Originally Posted by
Sink r8
I know a lot of guys that live nearby, or would extend, or commute in for a GS. The idea that commuters won't/can't GS is a myth. The number of people that live close enough to New York to make the drive in inconsequential is very small, probably smaller than the number of guys that sitting in their crashpad in Queens, because they didn't get home in time, and "poof" here pops a MEX for tomorrow morning.
I've set my bar a little higher for a GS this month, so I wasn't competing with this pilot, but there are literally hundreds in front of him/her, and I've seen some of them pick up one day GS's with an ATL turn.
I just can't explain this. I'm definitely not insuinuating there is anything wrong going on, I'm just saying it doesn't quite compute for me.
Sometimes it just turns out to be timing. I agree that in a large category, there "should" be more likelihood of at least someone sitting around willing to do it.
As someone else pointed out, RSV is the best way to open up your sked for rolling thunder IF you can get it rolling. This is especially true when the ALV is near it's upper limits (don't know what NYCERB's ALV is, just saying) because that will soak up another additional day, or more, for each REG pilot making them even less available for a GS.
Once you get the first 2 or 3 your sked is pretty wide open for the remainder of the month.
Another rendition of rolling thunder (though not exactly ROLLING thunder) is to bid to have all your days off at the end of the month - which is sometimes a better plan for the more junior among us. Your days all then "roll" in the PB bank and you can place them, coverage permitting, at the beginning of the following month to open things up even more - rolling from month to month. This sometimes works for the junior guys because other pilots are already past their G#1, 2, etc by the time the junior pilot hits his X days, putting him at/near the front of the line for several in a row. Of course, this assumes you didn't time out already during your RSV stretch of 17-18 in a row. It's definitely more of an art/crapshoot than a science.