Pickle, during the BWS phase I spent on average 2-3 hours planning the next days route and flight, believe me theres more to your duty day than whats on the printed schedule. The Brigade Crew Rest policy deams rest as X, you dont get to count time doing Y just because its not on the official schedule.
They attempted to throw a person out of flightschool for taking emergency leave because his wife had an issue with her high risk pregnancy. I dont think anybody outside of Ft Rucker can truly understand the current trend we are operating under. If you raise your hand to scratch your ass they will attempt to take it off. Why? Because they are absolutely commited to getting rid of "the bubble." You really want to be the first guy that goes before the Col as WO1/2Lt nobody to say you dont think you meet crew rest requirements when they already put it in a policy letter that it doesnt matter since your only a student.
Are there times when you make the call, absolutely. When your doing it on a routine basis something needs to change. Thats my issue. I spent Nov 08-March 09 doing absolutely nothing useful at this post. Ive been sitting on my ass since Oct and will probably remain their till March again waiting on the advanced aircraft. Why are we not taking advantage of that time to get some of the academic course load down so you can actually expect students to learn and retain the knowledge instead of just learn enough to survive the course. And before you say anything, yes this idea went on every course critique I filled out through the course of flightschool. Most of the time to the dirty looks of whatever LSI flight commander I handed it into going "you realize nobody gives a rats ass what you put here."
