No Military for CAL?

[Mooseflyer]

Another form of mil leave abuse is waiting for your schedule to be posted and then calling the unit to arrange drill so you can avoid the commute. Seen that happen before. The guy would brag about how many times he didn't have to commute to the airline job thanks to his reserve unit.

And who defines mil leave "abuse" this way? You? Often times, the mil schedule is unavailable before the airline schedule is posted. Or, a training event was not accomplished as scheduled and needs to be made up for any number of reasons - tanker cancelled, jet broke, wx, real world missions took the training jets away, classes full, etc. Here's some news for you - aircrew can't get by with "one weekend a month and two weeks a year" that you hear about on the radio/TV, and there is certainly no way a schedule can be predicted a year in advance. Military aircrew currency requirements are quite absurd, and I personally don't see how folks who commute to the reserve job do it. If you think the majority of Reservists are just using mil leave to game the system, you're mistaken. In fact, if you want to "game the system" you have sick time. Here's a difference - you get PAID while on sick time, a reservist who goes to drill doesn't get pay from most airlines. So before you spout off about the "many forms" of mil leave "abuse", do some research so you won't come off as an a$$.

 

[Cobra]

Any US Air carrier that discriminated against a future prior service member's application for employment regardless of whether they are a pilot, flight attendant, ramper, etc., would be completely and utterly shameful to the n-th degree. Especially in light that so many of these carrier's have reaped huge monetary gain from flying these folks to their respective combat zone or to and from a R&R via a CRAF flight.

It should be a perogative for any employer to take a great degree of pride, mutual respect, patriotism, and personal positive reflection to go out of the way to welcome and hire a combat veteran to their workforce.

 

[AlbieF15]

http://www.patricksaviation.com/videos/LucasStL/1180/
I have seen bits and pieces of this before--used part of it to teach human factors as a CRM instructor.

This is OLD footage--daylight raid over Bagdad in 91. However--the Wing and package had a bunch of ANG guys mixed in if I recall correctly. If they weren't in THIS package, I know for a fact some Syracuse guys were in another similar one.

Point I'm making is guys in ANG have to be ready all the time for this--we don't get much "spin up" if shooting starts. The skills it takes to stay involved and proficient have to be practiced. Sometimes--as I alluded to earlier--the best time/place to hone those skills can be inconvenient to an airline.

Not trying to start a battle with anyone--we should all strive to do BOTH our jobs with honor and professionalism. Just pointing out the job can be pretty tough at times, and the stakes (even in training) are life and death.

Rock on...

 

[Cobra]

Another form of mil leave abuse is waiting for your schedule to be posted and then calling the unit to arrange drill so you can avoid the commute. Seen that happen before. The guy would brag about how many times he didn't have to commute to the airline job thanks to his reserve unit.

That's abit of a stretch don't you think considering units know their fiscal training calendar at least 6 months out in advance FOR NORMAL TRAINING EVENTS. Oh but wait, things are abit different. Unless you or others don't get it, we are at WAR. Feel lucky that the draft has been suspended.

Sad, that we have to be having this conversation.

 

[BluDevAv8r]

Just got the good words I'll be flying for CAL - starting class in December! My background is strictly military - F-15's on AD, and now F-16's in the ANG. So it looks like CAL is still hiring Mil folks. The interview was actually really enjoyable - they want to see you answer their questions thoroughly, but BE yourself. I think overall they want to see a well rounded type individual, and a guy that really wants to be at CAL. My mil commitment came up during my panel interview, however I gave the guys a straight forward, honest answer and they seemed pleased. They also told me they are very pro military and want me to serve my commitment with the ANG while still flying for CAL, and it seemed that was the heartfelt truth when they said it.

For the prep - I did it with Albie at Emerald Coast and it was awesome! I highly recommend it. It definetly gave me a good deal of confidence before I walked in the panel. For the sim, make sure you prep as well - especially if you're a fighter guy. I prepped with Alteon at DFW at it was right on the money. If you've never flown a heavy type jet, I highly recommend doing some kind of prep before you go do the sim ride for the interview. You won't be pristine at flying the thing, but you'll have a very good idea on the flows and profile you'll be doing. And while they don't expect you to fly the thing like a seasoned captain, they do want to see you always cross checking making corrections when you're off altitude/airspeed.

Any questions PM me - best of luck to all.

Ouch...no love.

Congratulations again though dude...and good advice above. Looking forward to taking that beer or 6 from you!

-Neal

 

[pkober]

Scrapdog,

Congrats and welcome.

 

[C5drvr]

After reading this post I checked The CALALPA website to see how many Mil new hires there have been since hiring picked up in Sep. Here's what I found:

I counted 7 military new hires since the begining of Sep and since 10/24 there has not been any. That includes the 10/24, 10/31 and 11/7 classes.
I'm not sure what percentage of applicants are military but it must be a small percentage of the total. Hopefully that is the reason there have been so few Mil new hires in the past few months. The email below was in response to this concern.

Blast mail sent 6/23/07
Pilot Hiring
I’ve received several messages lately stating in effect that the
company is discriminating against current and former military members with
regards to hiring. I’ve talked to the Manager of Pilot Recruiting about
this and he’s assured me that there’s no direction or pressure to avoid
hiring pilots with connections to the armed services. I told him that
I’m sure he’s correct but I count the number of military pilots in each
new class. Since we started hiring again, after the recall of our last
furloughee, about 15% of our new hires are former military. That
percentage varies from class to class but has remained fairly constant over
all.
The Manger of Pilot Recruiting did give me some insight into the pace
of hiring here at CAL. Up until April they were interviewing about 50
pilots to fill 2 classes of 16 pilots each month. Since April they’ve
been interviewing fewer than 10 pilots per month. The pace of
interviewing and classes will most likely remain very slow through the summer.
Right now they expect to ramp up the interviewing in September to start
classes training in October. When they do start interviewing again
they will be calling a lot of CALEX pilots for interviews because our
current contract guarantees the EXJET guys a preferential rate of
interviews and they’ve fallen behind the required rate in the first part of this
year.
The Manager of Pilot Recruiting told me that if you want to get your
buddy an interview you should talk to your Chief Pilot’s Office. The CPO
has the ability to move anyone to the top of the interview list. So
whether or not your friend gets an interview will depend entirely upon
how good your written recommendation is, YOUR reputation with the CPO and
how aggressively (and politely) you follow up with the CPO to check on
the status of your buddy’s application. He also told me that no one
will get an interview here at CAL without a recommendation from a current
CAL pilot.
Right now everyone involved with the hiring process professes how much
they love hiring pilots who are former military members. And I think
as long as all of us associated with the military already here remain
the best and most professional pilots at CAL we can continue to get our
former squadron mates interviews ahead of most other off the street
pilots.

Duke Forbes
CALALPA Military Liaison
CDR USN​

nths.

 

[Scrapdog]

Scrapdog,

Congrats and welcome.

Thanks brother! I'm excited to be part of the team!

 

[stonewall]

Thanks brother! I'm excited to be part of the team!

Way to be part of the team at happy hour. Get lost on the way?

 

[JungleJetCA]

After reading this post I checked The CALALPA website to see how many Mil new hires there have been since hiring picked up in Sep. Here's what I found:

I counted 7 military new hires since the begining of Sep and since 10/24 there has not been any. That includes the 10/24, 10/31 and 11/7 classes.
I'm not sure what percentage of applicants are military but it must be a small percentage of the total. Hopefully that is the reason there have been so few Mil new hires in the past few months.

One thing that can kind of skew the numbers is counting retired military as far as analyzing whether CAL has a problem with reservists. Since military retirees are not going to take military leave they shouldn't be counted as being reservists. So of those 7 since September, can you tell how many were active Selres?