Most common error recently is, they get hired...

Would any of you old heads care to provide some details on the initial training for a newbie from start to arrival/checkout at the duty location? The family lives in DFW. I suppose the closest location is Alpine. Any thoughts commuting (driving) to/from DFW to there or anywhere close???

Thanks in advance.

[QUOTE=batf15;2936905]Would any of you old heads care to provide some details on the initial training for a newbie from start to arrival/checkout at the duty location? The family lives in DFW. I suppose the closest location is Alpine. Any thoughts commuting (driving) to/from DFW to there or anywhere close???


It is not a commutable job.

You are subject to a recall at any time due to your Law Enforcement Availability Pay, and will be scheduled to work 5 days per week on a 8-10hr shift (or longer if your case/patrol runs long).

Unless you like driving from Dallas to Alpine 5 days a week for 10+ years, I’d say you need to move to your base.

but you get a gun and a sweet fed badge. that alone is worth the $100,000+ that you are missing out on at the airlines.

Unless of course you do the FFDO thingy.

What if you don't want to do the airline thing?

Really - those are the two choices in aviation? :confused:

Pilots ***** themselves out all the time.
Always have and always will.
PFT anyone?
Buying type ratings?
Offering to fly for free to build hours? Free instruction/free BFRs/IPCs.

If you don't consider the work worthwhile - I would absolutely go elsewhere.

But to think that every pilot out there wants to work for the airlines - in any capacity - is just idiotic.

Not at all.

Maybe you could share your personal experience with CBP before we start the debate on the pros and cons of CBP vs. ANYTHING ELSE.

:ears

What debate?

You don't like it and are leaving or have left.
That is a personal choice.

Most of the people I know that worked there have left.

A few have come to my job or are looking to come.

We are not debating whether you like the job or not.

I will debate a view point that the only piloting job worth having is an airline job.

Now you can start a whole 'nuther thread for that if you like so as not to get in the way of the information on this thread.

Blah. I don’t think anyone is saying that the only flying job worth having is an airline gig. There are plenty of other good/decent paying jobs that give satisfaction and other Quality of Life perks that the airlines can’t always give, and I don’t begrudge anyone doing them.

But I will warn everyone I talk to AWAY from an AMO AIA job. I used to print out the USAJobs announcement for an AIA and tell the other guys, man, I wished I had THAT job.

I won’t rehash what has probably been said on the drawbacks of the AIA position and the extreme dysfunction of AMO. Plenty of venom has been spewed, and rightfully so I’m sure in many cases.

But I intended to make AMO a career, and was one of the last in my year group to bail as I didn’t think I wanted that airline and being an AIA should be the best job ever. But it isn’t. Not even Close. The drawbacks drown out any minuscule benefits that might be received.

There are better jobs, civilian, government and military than AMO. Go there first, and keep trying. If anyone goes to AMO, keep looking. You won’t be there 1-2 years before the cheap veneer wears off....

I would agree with everything you said Jackalope.

I too had hope to join AMO 'back in the day' and would be there myself if my situation had been different. I started thinking about the job back in 1991 and keep it in the back of my mind till 2009.

Now that I look and see what my contemporaries have to say and how none of them that I keep in touch with are still with AMO any longer makes me feel that fate might have provided a guiding hand in the process.