Originally Posted by tennisguru

The problem with the “only if needed” for flying is that they don’t look at it until they actually need to use you, and by then the trip(s) you wanted may have already been covered. In other words, if there are 3 trips and you are the most senior pilot of 3 available reserves, they won’t look at the big picture and see that you will be needed and let you get your pick of the 3 trips. Instead they’ll cover 2 trips, and when they get to you you’re getting trip #3 even if you had preferenced the other 2 trips. Depending on the situation you may be better off just YS the trip you really want to jump to the front of the line.

I would assume that the same thing applies to SC start times. Or they’ll have so few pilots on SC they’ll just stick you where they need you regardless of your preferences.