flya380
A Reserve Period lasts 28 consecutive days. Within that you will get 7 Fixed Days Off (FDO) notified before you start the Reserve Period. They may be a continuous block of 7 days (in LH, I think) or the first 5 days and last 2 days (usually) of the Reserve Period (Shorthaul).
The duties for the other 21 days are notified the evening beforehand and may be:[list=1][*]A trip[*]A Home Standby (HSB) with 2-hour report commitment. The duration of the HSB is wither 8 or 12 hours. Where you do the Standby from is up to you - the golf course works for me, it is the 2-hour to car park that is important.[*]An Airport Standby (ASB). Shorthaul only, usually from 0600-1200 at LHR.[*]Short Break (1 day off) or Long Break (2 days off). In the 21 day span you will get a minimum of 1 short and 1 long break.[*]A miscellaneous day off if they more than enough cover. Unless they tell you it is a Short Break in advance it doesn't count as one[/list=1]
You can express a preference with Ops for work/no work, short/long trips and they will try to help usually. One trick for Reserve Periods is to get your Sim Checks allocated in them, the day before your check cannot have work assigned on it by Ops, and in effect reduces the 21 available days by 3 (or possibly 4 if recurrent SEP training is also required).