C130driver

Hello all,

For those of you who are still in the guard/reserves and at an airline, I have a question about schedules.

Assuming you are willing to work a bit more: is it possible to front load your monthly schedule at an airline, and then use your remaining ~15ish days off to work at your unit without taking mil leave? For instance, fly all your airline trips in the first half of the month and then work at your unit the second half? Appreciate any insight!

SideFlare

Based on my regional experience, Id say this would likely be difficult. Reserve is typically 5 on, 3 off, and even once you get a line you can expect largely weekends. Even with a little seniority, at least at my airline, I've rarely seen schedules that would accommodate that. I try to squeeze in my mil flying on the occasional 5-6 days off blocks. I suppose you could try to work a bunch of trades and swaps, but it would still be difficult. Otherwise, mil leave it is... again, this is based on my experience and nothing else.

PurpleToolBox

"a bit more" hmmmm

Yes it is possible depending on your seniority and your company's bidding system and rules. But why work that hard? There's a reason why we have flying time maximums in the 7/30/90/365 and doing this to yourself would not be safe.

Are you trying to maximize the paycheck or some other scheme?

Merle Dixon

C130driver, trust me, once you get an airline job and start earning second year pay, you will want to work at your Reserve/Guard unit as little as possible. You will quickly realize that your airline job is fantastic, efficient, and fun - flying for the military is so full of BS and queep that you will want to stiff-arm it every month.

I quit my AF Reserve flying job for a non-flying, 2 day a month job, several years ago. I could not be happier. I know numerous dudes who have left the active-duty in the past few years. They flew for the Reserves less that two years and found non-flying jobs (working as little as possible). They got sick of the Reserve flying clown show and want to spend as little time as possible working for Big Blue.

It will happen to you too.

Albief15

Depends. Although it was a pay hit, flying fighters in an FTU training new IPs and nearly MR wingman had its own satisfactions. If I was bag dragging actoss the Pacific dealing with crappy base ops issues, I might go "why am I here?" Debriefing a 4 v or arguing ACM at the bar still had its fun moments. However, I did retire before the last administration, so my queep level while painful didnt include the latest round of PC bull****.

rickair7777

It would depend on the airline. The problem is flight duty and block time limits. If the airline needs you to actually fly 85 hours/month, then 117 limits would prevent you from cramming all of that into 2 weeks. If you're on reserve for that kind of flying, same deal...you're no use to them if you're on call but illegal due to lack of days off. This would probably be typical of regional/domestic NB flying.

If the nature of the job involves more soft time, ie duty/trip rigs than actual flying it might be possible to front load it all. This might be possible with widebody/international.

As others have said, just take the time off from the airline, don't kill yourself. You adjust the balance between airline and reserves over time as suits you.

AF2Navy

.....PM sent.....

crewdawg

As always it depends. With PBS (our bidding system) at DAL, for the most part, I can put all my reserve days straight any time during the month. I've put them all at the end of the month and been able to work mil duty on my off days. However, that gets old FAST. The upside is you can usually get a few extra days off due to FAA 30 hour rest requirement. The downside is you're on call block is never ending and you're number 1 to be called until you get down to 3ish days remaining.

In the winter I would get 18ish days off a month, so I would just work my 4 days/month (or more if I wanted) on my off days and still have lots of free time. In the summer months I usually would "only" get 14-15 days off a month so I would usually just pre-post my mil leave and have them adjust my line (ie...less airline pay). When I was on reserve, I would pre-post 2 days, then work the other 2 days on my off time. I'm about to go to the the WB, which I may be lucky enough to have a line relatively quick. With the off time those guys get, I expect to work on my off days.

I'll caveat all the above with the fact that I can sit short call at my house and only live 20 minutes from the squadron. I'm not sure what the 130 requirements are, as a fighter guy, 4 days is extremely tough to pull off...some months I just don't get my sorties. But as merle dixon said, your desire to deal with the extra BS will diminish QUICKLY when you start losing big money to drop mil and show up at the Guard. It takes about 4 pay cards (16yr O-4) from the mil to equal 1 day of 3rd year NB pay. Closer to 6 pay cards when I move over to the WB in a few months. I stay because I still love the flying and I love the camaraderie within the squadron. If I were married and had kids, I'm not sure that would be enough to keep me hanging on.

Best of luck!

C-17 Driver

Everybody's experience is different so it may not necessarily "happen to you too." I still enjoy flying in the military and still try to take all the queep in stride. I flew a tac sortie last night and had a blast. Just me and a relatively new LT in the squadron tearing up the pattern and some VFR C-17 flying. My "sacrifice" was just an evening away from my family. The reward was a doing something I still love and getting paid several hundred dollars to do it.

Although the extra pay is nice, I am not in it for the money. Sounds like you just weren't happy anymore. You make the right choice by getting out of the AF cockpit. I am not ready to hang it up yet.

This was not a jab at your decision. I just wanted to provide a balance to the discussion. I'm sorry your experience was not as positive as others.

I live in base for both my Airline and AF Reserve job. Since I am at United, I can "double dip." I was on Reserve for UAL yesterday and still got some C-17 currency. I am sitting at 60% on the DCA 756 so I bid reserve by choice during the school year.

Remember, our mantra in the Reserve is "Family First, Civilian Job second, and Reserves third." Find a good battle rhythm and a good balance. Your job is to be a reservist which is current and qualified to be ready to go if and when they raise the flag. Anything beyond that is bonus to the squadron. If a squadron is demanding more than that, then I would respectfully disagree with their organizational vision/standard for their traditional reservists.

I would argue for every reservist that is p!ssed off at Big Blue, there is another that is pretty content.

Merle Dixon

Good on you sir. I truly admire folks like you.

The non-stop sexual assault briefings, PC insanity, DTS, ArcNet, Arrows-R, UTAPs, never ending/always changing list of currencies to maintain/training beans to log, and horrible mis-management of the rated force drove me to stiff-arm Big Blue as much as possible. Retirement is only 15 months away, thank the Lord.

Good luck to all of you. 😁