1. Since you can't be on short call for more than 24 hours per the contract, you can't be assigned back-to-back short calls. However, there is nothing stopping them from releasing you at 0300 to go back on call at 1300 the same day. Typically, though, it skips days. The number of short call pilots is entirely up to crew scheduling discretion, as is the selection of said pilots. The computer spits out a list of eligibles, but the schedulers hand pick the lucky winners. Most short calls are 1300-1300, although apparently, there have been 0500 starts in the recent past as well. Now that the category is beginning to get staffed up to a level where there are actually a surplus of reserve pilots, I wouldn't be surprised to start seeing some variety in the times, as well as a lot more guys on short call every day, which would suck.

I've been told to report for a short call as scheduled, even though I had already been assigned a trip for the following day. I've also done two short calls after my credit was high enough that I couldn't be assigned an ocean crossing, which baffled me, since that's ostensibly what I'm sitting there to cover. In two cases, Skeds let me go in time to catch the last flight home that night (2000). The third time, they made me wait until the morning, but still let me go 5 hours early.

2. If you don't answer the phone, there's no obligation to be contactable or to return the call on an X day. If by "penalties" you mean premium pay, a reserve pilot gets single pay above the 70 hour guarantee for inversely assigned flying done on X days. (Double pay for a regular pilot.)

3. One guy in my October class held a line in February (his first month following OE), but it was a lucky fluke of taking mil leave at exactly the right time (40 guys senior to him didn't). The last guy in the normal sequence of lineholders for Feb was hired in Feb '01. So, I guess the answer to your question is somewhere between zero months and 7 years. There is a lot of expansion and a lot of movement right now. Most guys hired in '07 will probably hold junior lines by the summer, as 50-70 new hires in Nov-Dec went to the ER. Will that continue and apply to March or May or July new hires? I dunno, and the merger situation makes it even more unpredictable. Will guys bid to equipment unlike what's at NWA in the hopes of having a longer fence, or getting a type rating that may prove useful during a furlough, or just picking something that will be more enjoyable for the next 5 years if the movement stops? Or will the senior F/O's camping out at the top of the ER seniority list finally be compelled to bid 88 or 737 captain to get on that list for the merger? Who knows?

4. True. Unless you volunteer, you can't be assigned short call more than 8 times in a bid period.