It is reasonable, and sustainable. Generally. In my experience, NYC is a different type of base then the rest, especially "out West", and if you are one of the very, very few locals who live within an hour (or 30 minutes in your case), you can mine it for gold.

Here are the unique points: very expensive housing/transportation = high commuter ratio; 3+ bases = coverage challenges; junior pilots = lots of young kids at home and in school; high population density/originating passengers = the first wave of flights goes OUT from base, not in, and last bank of flying lands IN base, not at out-bases.

That drives my strategy (yours might be different): most amount of pay credit for the least number of days flying/away. That has been netting me about 1200-1300 pay hours per year, but only flying 240-260 block hours per year, about 5-12 flight days/month. Infinitely sustainable, unlike flying regular green slips, which are in ADDITION to a full month of flying.

- bid Reserve on purpose; less flying, more pay

- get Senior! Easy in NY, your seniority will very quickly build - in a year or two you'll be King. And it's good to be the King

- Bid, and get, what every one else wants: weekends and holidays off, slant towards more fridays off than Sundays

- Blanket Green slips entire month for every base, every day. If you elect to answer the phone you can be on the next flight in 40 minutes to solve whatever problem Crew Scheds needs. They will eventually learn their "Go To" guys

- Answer the phone: I'm here, where do you need me? Let's make a deal!

- No Yellow Slips. Ever. No need. You are trying to do the least amount of flying possible for the most amount of pay. Never volunteer to fly for free, unless you really, really want that particular layover. You are not trying to fill up for the month, you are trying to be available for longer green slips.

You will find when you go on-call on Mondays you are starting off with tons of other "prey", and no lions. By Thursday, you will not have flown, but are now only available for 1 or 2 days. On friday, the coverage drops to bare minimums, and now they need pilots to cover trips, a few greenslips go out. You're there to lap it up. Pays you straight pay, in addition to Reserve Guarantee, and your get a 24-hours payback day for every off-day violated, PLUS a 9-hour recovery added that spills into next week. Now you are only on-call from, say, 09:30 Wednesday, after the morning flying has gone out, and you become "invisible" to Crew Skeds. Oops! It's the weekend already - more poor coverage, more green slips. Or time off. Repeat infinitely.

Result: typically 1 or 2 greenslips a month, occasionally an out-of-base one, lots of payback days, some go into the bank for the once-a-year Regular months to burn payback days on 8:45 Austin turns.

...and unlike Regular green slips, you are not actually flying 100+ block hours per month, so you don't fatigue out. And you are not taking other people's flying, or reducing jobs, because you get all your payback days PLUS recovery time, creating even worse coverage later in the month. You are a loan-shark dangling a high-interest credit line for the Company to bite.