"Gooneybird" wrote:

While that may have been true, I never heard the term "banked pilots" ever used
while I was on EAD (through 1967). They did pay rated officers their flying pay
even after they had been assigned to non-flying duties. For a while, they did
require 4 hours of flying per month, but later waived that requirement in order
to save on aircraft maintenance and operations costs. However, I don't remember
anybody who had been taken off flying duties ever getting assigned back into
them.

George Z.


You don't recall the "Rated Supplement"? The idea was to take
mid-level aircrew types and move them into support functions for a
"career broadening" assignment. It would usually be someone with at
least one operational tour and it was "guaranteed" (as much as any
personnel policy) to return you to flying status at the end of the
three year tour.

It wasn't the staff job for an operational aviator where the business
is designated for a 1xxx AFSC, but a move to a totally non-rated
career field. IIRC the program started about the time you mention
('67) and was around for at least ten years.

It was a perfect program--both the rated and non-rated types hated it
equally. The career support folks thought the aviator was getting the
good jobs and hindering their careers, while the aviators were
convinced someone was trying to help them screw up while
simultaneously setting them up for grounding.

The flying time requirement shifted from four hours/month about the
same time. You could then "bank" flying time--recapturing flying pay
for two months back or pre-logging time for six months into the
future. Several years later they came up with the "Aviation Career
Incentive Act" which established the flying "gates". As long as you
made your gates, you were guaranteed flying pay, even when you were in
a non-flying billet. That, of course, eliminated those fleets of staff
support aircraft that were just great for getting around the country
on boondoggles.




Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (ret)
***"When Thunder Rolled:
*** An F-105 Pilot Over N. Vietnam"
*** from Smithsonian Books
ISBN: 1588341038