thank you! I'll hit you up as times gets closer.

-Thanks for the AME info, i didn't know I could get one in Japan, that will certainly be a great option.

I am a Navy guy but worked in HTACC in Osan and the AF guys never openly talked about going to the airlines.

Some things will never change. My advice would be to never let your guard down, especially around CCs, DOs, and back stabbing a$$ clowns. I've seen way too many buds who've been screwed with bad gigs (non flying deployments to the sand box and/or UAVs). The vindictive attitude towards folks wanting to get out of AD is something that I've never understood. Perhaps it's jealousy.

To keep terms straight, currency does not equal RECENCY...which just boils down to how much you've flown lately.
The question came up at Vets-in-Blue in November; the gist was that they didn't want someone going into sims, etc. "cold" or "rusty". The numbers I heard were that they wanted to see ~200hrs in the last year as a minimum. Interestingly, they contradicted themselves as well insofar as they indicated they were willing to work with staff guys who had, due to the demands of the service, not been able to fly regularly. Where does that leave me? I don't know either!!!

I shall keep plugging - thanks for the encouragement and best of luck to you as well!

Just to be clear, I have friend who was hired at SWA last year after not flying for more than 12 months. Which I didn't think possible. My last job involved flying around 100 hours/year for most of us. And that was enough for everyone to get hired (mostly Delta and SWA).

So I think your hours aren't as big a roadblock as you fear.

You do a prep?

Glad to hear this.......I've been out of the cockpit for quite a while and this weighs on my mind a lot. I know I'm not going to be as competitive as a dude who's current/qualified, but I'm hoping that I might squeak by with other help.

"Keeping your hours up" is not what it used to be. I was a fully qual'd FRS instructor and only flew 120ish hours my last year in the Navy due to tons of hours instructing sims, LSO duties, sequestration, etc. I know countless other guys in my situation or worse that struggled to get 100 hours their last year in the Navy and were hired on with Delta and American. If you were on a staff job and still flying 100 hours a year, consider yourself lucky.

I think the tide has finally turned. Everyone, including the Sq/CC and DO to an extent, talks about their apps, networking, etc in the open. Some still talk about their careerist box-checking and desires to go to school, staff jobs, etc (and the Sq/CC supports them) but they're vastly outnumbered.

It's tougher to hand out the bad deal to the non-team player when nobody is a team player in the first place. Then it just comes down to who has the most ADSC remaining.

I know a Vice Wing Commander that is openly doing this. Good on him.

Emerald Coast interview prep. Also did Sheppard Air Interview prep for the technical test for AWAC - was worth the money as I hadn't seen ATP style questions in quite a while. Jogged my memory on quite a few things I had forgotten! Also, I got "Everything Explained for the Airline Pilot". Awesome book worth the investment which has jogged my mind on lots of things I never even knew!