Originally Posted by
Gulfasaurus
Just to verify because all the above discussion has me slightly confused, are schedule checks required on Short Call? It's happened twice already where a trip was placed on my schedule comfortably within my SC window and I never got a call from scheduling, just the CNO. Once the trip was placed before the start of the SC window, and one time after. I never acknowledged anything in MiCrew or Icrew, didn't pick up the CNO call, but still never got a call or voicemail from a real person. The second time I didn't even acknowledge or sign in until sitting in the plane at D-15 and still no call.
They were both good trips for me so I showed up anyway, but I'm not going to do it again. My understanding is that on SC even if you check your schedule they still need to call you. CNO counts as notification for conversion to SC but not for a SC assignment. Am I missing something?
No, you are not required to check your schedule. Unless you choose to self-acknoledge an assignment, a live scheduler must call you during your SC window to notify you of any rotation assignment.
Now, if you call them when the SC is assigned and tell them you will be non-contactable for up to the first 2 hours, there are 2 ways to end that period of non-contactability, both laid out in the SRH. One, you can call scheduling and tell them you are now contactable, or you can view your schedule in icrew or the VRU. In either of those cases if an assignment has been put on your schedule then you are then notified of the assignment.
Originally Posted by
KSCessnaDriver
That's how I view it as well. I live between 2:45 and 3:00 from base driving(non-NYC). When I'm on shortcall I never do the whole non-contactable thing, as it ends up forcing me to leave home earlier, than I would to drive part way to the airport and hangout.
Food for thought, while I appreciate the 1 hour pay for an unused shortcall, assigning some sort of credit value to an unused shortcall would probably help to alleviate this agressive shortcall assignment trend, would it not?
But it doesn't. Say you've got 1200 SC without going non-contactable. Scheduling calls you at 1200 with a 1215 report. You'd already have had to have left your house to be ready to get to the airport by 1400. Now instead say you go non-contactable. You would not be eligible to be given as 1215 report. Maybe instead they give you a 1400 report instead. But you'd still have to leave your house at the same time to go sit to be in position to report at 1400. The key if you are going to go non-contactable as a local is to check your schedule (thus ending the non-contactable period) as whatever point makes sense based on your distance to the airport. If you are 30 minutes from the parking lot then you wouldn't have to end your non-contactable status until say 1:00 to 1:15 into your SC period. Someone like yourself who is having to drive part way to sit SC would want to do the schedule check/end non-contactability at 0:01 into your SC window. There is nothing that says you must remain non-contactable the entire 2 hour window. You just are non-contactable until you either call scheduling or view your schedule in icrew. Again the point is to "block" scheduling from assigning you a report within your first two hours when non-contactable. If you are contactable they can give you a report right at the start of your window and they are just willing to take the delay for you to get there.
In the end, wether you are contactable or not, the earliest you'd ever have to reasonably be
at the airport is roughly 2:00 into your SC window (I understand 2:00 is not a hard rule). But scheduling cannot assign a
report time before 2 hours in if you are non-contactable.
And I understand that there is not a hard time for SC callouts.