I got reported to the FAA (not a ******* Satire)

midlifeflyer said:
I would not be at all surprised if the poor ASI who was assigned to this one thought exactly the same thing as most of us did: "Oh crap! Now I have to deal with this BS!"
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More likely "I wonder if I can get Bryan's autograph when I see him?"
 
Brad Z said:
Under the FERS system, retirement comes from three sources- social security (like everyone else), your TSP (basically a 401K that you pay into with an employer match), and a pension. The pension is relatively small- 1% of your high three for each year of service. So if you worked for 30 years and made a max of $100k for three years, your pension would be $30k. I'm not sure if that adjusts for inflation but I don't think so.

This system seems to work best for former career military who can count military service as part of their total federal service, and double dip on retirement plans.

For the rest of us, it's not bad, but it's not the same juicy retirement that feds from the 80s enjoy.
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Man you guys are missing out. Here in komnifornia I have a neighbor that just retired from the fire department at 55. He is pulling down $100,000 + bennies a year, (with cola) not bad I would say. Have another friend that retired 20 years ago from Lawrence Livermore lab, he's pulling 93% of his last wage when retired, with cola...... Granted things are changing for the current crop of employees, unfortunately I have to make my own way for retirement so my belts is a little tighter than the above mentioned.....
 
Doc Holliday said:
Also, FERS requires an employees contribution. I think it's up to 4 or 5% now.

Again, not the Nirvana that people claim it is.
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There you come with your 'facts' again. Can't have that while we are in full up .gov bashing mode ;-)
 
Juliet Hotel said:
There was a guy in flying club I used to belong to who saw fit to line up with the runway edge lights instead of the center line lights when he was getting ready to take off one night. He clipped off a couple lights with the prop before he figured it out. The FAA wanted a sit down with him after that. He ended up with a certificate action not because he clipped the runway lights but because they found in his logbook where he had either logged flights while his medical was expired or while he was out of BFR (can't recall which). If the FAA is looking at your book, everything in there back to day one is far game.
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& to rub it in when it comes to giving notice, doting I's or crossing T's is a one sided joke
 
FERS is so-so, but is a defined benefit, which is unusual to have outside gov't now. A fed also gets to retain his/her health insurance in retirement, with the gov't picking up the same percentage as before retirement, which is high-value bene. Especially if your non-gov't employer has you in a state chartered HMO, which you may not be able to port to another state when you retire. Fed retirement generally gets some degree of COLA, whereas plenty of non-fed defined benefit plans don't even pretend to; I know of one that hasn't had an increase since 2007, so inflation has gutted that one.

Fed pay is generally too high for the lower grades, and too low for the higher grades. A common tactic is to bolt as soon as you are retirement eligible, and return as a contractor.

Anyway, back to the ASI/FAA - as much as I bash 'em, I don't think it's a "justify my job" kinda thing. The bigger picture is just badly conceived process, lack of agility, an inability/unwillingness to push decision making down the chain, and frankly, a lack of accountability to the "victims".
 
everyone who may or could be similarly affected are tuned in to how or what the faa may do next here,

it is or has turned into way more than a usual one on one chit chat with no accountability,

as it stands, a blurb on the net with a complaint can result in serious formalities where for a start, you are expected to show up, regardless how they may go about it & provide documentation that can be used against you & better be squeaky clean from a to z

prob dude was assigned the thankless task to make a meet up possible

eyes-on-you-gif-12.gif


bottom line someone decided a blurb on the net merited moving forward with serious formalities & possible consequences next,

that started with ~ i can't talk to you, you need to to this then i can,

why this way? a quick convenient way around privacy rights that sets up a face to face showdown, where u are left wide open to whatever

with zero checks, balances or accountabilities from the get go
 
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If This Were even I'm a newt possibility that anything could come from it then how on Earth is the subreddit r/****tyaskflying even exist?
 
Best aviation related subreddit ever!

I especially like Rule #1: Anyone caught posting serious, informative content will get a slap over the hand and told to sit in the naughty corner.
 
Brad Z said:
This system seems to work best for former career military who can count military service as part of their total federal service, and double dip on retirement plans..
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Military retirees have to give up their military retirement to count their service towards federal retirement. The military retirement is often a better deal. One can count federal service if not currently getting a retirement check for that service. Things such as internships, summer jobs and active military time where not getting a retirement.
 
1RTK1 said:
Man you guys are missing out. Here in komnifornia I have a neighbor that just retired from the fire department at 55. He is pulling down $100,000 + bennies a year, (with cola) not bad I would say. Have another friend that retired 20 years ago from Lawrence Livermore lab, he's pulling 93% of his last wage when retired, with cola...... Granted things are changing for the current crop of employees, unfortunately I have to make my own way for retirement so my belts is a little tighter than the above mentioned.....
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Is that $100k a year from a soon to be bankrupt over promised and under funded pension?
 
CSRS folks indeed had a 2.5% multiplier and zero vesting fee, those days are long gone. FERS folks are a piddly 1%, and the vesting fee for folks hired after 2014 is a whopping 4.4%. That's a huge delta. A CSRS complaining about his/her pension being peanuts really needs to look in the mirror, especially compared to FERS people of post 2014.

For comparison, an Active Duty military retirement is a 2.5% multiplier, but most folks can't attain more than 20 years. Most don't get an active duty retirement AT ALL. The replacement rates hardly ever exceed 50% as a result. After you account for the portions of military income that are not counted in the retirement pay (only basic pay is counted, which is 75% of gross for a mil guy, the rest is tax free allowances that don't count) you end up with a 60% take-home paycut depending on your state income tax specifics. BL it's not enough to retire on for most of us (aka second career city). New military entrants as of 2018 are now under the BRS system, which lowers that multiplier to 2, making it even less attractive to stay in indentured servitude for 20 years.

Suffice to say I would actually pinch my nose and go airlines and their B-fund before dabbling in the FERS retirement (Air Reserve Technicians fall under FERS) if an Active Duty retirement wasn't attainable by yours truly. The LEO portion of FERS has higher multiplier and some sweeter rules for withdrawal, as has been highlighted by others in the thread already. And I second those comments as well; it may just be the only FERS variant worth pursuing over other state retirement options if I was absolutely forced into the choice.

For clarification, only military members who do not currently receive retirement pay are eligible to buy their active duty years for credit into a FERS retirement. That is a huge opportunity cost because recall that an Active Duty year is a 2.5% multiplier, whereas a creditable FERS year pays a multiplier of only 1%. If you are not staying in the military anyways (for QOL reasons, and Lord knows there's plenty of reasons to quit these days) then sure, the opportunity cost of taking such an otherwise huge retirement multiplier paycut is zero. So it's hardly the benefit being touted. Furthermore, the true double dipping can only be incurred by Reservists who draw a Reserve retirement pay, where those Active Duty years can be used concurrently for Reserve retirement pay, AND creditable years towards FERS retirement. Otherwise, no such double dipping, especially for those drawing an active duty pension. Receiving two pensions with non-overlapping creditable years is NOT double dipping. Receiving a federal pension and using bought back active duty years as part of the creditable year computation is also NOT double dipping, as you're not receiving a military pension from those years as part of the condition of being allowed to buy back into FERS.
 
bnt83 said:
Is that $100k a year from a soon to be bankrupt over promised and under funded pension?
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My parents are going through that right now (Puerto Rico). That's part of the reason I opted for federal service, as I hedged my bets that the military cohort is more politically harder to "socialize losses" for, without the rest of the street also being on fire, which insulates my individual loss. Something say, airline A-funds of yesteryear also fell victim to. Good bad or indifferent, the game is chess, it ain't checkers. To each their own.
 
Thanks to all that have contributed 10+ pages of their opinions, strawmen, interpretations, and rants in excruciatingly boring detail.

Otherwise I wouldn't have had anything to do for the preceding 20 minutes.
 
bnt83 said:
Is that $100k a year from a soon to be bankrupt over promised and under funded pension?
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It will bleed the state dry. They passed a law that the state will make PERS whole if there is any shortfall. Guess they will asses new taxes when that day comes and drive more producers out.
 
Rushie said:
Correct me if I misunderstand. A Federal pension pays for life. So if it's only say $40,000 a year which doesn't sound big, you live 30 years that's $1,200,000. That's not crumbs to a lot of people.
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Sure, and if you die at 57 two years into collecting the government gets to keep your FERS contribution. It's the nature of an insurance product, some will collect for a long lifetime and some dont. Your 401k otoh will go to your kids.
I had an offer for a fed job about 5 years back. The pension situation was one of the least attractive aspects about the offer. It works if you join young, make it through the ranks and are able to retire fairly early.
 
weilke said:
Sure, and if you die at 57 two years into collecting the government gets to keep your FERS contribution. It's the nature of an insurance product, some will collect for a long lifetime and some dont. Your 401k otoh will go to your kids.
I had an offer for a fed job about 5 years back. The pension situation was one of the least attractive aspects about the offer. It works if you join young, make it through the ranks and are able to retire fairly early.
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Meh....the Fed thing is OK. Not great but, not bad either. The health care thing is the best part.....we do have 401K with matching. The FERs part is small and no different than any other pension fund that I've had. I left Textron and it's comparable.
 
mscard88 said:
Windy and partly cloudy here in Gulf Shores, Alabama. :cool:
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AOPA fly in? I was hoping to go Saturday but it ends at 4 and it takes me 2 hours to fly there. Couple that with the fact I'm a night shifter and don't get to bed until 1 am and I live 30 minutes from my plane. So by the time I got there it would be ending in 2 hours. Haha sure wish they would have extended them through sunday!
 
simtech said:
AOPA fly in? I was hoping to go Saturday but it ends at 4 and it takes me 2 hours to fly there. Couple that with the fact I'm a night shifter and don't get to bed until 1 am and I live 30 minutes from my plane. So by the time I got there it would be ending in 2 hours. Haha sure wish they would have extended them through sunday!
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Yup. Call in sick and c’mon down! ;)
 
I currently have an FAA issue myself...nothing I did but what a senior FAA employee did in my airplane...they are a little protective of their own...oh yes two people are dead...it’s a mess and yes get some legal advice from at least a lawyer with a clue on general Aviation
 
chartbundle said:
It's raining, it's always raining, never come here(Oregon Coast) because it always rains, 367 days/year.
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Uhgg...I LOVE rain. I was born and raised in Arizona...nothing makes me happier than a nice cloudy rainy day (I'm not kidding). I love Oregon...been there a few times (Oregon sand dunes), been along the Oregon Coast, etc...
 
Rushie said:
Correct me if I misunderstand. A Federal pension pays for life. So if it's only say $40,000 a year which doesn't sound big, you live 30 years that's $1,200,000. That's not crumbs to a lot of people.
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You're wrong.
 
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