Why we monitor guard.

Interesting. I wouldn't have expected someone trying to reach me on guard. I'll have to keep that in mind.
 
jesse said:
I seriously doubt it is legal for your employer in California to have a "use it or lose it" vacation policy. Vacation is is a wage that was earned. They can't just steal it.

They can either pay it back to you if you don't use it - or they can have a "use it or we'll stop giving you additional vacation time".
Click to expand...

Wrong, grasshopper. The megacorp pulled the "use it" trick niegh on 10 years ago, simply to not have the liability on what otherwise was to be a berry, berry, berry bad annual report. Yeah, you could have ignored that but you would have been called on the carpet to explain, and it had better be a good explanation. You need a high mucky-muck approval to carry over any vacation days.

Once they used that trick they've had to keep it up ever since, so among the many PIA traditional annual chickensh* we have to deal with every year is being nooged to make sure we forecast and use up all of vacation days. The offices are a ghost town for most of December.
 
jesse said:
I seriously doubt it is legal for your employer in California to have a "use it or lose it" vacation policy. Vacation is is a wage that was earned. They can't just steal it.

They can either pay it back to you if you don't use it - or they can have a "use it or we'll stop giving you additional vacation time".
Click to expand...

My employer is based in California (I'm not) and I'm not aware of any differences in vacation policies. Use it or lose it. Every year. No way to save some for next year. I'll have to look up the law in my state.
 
>> they can have a "use it or we'll stop giving you additional vacation time".

Probably what they're doing, so isn't that a distinction without a difference?

Paul
 
I once worked for a small employer in CO who was selling his company to another individual who wanted to start with a clean vacation slate. This guy took my salary and divided it by 365 to get the rate at which to pay me for my accumulated vacation days. I pointed out to him that this was not the proper way to do it since our normal work week was 5 days out of 7 per week therefore he really should have been dividing by 260 not 365. This made about a $500 difference in what he paid me. I asked a friend who was involved in labor and HR and she told me that they had to pay you for your accumulated vacation but unless the rate of compensation was written in an employee manual or something that they could come up with any formula they wanted. This was a very small (about 5 person) company and there was no employee manual so I really had no recourse.
 
jesse said:
If your employer is willfully violating the law you shouldn't let them stomp all over you. That issue can be handled. Tell them to pay you the vacation or let it remain as per Cali law. If they won't they aren't worth working for and you can file a wage claim with the division of labor and get your money. It's YOUR EARNED WAGE - not theirs. Don't let someone steal from you.

Right from the California Division of Labor http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_vacation.htm

Click to expand...

Jesse, in California labor law there is a provision for a vacation cap, which is where you cease to earn any more vacation after a specified amount. This is legal because you aren't "losing" any vacation, you just aren't accruing it anymore. People sometimes generically refer to it as a "use it or lose it" policy but it isn't actually.
 
In my case, I am "losing".

For example, right now, I earn one day per month so that's 12 working days per year.

As of December I will have 9.5 days off earned.

That will mean I "lose" two weeks - in the trash can - at midnight on December 31, 2011.

I right now only have plans to take a day in September and one in October. I'm saving those other days for some epic journey that I am not aware of yet.
 
Teller1900 said:
Well I don't remember that, so we'll call it even. :) As soon as I know, you'll know! Nice job starting the MASSIVE thread drift in one post, by the way! :rofl:
Click to expand...

Where do you think the term "conversational goldfish" came from? :D
 
EdFred said:
Where do you think the term "conversational goldfish" came from? :D
Click to expand...

Ed, he was talking about Felix (from when would I have owed Teller lunch? I've never met him).

Felix started the thread drift.

Geez.

(If you notice my first two posts in this thread were on topic)
 
Last edited:
Sac Arrow said:
Jesse, in California labor law there is a provision for a vacation cap, which is where you cease to earn any more vacation after a specified amount. This is legal because you aren't "losing" any vacation, you just aren't accruing it anymore. People sometimes generically refer to it as a "use it or lose it" policy but it isn't actually.
Click to expand...
Furthermore, there are other ways to effectively implement legal use it or lose it provisions. The employer could also just take your vacation time and pay you off for it after a year if you don't use it. You'll get the money, but you won't have the vacation time anymore.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
Ed, he was talking about Felix (from when would I have owed Teller lunch? I've never met him).

Felix started the thread drift.

Geez.

(If you notice my first two posts in this thread were on topic)
Click to expand...
I did no such thing!!!! I would never do that! :goofy:

Back on topic, I had a Garmin SL30 before. Great radio because you could monitor 121.5 (or any other frequency) on a standby basis in addition to another frequency. So, if you had com1 (like a 430) and a SL30, you could simultaneously listen to two frequencies as well as having 121.5 cut in in case there was any activity. Great feature!
 
sba55 said:
Furthermore, there are other ways to effectively implement legal use it or lose it provisions. The employer could also just take your vacation time and pay you off for it after a year if you don't use it. You'll get the money, but you won't have the vacation time anymore.
Click to expand...

Correct, they consider it a form of payment.

And I sometimes monitor 121.5 when I'm bored. Probably should do it more often.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Correct, they consider it a form of payment.

And I sometimes monitor 121.5 when I'm bored. Probably should do it more often.
Click to expand...
I fully understand all of that - and said that in my original post. My point is that Kimberly says her employer says you lose it period. You don't stop acquring you LOSE your existing time. You don't get paid it. You *lose* it. Existing time *gone*. That simply is not legal in Cali and she shouldn't let them walk over her and steal something she earned.
 
jesse said:
I fully understand all of that - and said that in my original post. My point is that Kimberly says her employer says you lose it period. You don't stop acquring you LOSE your existing time. You don't get paid it. You *lose* it. Existing time *gone*. That simply is not legal in Cali and she shouldn't let them walk over her and steal something she earned.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Jesse. As mentioned I hope to take all my days. And we have a new girl here who I think did have the courage to research the law, print it out, and show it to the boss. Whether or not he does something about it, I don't know. He could "force me" to take the remaining days.
 
jesse said:
I seriously doubt it is legal for your employer in California to have a "use it or lose it" vacation policy. Vacation is is a wage that was earned. They can't just steal it.

They can either pay it back to you if you don't use it - or they can have a "use it or we'll stop giving you additional vacation time".
Click to expand...

The feds have the same policy.
 
Here's what you do, Kimberly: Step 1: win the lottery. Step 2: reserve that C-172 for your two weeks, find a pleasant gas-sharing companion if you like, invest in a really good moving-map and head east. Monitor 121.5 on your #2 radio-- see? Right on topic...
Stop wherever you're inclined to stop, see the sights, hop back in the bird and keep following the E on your compass. Meet wonderful blue/purple/red friends along the way, many of whom will offer you a spare room or a living room sofa. When the weather looks too iffy, or when you've spent half as much time in an airplane as seems fun, turn around and go home by a different route. In late fall, you'll want to plan a southerly path, but I can tell you, the trip is absolutely unforgettable, and entirely do-able in a Skyhawk. There's no better way to learn about flying, and about the country, than to spend a week or two at 3000' agl and 120mph. (We took ours across the country half a dozen times, with kids, pre-IFR. Glorious!)
 
Amelia said:
Here's what you do, Kimberly: Step 1: win the lottery. Step 2: reserve that C-172 for your two weeks, find a pleasant gas-sharing companion if you like, invest in a really good moving-map and head east. Monitor 121.5 on your #2 radio-- see? Right on topic...
Stop wherever you're inclined to stop, see the sights, hop back in the bird and keep following the E on your compass. Meet wonderful blue/purple/red friends along the way, many of whom will offer you a spare room or a living room sofa. When the weather looks too iffy, or when you've spent half as much time in an airplane as seems fun, turn around and go home by a different route. In late fall, you'll want to plan a southerly path, but I can tell you, the trip is absolutely unforgettable, and entirely do-able in a Skyhawk. There's no better way to learn about flying, and about the country, than to spend a week or two at 3000' agl and 120mph. (We took ours across the country half a dozen times, with kids, pre-IFR. Glorious!)
Click to expand...

I will let you know when I complete step one! Probably never. But the good news is that I may now have a passenger - and we will plan trips together hopefully. One place I'd like to fly to (but may need further training first) is Nevada / Reno / Glider airport in Nevada. I have a glider gift certificate for 2 people but have not used it since I thought it was a really long drive.
 
Reno's a nice weekend trip from the Bay area. If you haven't already done so, you might consider getting a mountain checkout before you attempt that trip across the Sierras in a C-172, though. The AOPA online course is good background, but there's just nothing like DOing it. The family and I flew our 172 into Colorado Springs a whole bunch of years back. I abandoned them to their relatives the next beautiful morning, and went to the airport to find an instructor for the absolute best four hours this flatlander has ever spent in an airplane. Lots of useful flying techniques, weather-reading tips, engine management thoughts, navigation tricks, and so much more. It was fun landing at Leadville, CO, landing on one-way, landing on a steep uphill after the tightest pattern ever and turning around to take off on a steep downhill toward a mountain face (never mind the wind!), doing steep turns out of blind canyons, leaning on takeoff, identifying landmarks when it's all white jagged peaks as far as the eye can see, understanding the significance of rotor clouds, circling Pike's Peak-- oh, my. The memories are still with me, decades later. Wunnerful!!
 
Amelia said:
Reno's a nice weekend trip from the Bay area. If you haven't already done so, you might consider getting a mountain checkout before you attempt that trip across the Sierras in a C-172, though. The AOPA online course is good background, but there's just nothing like DOing it. The family and I flew our 172 into Colorado Springs a whole bunch of years back. I abandoned them to their relatives the next beautiful morning, and went to the airport to find an instructor for the absolute best four hours this flatlander has ever spent in an airplane. Lots of useful flying techniques, weather-reading tips, engine management thoughts, navigation tricks, and so much more. It was fun landing at Leadville, CO, landing on one-way, landing on a steep uphill after the tightest pattern ever and turning around to take off on a steep downhill toward a mountain face (never mind the wind!), doing steep turns out of blind canyons, leaning on takeoff, identifying landmarks when it's all white jagged peaks as far as the eye can see, understanding the significance of rotor clouds, circling Pike's Peak-- oh, my. The memories are still with me, decades later. Wunnerful!!
Click to expand...

A mountain checkout would be expensive, but worth it. I'm thinking since it is a lesson more than a check out, I could simply go to the mountains (by car), find a flying school there, and pay them to show me mountain flying in a similar 172. This seems like it would save hundreds of dollars on the cross country part - not having to take my CFI there and back from Petaluma.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
A mountain checkout would be expensive, but worth it. I'm thinking since it is a lesson more than a check out, I could simply go to the mountains (by car), find a flying school there, and pay them to show me mountain flying in a similar 172. This seems like it would save hundreds of dollars on the cross country part - not having to take my CFI there and back from Petaluma.
Click to expand...
A mountain flying course really isn't necessary to fly to Reno. It's a nonevent in even a 152.
 
sba55 said:
A mountain flying course really isn't necessary to fly to Reno. It's a nonevent in even a 152.
Click to expand...
"necessary"? No. A good idea? Yes!

Read the NTSB reports. Why do flight schools require high altitude checkouts?

The alternative to a mtn course would be to study up by reading materials directly regarding mtn flying.
 
Richard said:
Why do flight schools require high altitude checkouts?
Click to expand...

Primarily because most low-time pilots don't have a good grasp on the physics of flight, to the extent necessary to be able to think it through themselves without an instructor holding their hand. This is exacerbated, in my opinion, by the lack of truly high-quality instructors in todays market. Half of them teach the syllabus without knowing WHY the airplane does what it does, they only know "Do THIS, and the airplane should do THAT."

Maybe it's me being old and cranky - but people these days just don't think any more.
 
airguy said:
Primarily because most low-time pilots don't have a good grasp on the physics of flight, to the extent necessary to be able to think it through themselves without an instructor holding their hand. This is exacerbated, in my opinion, by the lack of truly high-quality instructors in todays market. Half of them teach the syllabus without knowing WHY the airplane does what it does, they only know "Do THIS, and the airplane should do THAT."

Maybe it's me being old and cranky - but people these days just don't think any more.
Click to expand...
Try instructing. It's pretty easy to say that you should teach people WHY the airplane does something. In practice, it's a lot more difficult for many people to understand these concepts. The people who spend their spare time on web boards like this are by far greater than average pilots.
 
jesse said:
Try instructing. It's pretty easy to say that you should teach people WHY the airplane does something. In practice, it's a lot more difficult for many people to understand these concepts. The people who spend their spare time on web boards like this are by far greater than average pilots.
Click to expand...

It takes a lot more than just hanging out on boards (or in hangars for that matter) listening to people talk. Any idiot can do that, and many do - just look around and start counting noses. What is required is a person that is "Mentally Engaged" - their brain is ON and they are really paying attention, not just sitting in the roller coaster waiting for the next curve to come up. This type of personality is what drives that person to become more highly educated on a general level, and to understand basic physics and how it applies to flight on a more specific level, rather than downloading 68,000 songs to their Ipod and watching The Simpsons while munching cheetos on the couch.

I've thought quite seriously about instructing, actually. I honestly have. I'm an engineer by trade with degrees in chemistry and physics, I "get" why things do what they do, and I immensely enjoy sharing my love of aviation with people who rarely, if ever, get to fly. I've done more "first flights" than I can count and I have given a large number of informal training hours to people who were interested in figuring out whether or not they were cut out to be pilots before spending the money on a legit instructor. I really think I would enjoy instructing, and I'm relatively certain I would be a good instructor - but my problem is time. My engineering job simply pays way too damn good to abandon it for an instructing career - I couldn't survive the pay cut. I could instruct in my spare time, but I'm also married, starting a family, about to build a house, and halfway through building an airplane - so the spare time is pretty thin. I don't believe I would be doing a good job trying to instruct students if I was only able to dedicate a couple hours a week to the task. I would rather not do the job at all than do it poorly.

Call it sour grapes, elitist, hypocritical, or whatever else - but I think a lot of us "mentally engaged" people recognize the poor level of education among the current instructor population, a lot of us know we could legitemately do the job much better, but we simply can't dedicate the time to do it. I'm thoroughly guilty of watching from the sidelines and saying "Wow, those guys suck" and proceeding to let them keep sucking.
 
Last edited:
airguy said:
Call it sour grapes, elitist, hypocritical, or whatever else - but I think a lot of us "mentally engaged" people recognize the poor level of education among the current instructor population, a lot of us know we could legitemately do the job much better, but we simply can't dedicate the time to do it. I'm thoroughly guilty of watching from the sidelines and saying "Wow, those guys suck" and proceeding to let them keep sucking.
Click to expand...
Perhaps we're just lucky here in Lincoln - but I don't think there is a "bad" instructor in the area.

airguy said:
It takes a lot more than just hanging out on boards (or in hangars for that matter) listening to people talk. Any idiot can do that, and many do - just look around and start counting noses. What is required is a person that is "Mentally Engaged" - their brain is ON and they are really paying attention, not just sitting in the roller coaster waiting for the next curve to come up. This type of personality is what drives that person to become more highly educated on a general level, and to understand basic physics and how it applies to flight on a more specific level, rather than downloading 68,000 songs to their Ipod and watching The Simpsons while munching cheetos on the couch.
Click to expand...
I think you'd find that once you start instructing the average student isn't what you expect them to be. They're busy - they can only dedicate so much time towards learning - and you only can teach them so much. They may not grasp things very well at all. Believe me, it's much easier to judge instructors and say they suck for years then to be one. How do I know? Because I used to sit around judging them and saying most of them sucked. Now that I'm on the other side of the fence I'm seeing that yes there are some bad instructors -- but as a whole most of them are pretty good. You only can do so much with some students.
 
Last edited:
jesse said:
You only can do so much with some students.
Click to expand...

Agreed - completely - which brings me back to this other thread that ties into this neatly...

Henning said:
This is what is lacking from the civilian training world, a real "washout" standard. For GA, there really shouldn't be one beyond "safe", but there are a lot of guys in the front of airliners who should have washed out long ago. AF447 is just a recent example, and this is one where all three should have been washed out.
Click to expand...

I don't have the foggiest idea of how to implement this in todays "touchy-feely" PC world, but we need a GA washout standard in my opinion.
 
Richard said:
"necessary"? No. A good idea? Yes!

Read the NTSB reports. Why do flight schools require high altitude checkouts?

The alternative to a mtn course would be to study up by reading materials directly regarding mtn flying.
Click to expand...
Sure, it's a good idea in that more instruction won't ever hurt you, but it's also a waste of money. Or should be as long as you're a reasonably well trained pilot. Flying a 152 to Reno really isn't very difficult.

I see where you're coming from, though. Given how many people takeoff way too heavy for DA, I suppose more than enough pilots would benefit from a high DA checkout.
 
sba55 said:
I see where you're coming from, though. Given how many people takeoff way too heavy for DA, I suppose more than enough pilots would benefit from a high DA checkout.
Click to expand...

I could've used a low DA refresher a couple of years ago.

I couldn't figure out why we landed with 1/2 hour less fuel than expected on a trip back East to the low-lands, until I thought to go seek the answer the next day in my POH.

Yep, the 182 will burn 15 GPH when you're stuck at 2500 MSL by a cloud layer all day. My conservative 13 GPH doesn't work.

(We average 11.2 GPH consistently up here.)

;)
 
sba55 said:
A mountain flying course really isn't necessary to fly to Reno. It's a nonevent in even a 152.
Click to expand...

My Flying Assoc. has a rule of no flights within 5 nautical miles of the 3000 foot contour line on the chart unless you've had Mountain Training and a Mountain Checkride by one of OUR CFIs.
 
snoboy said:
My Flying Assoc. has a rule of no flights within 5 nautical miles of the 3000 foot contour line on the chart unless you've had Mountain Training and a Mountain Checkride by one of OUR CFIs.
Click to expand...

How's BEFA working out for you? If you haven't yet, take your mtn. checkride with Sandor.
 
snoboy said:
My Flying Assoc. has a rule of no flights within 5 nautical miles of the 3000 foot contour line on the chart unless you've had Mountain Training and a Mountain Checkride by one of OUR CFIs.
Click to expand...

You mean, even if I show up at your club with landings around the eastern Sierra, Big Bear, and in the Rockies in my logbook, I have to take your mountain training course just to fly over piddling 3000 foot terrain? That's excessive. Really excessive.

When you can fly 10,000 feet above the peaks, that's not mountain flying. And there is a 3000 foot peak just barely outside Class D at my home (sea level) airport. I occasionally like to take people for a loop around the Mt. Hamilton observatory; that's a 4200 foot peak.

My own club requires one landing at an airport above 2500 feet. You can't get it without an instructor using club aircraft, but otherwise, it's your business. That's it. There is a lot more to mountain flying than that, and I did more. Several remote FBO's have similar policies. Even the Air Force aero clubs require just two landings.
 
snoboy said:
My Flying Assoc. has a rule of no flights within 5 nautical miles of the 3000 foot contour line on the chart unless you've had Mountain Training and a Mountain Checkride by one of OUR CFIs.
Click to expand...
I'm certainly glad I took nor will take training at your school.
 
snoboy said:
My Flying Assoc. has a rule of no flights within 5 nautical miles of the 3000 foot contour line on the chart unless you've had Mountain Training and a Mountain Checkride by one of OUR CFIs.
Click to expand...

Holy crapola. Do you guys have to go through water ditch survival training if you fly within 5 nautical miles of a body of water?
 
Mountain training is a good thing, no doubt. But I am not sure what's the value without a recurrent training. I only took out 2 things out of it: 1) check climb rate not just takeoff/landing distance, 2) don't fly when the weather is bad. Also, it's expensive, like any training.
 
Old Thread: Hello . There have been no replies in this thread for 365 days.
Content in this thread may no longer be relevant.
Perhaps it would be better to start a new thread instead.
Back
Top