Maybe I'm getting older and simple; anything that increases my pension is a good thing for me. AIRCRA is extra money, for certain but to put it into context, I was flying 120hrs/month on IMPACT for Lvl 2 AIRCRA ($397/month). That works out to about $3.31/hr; needless to say...I wasn't flying "for the money". My Ops FPS, HA - HA bonus, RA etc were all the same as those folks at ASAB who were not flying. I'd like to think people who wear wings are doing so because they enjoy military aviation, not purely for that AIRCRA (that isn't worth that much, after taxes...).
I'll take, say $400-$500...add it to my current pay (happily!)...and then I can see value in it "in the future". I'm talking the 65 years old, retired, indexing and suddenly that (70% of $400/500/month) addition to my pension. If I depart the fix before my wife, she should have some extra funds every month because "AIRCRA was absorbed into salary". Maybe not enough to buy that yacht...but some.
The big question from the v-briefing I attended yesterday was the "so, should we stop getting AIRCRA now so we don't end up in an arrears situation in year?" from one of the Plts.
I was more interested in the SAR Tech piece, as that is likely a model that has potential to hit my trade. I thought "those are some decent numbers". Am I being too positive? I saw the Gates for Pilots and they seem to make more sense...I'm not sure there is a selling piece for NCMs who are say, WOs, who are working in a Standard flight and therefore should make more than the Sqn Ops WO, who is standards qual'd/experienced but moved to Ops for a different tic in the box...