Living in base and being a WB reserve can be a glorious thing. I am halfway up the 777 F/O seniority list in ORD and there are guys senior to me that bid reserve during the non-summer months. As long as you are ok with being on Short Call for most of the days you are "On" then you can be almost guaranteed to actually fly less days than a lineholder. As an example, of the 13 guys on reserve for tomorrow in ORD, 11 of them have less than 45 hours. This despite being near the end of the month. Having the uncertainty that reserve brings with getting used or not on a SC is what scares most of us away (I bid a line even though I am local), but during my time on the 747 I was mostly on reserve and had stretches of time where I didn't fly between landings classes...

Now the down side,

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I live up straight North of ORD in the town of Libertyville. Great town with Great schools and just over a half hour drive from garage to parking lot. My house is worth around 600K and that results in about a 12k annual property tax bill. That seems crazy until you check some of the other communities around that are close to 4%!!!! It is a high bill, but again the schools are so good that at least you get good bang for your buck. There are other great schools around us (Lincolnshire just to the South for example) which are great areas to live, but the downtown area of Libertyville is a great area with restaurants/bars/shopping and a great community feel that made it the right choice for us twenty years ago and we have no regrets at all.

Most all of the suburbs have really good train service into Chicago, so that (or driving about 45-60 minutes) gives easy access to the city. While the weather in the Winter is so brutal we don't venture out to the city as often in Jan or Feb, the city is awesome even when it is freezing. Great restaurants, great theater, sometimes the sports teams are great ??, two Zoos, unbelievable museums,... In the summer there is something going on all the time in or around town. Regardless of what you interested in there is something for you

Bottom line, regardless of what you are bidding, if you can live in/near a pilot domicile you will have a drastically better work life set of options than you have as a commuter. I understand that some folks have very compelling reasons that drive them into a commute (Happy Wife, Happy Life) but if you can make the move and live in domicile, I think you would love being a WB guy even on reserve.

Global reserve is a little different because of the RDOs, you can be rolled into your days off. You only get 6 HDOs which are all put together into 6 days off in a row.

However you can only be rolled for a global trip. THAT IS IMPORTANT, Scheduling has tried several times to roll me for a domestic trip, including Hawaii....They told me Hawaii is not domestic because it crosses a body of water :D, actually had to get the FODM involved on that one:rolleyes:.

Anyways You will either love or hate INTL flying and the 756 is actually a pretty good fleet to get your feet wet on and see if you like it, still lots of domestic to grab if you don't like it.

Europe is my favorite place in the world to fly too and I miss it like crazy going to china every week. If you end up loving the INTL flying then you can bid into the 777 and life will be very good for you. INTL reserves sit alot of SCs but don't fly much unless they want too.

As far as the 757/767 goes, they are both my favorite aircraft. Out of everything I have ever flown I love the 756 fleet the most, a nice airplane but still an airplane that needs to be flown. I'd highly recommend everyone fly the 756 before the fleet disappears.