S3toHerk

As a drilling reservist in a squadron, I have been told on several occasions that you cannot travel out of the U.S. drilling on AFTPs on IDTT orders. They say we have to be on AT or ADT orders because of SOFA agreements, but no one can show me where this policy comes from. Is this written down somewhere? The only thing I've found in writing is that you cannot go into a hazardous duty area on drills.

Please help me to "Confirm" or "Bust" this this urban legend.

liftr92

not sure where it says it but it's not overseas, just non-US, i.e. USVI, PR, & Guam are OK as they're US territories - everything else, need to be on orders for some politico reasons

USN C9B

This question comes up once a year in every squadron. The answer is yes and no.

It depends on the country. The US has a SOFA agreement with each foreign country we regularly visit. Some of them say military personnel must be on active duty others don't. Japan, most of South and Central America, most of the Middle East and Africa require you to be on active duty (ADT, AT etc). Most of western Europe doesn't require active duty. If there is no SOFA, then you must be on activce duty. In order to see it in writing, you must review the SOFA for each country you are planning to RON or overfly (in case of a divert). That takes a lot of time and I guarantee few folks have the time to research it.

From an operational view, the aircraft and crew cannot accept any change in mission. Also, to send you on a 6-8 day trip on IDTT may eat up most of the quarter's budget. That may prevent the ops guys from putting several other aircrew on CONUS RONs using IDTT. In other words, you'd eat up the whole pot and the wealth is not shared.

What I did when I was in a squadron: Europe (UK, Ireland, France, Germany etc) quick turns or to US territories (Guam, PR etc), we did on AFTP/IDTT if funds were available. Anywhere else went on AT or ADT.

C9

kronan

Keep in mind, the protection level is greater for you when you're on AD orders. If you get sick, flight doc is an easy call.

And, at least for AFRC, you can depart on IDT, but, you can't accomplish IDT overseas.

AFMAN 36-8001 4.2.7 has the details.

http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/share...AFRCSUP1_I.pdf