Madatory UTA's

[HoursHore]

For traditional Reservists

Whats your units number of mandatory UTA's a year and policy for RUTA?

A bombshell just got dropped at our last UTA mandating 8 out of 12 will be mandatory for the foreseeable future. Just seeing if its comparable to other units policies.

The new lack of flexibilty may cause a mass exodus of airline guys.

 

[RedDogC130]

Ours are usually madatory if you have outdated stuff to get done that may only be offered at that drill or if it is getting ready for some exercise/deployment. They have been fairly flexible lately.

 

[pony251]

We went to mandatory UTA's since we have a deployment coming up. We need OG approval to miss one. It has been a pain in the A$$ and has caused a lot of discontent. If it continues when we get back it will certainly contribute to some guys leaving. Most of the pilots feel that UTA is a waste of time. It is mainly for the booger eaters around the wing to train their people.

 

[bagasticks]

Ours are getting harder and harder to RUTA. . . soon they will be mostly mandatory i predict. .we used to fly 6 turn 4 everyday and it was no problem to stay bean complete. . .now we have fewer tails (many reasons) and we fly 3 turn 2 and they'll be like 4-5 dudes doing seat swaps in the pattern to stay current. .

 

[NewmanF16]

We have one a quarter, and even that can be excused for the right reasons. As an associate unit, we don't have any ability to fly on the weekends, so not much to be gained there.

 

[C-17 Driver]

You probably won't like this answer, but our guys get ticked off if there is more than 2 Mandatory UTA's per year. Being that we are an airlift squadron, we are gone to the 4 winds most of the time. Our squadron policy is that as long as you are taking care of your own currency in that your ground and flight currencies are good, then you can RUTA as much as you want. They made the July UTA mandatory because of a wing picnic. The squadron is pretty good about it and morale is very high. We're an associate C-17 unit here at Dover.

 

[HoursHore]

That was our policy until just this weekend. Only mandatory one was the Fit test. As long as guys were taking care of business you were in charge of your schedule.

I've about had it with this crap. 7 years left is too much for med benefits that will probably change by the time I'm 60 and a 1500 buck a month check. I'd be better off flying extra at my airline and investing that extra money.

 

[C-17 Driver]

That was our policy until just this weekend. Only mandatory one was the Fit test. As long as guys were taking care of business you were in charge of your schedule.

I've about had it with this crap. 7 years left is too much for med benefits that will probably change by the time I'm 60 and a 1500 buck a month check. I'd be better off flying extra at my airline and investing that extra money.

I can understand your pain, but I have with my active duty time, I have 4000+ pts towards retirement. There is no way I am walking away from that. Also, I will always want access to a military base. That is why I chose to live where I am living now. My reserve job is a 12 minute drive from my house. BWI: 1:35 , JFK: 3:15, IAD: 2:45.

one of the 3 has to sacrifice for the other 2 (family, civ job, reserve job) if you have to commute to both jobs. I am hoping, (and that is if I get hired), that living close to reserve job, and relatively close to my anticipated civilian job, that the sacrifice will not be as great for the next 9 years until I can retire from the reserves.

I recommend you stick it out fot the next 7 years. A lot of guys were left in the cold post 9/11, especially the ex-reserve types. Just my humble $.02.

 

[Deuce130]

That was our policy until just this weekend. Only mandatory one was the Fit test. As long as guys were taking care of business you were in charge of your schedule.

I've about had it with this crap. 7 years left is too much for med benefits that will probably change by the time I'm 60 and a 1500 buck a month check. I'd be better off flying extra at my airline and investing that extra money.

I'm kind of leaning towards the way you're thinking also. I've got a great AFRC unit, pretty flexible, small squadron, very few mandatory UTAs, etc. The only problem is that our future is very uncertain and I'm moving to the Planet next month. I'll give it the 'ol college try and commute down to my AFRC job, but not sure how long I'll stick it out. I want to, but I also know that I'm not going to want to jet down to my unit on all of my off days.

 

[stonewall]

My unit has mandatory UTA's...if you can make it. Seriously, we're very flexible. Once in a blue moon, the UTA might be highly encouraged. However, most of the TR's (including me) flew extensively each month (12-15 sorties on average for me for the past couple years) and that usually led to me burning advance drill periods after the TPs were done. To go to drill, I'd have to be put on orders, which usually wasn't done.

We got BRAC'd, hence the new F-22 avatar. I'm not sure what our UTAs will look like now that we're (sorta, kinda) an associate unit, but I know we'll still drill. I went from living 15 minutes from my Guard base to 1+15.

Like alot of people here, I'm a loooong way from retirement. I'll do this as long as I enjoy it and then give it up when it becomes just too much to handle (or stops being fun).