What airlines ask to see your Air Force OPR's? Would a flawless flying record, to include DG on flying formal training reports, make up for "one less than desirable" OPR during the application process?

 

Delta will ask for all of them as part of the entire "Big Picture". If you have a bad one you'll simply need to explain it. The most important thing they want is honesty.

 

I hate to say it, but "that depends." Just depends on how bad the bad one is.

 

Well its a Referral OPR due to receiving an LOR with a UIF for texting in the cockpit. I was instructing a student on his last ride before sending him to his checkride. While we were at an outbase practicing emergency landing patterns the student could not get one of them on the ground so I knew I was going to hook him and not send him to his checkride the next day. It was the last go of the day, at the very end of the day, and my scheduler was back in the flightroom building the schedule for the next day and coordinating to have a Check IP fly with this student on his checkride. By the time I made it back to the flight room it would have been another hour and a half and everyone would have gone home for the day and the scheduler would have had to change everything last minute. Having been a scheduler in the past I know what it feels like to have a bomb dropped in your schedule last minute thus keeping you there that much later when you already are the last one in the flight walking out the door every night.

So needless to say I texted him while climbing out on a simple VFR departure on a clear and a million day. A quick text that basically said... "Lt XXXX is hooking this ride, plan accordingly." Was it wrong and was I in direct violation of an AFI? Absolutely. Do I regret doing it and wish I could take it back. No doubt. Is the LOR and subsequent referral OPR warranted? I don't know and that wasn't for me to decide. In today's climate of people doing flyby's 18ft above the Scoreboard, barrel rolling King Air's, and anything else that is driving this focus on Flight Discipline I can understand why leadership would like to make a statement.

Does it stink that it has probably ended my Air Force career? Sure, but I never saw myself making a career out of the Air Force anyways and I was grateful that a flight related disciplinary action was not taken and it was left to an LOR with a UIF. Now I just learned that it will be driving a referral OPR so I was curious how much of an affect this will have in the airlines...

Cheers fellas

 

I've had 9 airline interviews (4 of which would be considered Majors) and never been asked for an OPR...I have not interviewed at Delta...YMMV.

 

That sounds a little rough for the offense. It does sound like you were being made an example.

I've had many interviews and have never once been asked for my OPRs or Form 8s. I can't tell you what each airline does in it's process, but I doubt you have much to worry about. I also think you've taken a very mature attitude about your mistake and your response is exactly what an interviewer is looking for. Take responsibility, learn from your mistake and move on.

I think you have very little to worry about.

 

Sounds like your "bud" the scheduler, who you were trying to do a solid, should have kept his pie-hole shut and just re-worked the schedule.

I think Delta might be in the minority on the use of OPRs. Good luck.

 

So someone, your Flt/CC?, took the time to cross reference your text message (which was sent to your scheduler) time with your -781 times? So who you bent you over on this one?

 

No my flight commander is a great dude and would have preferred to handle this in the flight, but when my scheduler said, "Hey thanks man for sending me that text yesterday. You saved me a ton of time and a$$ pain", my assistant flight cc, also a FAIP, overheard it and felt it was his duty to inform the DO. What's done is done. I'll refrain from letting you know what I think of this guy on a forum because in the end I did break an AFI and I was wrong, but this FAIP thought he had an A-10 in the bag and he's on his way to Barksdale to fly Buffs. No offense to Buff guys! Just don't drop the soap in the shower.

It's all good though. I had some higher ups/legal advice that said I should fight it and bring up how common cell phone use and taking pictures are in cockpits, but it was more important to me to not sell out my bro's, take my LOR, gritt my teeth, and hope that a Reserve/Guard unit will take that into account when I'm a free agent and looking to fly for the part of the Air Force I should have joined in the first place.

 

Appreciate it fellas. If it comes up in a Delta interview one day I'll chalk it up to being young, getting too comfortable in the jet, and leaning too far forward. In all seriousness it has been a good learning experience. Just because you're confident in your abilities and comfortable to push the limits a little that type of thinking is not needed in a training environment and certainly not in an airline environment. I'm assuming that type of thinking is more conducive to war time missions where you need to lean further forward sometimes to get the mission done, but then again I'm still just a FAIP so I could be wrong about that also.