Troughing in the Reserves

[Jake]

Can anyone tell me about how much one can realistically make per year troughing at a KC-135 Reserve Unit? How much time away from the ranch will that require? I am trying to make some decisions about housing, medical insurance, etc.

Thanks in advance!!

 

[bssthound]

If you're willing to work in the vault, go on several deployments a year, fly at the last minute, you can come pretty close to making what your contemporaries are pulling in on active duty. If you live more than 50 miles from the unit you'll fill out a travel voucher whenever you're on active duty and get paid for mileage to and from along with per diem. I've been out of the 135 for about six years, but my friends in it have told me there's a little more cash these days with the war on terror.

 

[BeerIsLife]

I troughed @ Seymour for 10 months back in 2000, along with about ten other guys. Our unit was great about scheduling enough TDYs to pay all of us. We were usually able to work at least five days a week. When you included UTAs and dual TPs we were averaging about 28 days of pay a month. Our unit was really trougher friendly. You might need to check with your's. I've heard stories about some units that don't work the same.
The trougher's job was to pick up one or two TDY's a month so our ARTs could stay home. Just the way it worked at Seymour.
I really enjoyed it. Beat the heck out of slinging burgers!

fish