You are limited by the max pickup and other contractual rules. You can GS or pickup from the swap board.

Its nothing spectacular for pilots. But its not zero. There might be some takers. Its free money. If you were thinking of leaving anyway, this might tip the decision.

Severance pay = roughly one weeks pay per year of service. ie -- 25 years equals 6 months pay.

Medical Insurance = DAL pays for 3 months. Retiree can buy COBRA for an additional 15 months.

That's about it as applied to pilots. The other stuff we already get.
Passes, Life Insurance, etc.

Sorry I forgot to quote who I was replying to.

I think you missed my point.
The programming for PBS was designed before the merger when Delta didn't have long trips.
the merger came later with NWA bringing long trips into PBS bidding.
I don't know if this was even considered when the program was designed for Delta.
It is what it is.
Anybody think ALPA will want PBS to look into the future to limit these big pay months?

Is the angst with this the fact that the big pay months are limited to a few categories and most likely a limited number of people or is there a moral reason that this should be fundamentally wrong?

Guys I fly with near or past 60 say the cost of retiree medical is the biggest hesitation in retiring sooner than later. For anyone on the fence this could pay your medical until 65 with change left over.

Just guessing there were also a lot of former GB pilots getting on the 744 after being fenced off for years a well as the optimism of seeing what the merger brought. I think 2 yrs later a lot more might be willing to take the money and run. We shall see.....

Yeah, I have flown and talked with quite a few guys that are at retirement age and say they really wish that had taken the last offer. They all say they are kicking themselves for not going then. We will see, I am not optimistic that many with leave with this offer. I wouldn't be totally surprised to see the company come out with a retirement option for pilots whereby the company can mandate the date they go out and thus allow a relatively accurate forecast and training timeline. Right now I know that is a big concern for the company because there is no advance notice required for someone to retire. As more and more pilots get to the 60 and more importantly age 62 for social security, this will become a bigger issue. Someone posted the numbers on the DALPA message board as to the number of pilots in the coming years that will be past 60 but younger than 65. Staggering, especially if I was responsible to man the airline.

Here's another perspective. That right there is not a main rotor mast. I stand by my theory of some sort of very quiet tail rotor:

http://storage.canoe.ca/v1/dynamic_r...y=80&size=650x

What was hockeypilot's over/under that he pulled out of his nether regions? 60?

I bet it's not going to be all that many... I bet 200 at the most. I'm gonna pull out of my nether regions 115.

Aviation Week sez it`s a highly modified H 60. Our "friends' the Pacs are in bed with red china. The reds now have a stealth tail rotor.

Wow, that photo is very telling. Unless those two guys are about 3 feet tall, there is no way that is a -60 tail rotor. Additionally, the aerodynamic stabilizers are not horizontal, one is horizontal and one is vertical. The tailrotor is 5 bladed, the -60's is 4 bladed (from memory). The final observation is that the -60 has a semi-articulated tail rotor and from this angle, the tail rotor in question is rigid.

Short story: These are not modifications that you do onesy twosey to an existing weapon system - this is definitely not a catalogued US military helo's tail.:eek: