonus.

Depends on your definition of healthy, what the bean counters consider healthy to make their stoplight charts green or what we need to get the mission done. The C-17 is 105% manned on paper except they reduced our crew ratios from 3.0 to 2.5 and closed 2 squadrons. Yet our mission taskings havent decreased anywhere close to reflect our current manning, but according to AFPC we are overnmanned.

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On 4/20/2017 at 9:03 PM, 17D_guy said:

Well, our ORB dropped.  $15K a year for 4 year ADSC.  All my prior-e friends have signed up (except the ones within 2 years of retirement), and those with 2+ years ADSC's already.  Wife and I aren't decided yet.

None of the true Cyber Operators I know have.  So this all appears to mirror the same ACP issues you all have with dudes already staying are taking it.

YGBFSM...the cyber nerds get a bonus but the 12x community doesn't....I guess I'll just resign myself to beating people up at United...

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4 minutes ago, 08Dawg said:

YGBFSM...the cyber nerds get a bonus but the 12x community doesn't....I guess I'll just resign myself to beating people up at United...

I think the 12x community definitely deserves some form of bonus. I also think the Cyber guys deserve a hell of a lot more than that.

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On 4/20/2017 at 11:09 AM, TnkrToad said:

Data points: right now, there are 128 total Command Pilots/163 total pilots (the rest are Senior Pilots--how one gets to 21 yrs of service, without meeting the minimal requirements for Command Pilot rating is beyond me)

Perhaps they were Nav/EWOs for 6 years before going to pilot training.

Overall good analysis and appreciate the number crunching.  The AF is screwed on so many levels, and they've done it to themselves.

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On April 21, 2017 at 0:09 AM, TnkrToad said:

I've harped on this before, but one of the many problems with the current ACP program is that it only--at best--helps keep folks on AD until 20 yrs service (so we can have enough folks for O-4/O-5 command, staff, grey beard line flying, etc.) . . . and it's not even doing this well.

The bigger problem, as I see it, is that Big Blue is doing little-to-nothing to keep people on AD past 20 yrs. Given the impact that O-6s and above can have on their commands/the AF, the leadership problem we all like to complain about is likely to get substantially worse.

Data points: right now, there are 128 total Command Pilots/163 total pilots (the rest are Senior Pilots--how one gets to 21 yrs of service, without meeting the minimal requirements for Command Pilot rating is beyond me) with 21 yrs of commissioned service in the AF. In other words, these are folks who stayed in past 20 and (aside from passed-over Majors) competed for O-6. At the end of FY13 (just three and a half years ago), there were 374 Command Pilots with 21 commissioned years of service (out of 405 pilots total in that year group).

In other words, the number of pilots bothering to stay on AD past 20 and keep the Big Blue ship afloat has dropped by about two thirds in the past 3.5 years. This is across all 11X AFSCs. Certain pilot communities are especially hurting. The '96-ish year group, for instance--the current crop of recent O-6 selects--is healthier on 11Fs than 11Ms. Somehow, this never shows up on the official Air Force website or even Air Force Times, though.

Bottom line, whenever you look at stats of how many pilots short a community might be, take a very critical eye. Senior AF leaders are wringing their hands over a 1,500 pilot shortage, with most of that shortage being in the 11F community. Theoretically, this means all the other non-11F communities combined are just a few hundred pilots short. That might be true--it's possible that the total 11B/H/M/S/R population is vaguely close to the raw total required. If the Air Force is comparatively healthy on overall numbers of non-11Fs, the only way I can make the math work is that there are gross overages of pilots in the year groups who haven't yet been offered the bonus.

A pilot community where there are overages of Lts, Capts and junior Majs--but almost no senior Majs/Lt Cols/Cols to lead them and/provide staff top cover/fight for new aircraft and/or capabilities/etc.--cannot be healthy.

Big Blue must do more to keep adequate numbers of 11Xs in all year groups, leadership levels and 11X communities, if it's going to have a hope of getting healthy.

TT

Absurd and incorrect re: O-6 numbers.  Re: community health, yes, younger fighter pilots are short, but all other communities are currently relatively healthy, although we can see some concerns in the distant future (hence stop-loss discussion).  Wait to see the bonus take rate numbers in October.  Much more money offered this year.

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On April 21, 2017 at 3:12 PM, Fuzz said:

Depends on your definition of healthy, what the bean counters consider healthy to make their stoplight charts green or what we need to get the mission done. The C-17 is 105% manned on paper except they reduced our crew ratios from 3.0 to 2.5 and closed 2 squadrons. Yet our mission taskings havent decreased anywhere close to reflect our current manning, but according to AFPC we are overnmanned.

The 2.5 more accurately reflects the needs of the C-17 community.  Thousands of hours of research by personnelists went into these numbers.  

Even more research was done on the 2.0 crew ratio for the C-130.  While maintaining the 1.75 was argued, the increase to 2.0 won the day.  A minority in the community successfully argued the lack of navigators should create a higher crew ratio, so AMC A-1 caved and agreed to raise it to 2.0 (100%+ manned at the squadron level, I might add).  MAF is extremely healthy, again thanks to the efforts of number crunchers to keep the communities healthy.

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The 2.5 more accurately reflects the needs of the C-17 community.  Thousands of hours of research by personnelists went into these numbers.  
Even more research was done on the 2.0 crew ratio for the C-130.  While maintaining the 1.75 was argued, the increase to 2.0 won the day.  A minority in the community successfully argued the lack of navigators should create a higher crew ratio, so AMC A-1 caved and agreed to raise it to 2.0 (100%+ manned at the squadron level, I might add).  MAF is extremely healthy, again thanks to the efforts of number crunchers to keep the communities healthy.


Can you just stop please? We all get it, you're hilarious.
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14 minutes ago, General Chang said:

The 2.5 more accurately reflects the needs of the C-17 community.  Thousands of hours of research by personnelists went into these numbers.  

Even more research was done on the 2.0 crew ratio for the C-130.  While maintaining the 1.75 was argued, the increase to 2.0 won the day.  A minority in the community successfully argued the lack of navigators should create a higher crew ratio, so AMC A-1 caved and agreed to raise it to 2.0 (100%+ manned at the squadron level, I might add).  MAF is extremely healthy, again thanks to the efforts of number crunchers to keep the communities healthy.

A1 question(s) for you General Chang... is your primary data source to determine this RAW?  

If I understand it correctly, RAW is just matching AFSCs (from individuals) with billets to determine if they filled.  This misses an important point that it does not characterize the duties of the individuals (primarily operational/support vs. administrative) so while you could say MAJCOM X is healthy in AFSC X, Y and Z you would be missing what do these people actually do, to reference the Bobs.

Is there any other data point on an individual SURF that could capture this?  

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1 hour ago, General Chang said:

The 2.5 more accurately reflects the needs of the C-17 community.  Thousands of hours of research by personnelists went into these numbers.  

If personnel has thousands of hours to spend on something like this, I think they might be slightly overmanned.  

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If personnel has thousands of hours to spend on something like this, I think they might be slightly overmanned.  


At the minimum definition of "thousands", that is literally a full-time position for an entire fiscal year...doing nothing but studying the C-17 ratio.

For my trick next year, I will study a different, single topic and fvck that up too.


Bendy


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4 hours ago, Danger41 said:

I think the 12x community definitely deserves some form of bonus. I also think the Cyber guys deserve a hell of a lot more than that.

Thought there was some talk of it, but I haven't seen anything official yet. 

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5 hours ago, General Chang said:

Absurd and incorrect re: O-6 numbers.  Re: community health, yes, younger fighter pilots are short, but all other communities are currently relatively healthy, although we can see some concerns in the distant future (hence stop-loss discussion).  Wait to see the bonus take rate numbers in October.  Much more money offered this year.

"Much more money offered this year"...you mean the $35K vs $25K?  After there were discussions of $60K?  Because that's not "much more money" in the face of what the airlines are paying.  And Delta won't send you to Afghanistan for a year to not fly planes.

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"Much more money offered this year"...you mean the $35K vs $25K?  After there were discussions of $60K?  Because that's not "much more money" in the face of what the airlines are paying.  And Delta won't send you to Afghanistan for a year to not fly planes.


He doesn't know.

Don't feed.
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6 hours ago, General Chang said:

Absurd and incorrect re: O-6 numbers.  Re: community health, yes, younger fighter pilots are short, but all other communities are currently relatively healthy, although we can see some concerns in the distant future (hence stop-loss discussion).  Wait to see the bonus take rate numbers in October.  Much more money offered this year.

Just saving for when October comes around. My gut tells me that the bonus take rate will continue to decrease regardless of the extra bonus money, but I don't have the insider information that you have, being the A1 high ranking guy you totally are. 

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Running functions in Excel is nice for making numbers match a desired reality. By his description, that's what A-1 has been doing.

Actually solving the problem would take talking to and listening to folks who are bonus-eligible and finding out what it would take to get them to stay. (Hint: it's gonna take more than money)

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3 hours ago, pawnman said:

"Much more money offered this year"...you mean the $35K vs $25K?  After there were discussions of $60K?  Because that's not "much more money" in the face of what the airlines are paying.  And Delta won't send you to Afghanistan for a year to not fly planes.

Or a whole $3k increase for 11Rs.  Yeah that extra $250/mo (before taxes) is really gonna keep us from bailing to Delta.  

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This is a great opportunity to gauge the effectiveness of the bonus. Based on what I've read so far, the 11H C-130 guys are only going to get 28k, while their 11M brethren will get 34k.



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