F-18 Crash Near Mt. Rainier

DE727UPS said:
New video out with Gonky and Mover together. Gonky is with Southwest and and flew F18's in the Navy. He's pretty negative towards the findings in the accident investigation. Some good comments on aviation safety/accident investigation towards the end.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wTdHgzcENw
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I've listened to some of their content and it sounds like gonky flies an Airbus? Maybe it's subterfuge to remain anonymous, having a YouTube show will sink that ship.
 
🦈💜 said:
So I've been working 18+/month on RE1, and it's been horrible. I posted some of my schedules here and people were like "Oh that doesn't look so bad, like a legacy narrowbody schedule." Some people posted their schedules and, while they didn't look as bad, they definitely weren't 10-12 on. When I asked about whether they had control of their schedule, most people said "no."

So I guess my question is: which is it? Are people working horrible schedules by choice for more $$$, or are we painting a false narrative with 10-12 days on per month? People talking about how great their QOL was is what convinced me to come to the airlines in the first place, so I'm trying to figure out if we truly live in different worlds, or if we need to paint a less-rosy picture for people.

This is unrelated to the main thread, but since the subject came up, I thought it'd be worth asking that question.
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I dont think I’m privy to enough OAL schedules, or even those of my own shop, though I suppose i could ask amongst friends. I just know that my bid is super simple, request min credit, and then basically my avoids are red eyes, WOCL turns, SE AK stuff, and my awards are high credit 3 or 4 days. I work mostly weekends (or at least 1 weekend day) on 18-20 hr credit 3 days, and dont get anwarded any of the stuff i ask not to do. They are definitely working trips, normally a 3-2-1 or a 1-2-3 schedule for the 3 days, with earlier AM report times than would be ideal for me driving 2 hrs to the airport (though the traffic at 0330-0530 is awesome). I dont know if that sheds any light on anything, or any OBTW’s that you’d consider to be important. I also typically end up with carryover trips, which is why i often see 10 days rather than 12 in a calendar month. For reference I’m around 70% in base.

I’d also caveat that with the fact that my timing was fortunate. There was pretty quick seniority progression throughout my first year and a half at the company, we transitioned to PBS which while not everyone’s jam, definitely reduced line values and created a lot more time off/days off requested for line holders. Guys hired right before the music stopped for well over a year were definitely abused in the reserve system. Our reserves rules, even with the new contract, treat reserve pilots like second class citizens for sure. Especially in the mothership base. Last month i was on reserve was 11/2022, so mileage varies wildly.
 
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🦈💜 said:
So I've been working 18+/month on RE1, and it's been horrible. I posted some of my schedules here and people were like "Oh that doesn't look so bad, like a legacy narrowbody schedule." Some people posted their schedules and, while they didn't look as bad, they definitely weren't 10-12 on. When I asked about whether they had control of their schedule, most people said "no."

So I guess my question is: which is it? Are people working horrible schedules by choice for more $$$, or are we painting a false narrative with 10-12 days on per month? People talking about how great their QOL was is what convinced me to come to the airlines in the first place, so I'm trying to figure out if we truly live in different worlds, or if we need to paint a less-rosy picture for people.

This is unrelated to the main thread, but since the subject came up, I thought it'd be worth asking that question.
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Yeah, IME for the 10-12 days a month thing to be true, one of about 4 things has to be true:
-mad seniority
-work somewhere with more productive trips and better staffing than Atmos Air
-work back to back to back redeye transcons with min rest overnights
-treat wheeling and dealing and giving away trips and picking up premium as a second job

I’ve seldom been awarded a min credit line outside of a vacation month. When I do, it’s usually been trash, and the downside of that is with the inability to drop below 70 hours and the lack of reserve coverage, it’s almost impossible to improve it. At 70ish percent in seat/base I finally get some of the trips I bid for, which is almost all based on certain layovers that I only get because my treasure is other people’s trash.

Not a complaint, it’s the easiest big boy job I’ve had and the pay is absurd for the workload, but I don’t see 19-21 days off a month as anything other than an outlier here.
 
Roger Roger said:
Yeah, IME for the 10-12 days a month thing to be true, one of about 4 things has to be true:
-mad seniority
-work somewhere with more productive trips and better staffing than Atmos Air
-work back to back to back redeye transcons with min rest overnights
-treat wheeling and dealing and giving away trips and picking up premium as a second job

I’ve seldom been awarded a min credit line outside of a vacation month. When I do, it’s usually been trash, and the downside of that is with the inability to drop below 70 hours and the lack of reserve coverage, it’s almost impossible to improve it. At 70ish percent in seat/base I finally get some of the trips I bid for, which is almost all based on certain layovers that I only get because my treasure is other people’s trash.

Not a complaint, it’s the easiest big boy job I’ve had and the pay is absurd for the workload, but I don’t see 19-21 days off a month as anything other than an outlier here.
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"Vacation Month"? Please elaborate.
 
Roger Roger said:
Yeah, IME for the 10-12 days a month thing to be true, one of about 4 things has to be true:
-mad seniority
-work somewhere with more productive trips and better staffing than Atmos Air
-work back to back to back redeye transcons with min rest overnights
-treat wheeling and dealing and giving away trips and picking up premium as a second job

I’ve seldom been awarded a min credit line outside of a vacation month. When I do, it’s usually been trash, and the downside of that is with the inability to drop below 70 hours and the lack of reserve coverage, it’s almost impossible to improve it. At 70ish percent in seat/base I finally get some of the trips I bid for, which is almost all based on certain layovers that I only get because my treasure is other people’s trash.

Not a complaint, it’s the easiest big boy job I’ve had and the pay is absurd for the workload, but I don’t see 19-21 days off a month as anything other than an outlier here.
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Funny enough, at 88% I can get close to a minimum line in high summer and around the holidays. I’m also fairly consistent at alternating between 12-13 work day months and 15-16 work day months. Oddly enough it’s not so much crafty bidding or secret sauce but a function of our ALV windows. By the time PBS gets to me I can usually get to the lower end of the window with 3x four day trips or at worse 2x four and 1x five day trips. It then faces the problem where there’s either not enough trips available that don’t overlap or the remaining trips would push me over the ALV window and since I don’t bid max it resolves a line with generally 15-16 days off, occasionally more. I’ll actually get slightly worse schedules time off wise once I get into the mid to low 70s and will keep that til I break 50% in base/seat. But we’re also a stagnant fleet, once the MAX10,000,000,000s start rolling in, who knows.
 
Karnage said:
Funny enough, at 88% I can get close to a minimum line in high summer and around the holidays. I’m also fairly consistent at alternating between 12-13 work day months and 15-16 work day months. Oddly enough it’s not so much crafty bidding or secret sauce but a function of our ALV windows. By the time PBS gets to me I can usually get to the lower end of the window with 3x four day trips or at worse 2x four and 1x five day trips. It then faces the problem where there’s either not enough trips available that don’t overlap or the remaining trips would push me over the ALV window and since I don’t bid max it resolves a line with generally 15-16 days off, occasionally more. I’ll actually get slightly worse schedules time off wise once I get into the mid to low 70s and will keep that til I break 50% in base/seat. But we’re also a stagnant fleet, once the MAX10,000,000,000s start rolling in, who knows.
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It sounds like you have more productive trips and possibly better staffing and PBS rules at Southern Jets than Atmos. Ain’t no way anyone at 88% here is hitting min guarantee with 3x 4 day trips, by that % you’re looking at min guarantee 4 days which would leave you 7 hours short of guarantee. I think the way our PBS awards/processes min/max lines is different too, or you just have much better staffing. Ain’t no one at 88% getting a min guarantee line, at least most of the time I’ve been here.
 
Roger Roger said:
It sounds like you have more productive trips and possibly better staffing and PBS rules at Southern Jets than Atmos. Ain’t no way anyone at 88% here is hitting min guarantee with 3x 4 day trips, by that % you’re looking at min guarantee 4 days which would leave you 7 hours short of guarantee. I think the way our PBS awards/processes min/max lines is different too, or you just have much better staffing. Ain’t no one at 88% getting a min guarantee line, at least most of the time I’ve been here.
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If I bid minimum it comes back as could not honor. But with the credit window instead of a hard guarantee once I get within 10 hours of the average required it will settle as a complete line. Again, if I was more senior it would have more to work with and I’d be adding an extra 3 or 2 day to my mix, but because there’s usually not a lot of available trips and many of them overlap so that PBS can’t up my credit that much if at all once it hits the minimum to grant a line and stops.

It’s why my days off will actually get fewer if/once my seniority starts to improve.
 
Karnage said:
If I bid minimum it comes back as could not honor. But with the credit window instead of a hard guarantee once I get within 10 hours of the average required it will settle as a complete line. Again, if I was more senior it would have more to work with and I’d be adding an extra 3 or 2 day to my mix, but because there’s usually not a lot of available trips and many of them overlap so that PBS can’t up my credit that much if at all once it hits the minimum to grant a line and stops.

It’s why my days off will actually get fewer if/once my seniority starts to improve.
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Yeah, that’s not how ours works. Sounds nice 😕. Once upon a time I grabbed a 28 hour 4 day from pilot to pilot trading. Once. And the guy who had been awarded it was #1 in seat/base lol. Like I said by the bottom few lines any 4 days left are min rig, 21:00. Can’t meet guarantee with 3 of those.
 
Still, 12-13 / 15 - 16 isn't 10 - 12. We need to stop casually glamorizing this job in a self-deprecating way, because most people I know in the industry are working their tails off, despite its reputation as a "easy" job.

The last three years are the hardest and most miserable job I've ever had in my life*, even working summers in Alaska. But we have people who are signing away $200k at ridiculous interest rates, then locking themselves into $80k contracts just to get their seniority numbers, because a combination of ridiculous influencers and self-deprecating airline folks have them convinced they're going to e working "half the month" and making $300k.

Anyway, it's just a sidebar, but I've started getting salty when people say this is the easiest job they've ever had, or that "we" work ten days out of the month, or get paid bank, etc.

Not that anything really matters anymore.
 
Roger Roger said:
Yeah, that’s not how ours works. Sounds nice 😕. Once upon a time I grabbed a 28 hour 4 day from pilot to pilot trading. Once. And the guy who had been awarded it was #1 in seat/base lol. Like I said by the bottom few lines any 4 days left are min rig, 21:00. Can’t meet guarantee with 3 of those.
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I’m trapped in a happy little bubble and I know it. As long as the MAX10s keep delaying I’ll be riding the gravy train until people senior to me abandon the guppy. Once they show up I’ll be getting abused like the rest. We upgraded pilots in anticipation of the MAX being here already so we’re a little fat on staffing in the left seat (right seat is a premium trip-a-palooza right now they’re so short.) Plus with people senior to me actually bidding reserve I get spared that and by the time PCS gets to me all that’s left are the three and four day trips with 12 hour days with seven hours of block a day and three nights in Ohio. Incredibly efficient but utter garbage. They pay decent at least.
 
Are we talking about the Eskimo again? Every thread eventually leads to Alaska. I don't care, but apparently it's constantly top of mind for a vocal minority on this board. You guys and girls have multiple threads to gloat, complain or commiserate, why is this thread contaminated with your acronyms and scheduling strategies? I thought it was about fighters. Silly me. I should know better.
 
Roger Roger said:
It sounds like you have more productive trips and possibly better staffing and PBS rules at Southern Jets than Atmos.
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This is mostly a function of very limited east-west flying and because ALPA controls the pairing build, those super productive multi day trips often get sacrificed at the alter of day trips for the Gig Harbor crowd.
 
guywhoflies said:
I asked a fairly straightforward question and you replied with gibberish? Why? Can you not have an honest conversation?
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I can have an honest conversation if you ask an honest question. Robin Olds was a leader of men, Viet Nam was his third war and he was an "Ace". He didn't suffer fools and wasn't afraid of HR, that didn't exist. He's a hero for many people not because of his facial hair and masculine persona, people loved him because he backed it up by taking airplanes into a fight and killing people that were trying to kill him. I didn't ask you specifically if you'd like to get down with Robin Olds, maybe in your world that means a spinach omelette competition and you might win. Robin Olds would probably directly sit down and eat with you and never flex any of it. I'm unsure if you've ever met folks like that, there's a magnetic quality that's hard to explain. You'll know it when you see it.
 
🦈💜 said:
but I've started getting salty when people say this is the easiest job they've ever had
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I appreciate that life at your airline/seat/seniority is a different ballgame, but when it comes to showing up to work and doing the job, I’ve gotta disagree with you a little here. I’m sure part of it is because it’s built on the foundation of 25ish years of experience, but where I sit 121 is stupid easy compared to any other flying job I’ve done. I’m not, at all, any kind of super pilot, and I didn’t fly stealth fighters, but I show up every leg taking the job seriously, trying to go above the minimum, and do my best, and that’s enough to get comments like “thanks for making it easy for me today” “thanks for not being a •up” “finally an FO who knows how to fly” etc.

Outside of the cockpit, with commuting, trying to stay rested and fit on the road, filling time on layovers with something more productive than doomscrolling, bidding, training events that are actually just checking events, etc… no doubt the hardest. 100% with you there. Like not even close. Well, maybe being a 135 director of maintenance was close in that I was never truly off the clock.
 
🦈💜 said:
Still, 12-13 / 15 - 16 isn't 10 - 12. We need to stop casually glamorizing this job in a self-deprecating way, because most people I know in the industry are working their tails off, despite its reputation as a "easy" job.

The last three years are the hardest and most miserable job I've ever had in my life*, even working summers in Alaska. But we have people who are signing away $200k at ridiculous interest rates, then locking themselves into $80k contracts just to get their seniority numbers, because a combination of ridiculous influencers and self-deprecating airline folks have them convinced they're going to e working "half the month" and making $300k.

Anyway, it's just a sidebar, but I've started getting salty when people say this is the easiest job they've ever had, or that "we" work ten days out of the month, or get paid bank, etc.

Not that anything really matters anymore.
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I don’t really know what to say. I agree that this job definitely gets wildly exaggerated by senior guys with rose colored glasses. That much is for sure. I’m not going to post a screen shot of my schedule, but since ya’ll made me think I’m taking crazy pills, I had to look. I work 11 days this month. And almost one entire day of that got bought by training. And another ended 8 hrs early when the finale turn got cancelled. To Roger’s point about efficiency (or lack thereof), my trips are 20:34 3-day, 18:43 3-day, 23:31 4-day (aha i see you on your point about 4 days and how they are less productive), and then 1 day of a 19:23 3-day that is a carryover into June on its second and third days. And i was awarded the 14 consecutive days off that i bid for. At my junior seniority level, I cannot possibly be unique. If it makes anyone feel better, 5 of my days off will be devoted to being away from home instructing on a navy training detachment in NV. That is what sucks about my life. My days off aren’t really “off”. And before any smart guys jump on me, no, I did not use any military leave this month,
 
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