airlines to MIL

[pilotyip]

Don't fly much

This subject has been gone over a bunch of times; you can do a search. Remember you do not join the military service to fly, you join to serve your country to fulfill the needs of the President by flying. You serve at the pleasure of the President. You will not fly that much in the Military unless you go to a conflict, Although Army WO does stay in the cockpit more than any other service. There is tons of office duties, ratio is about 10 hrs in th office for every hour of flight time In 11 years of Navy Active duty I got 2500 hours, 800 in 6 months during Vietnam, then averaged under 200 hrs a year. I was gone from home for nearly 4 years. There is family separation, I saw my son for about 11 months between his birth, which I almost missed, and his third birthday. If you go into fly, you will have a 10-11 year obligation, which as an officer will include at least 3-4 years of not flying and doing office duties, or standing phone watches at a command center evening and weekends. It is not a lot of flying.

 

[psysicx]

A lot of people say go Guard or reserves.But at least AD you won't have to worry about finding another job.

 

[Ih8AFYesmen]

I'll agree with pilotyip.... you do not fly that much unless there is a conflict somewhere. I would not recommend going on active duty just to be a pilot, or you'll more than likely be miserable. I really hate this phrase but "you are an officer before a pilot". If you want to "serve" and you WILL "serve", then it's whole different story. You'll have a $hit load of additional duties (non-flying, created work) just so that you'll have some bullets for your performance report. And if you do a good job, they'll reward you by piling on more work and if you don't, then they'll tag you with extremely undesirable $hit tasks. Either way, your flying goes out the window. The only way you'll fly more is if you trade in your family life for extra flying. Call me cynical, but this is what I have seen.

I would highly recommend the guard/reserve gig. Even though you might not have the same bennies as the active duty dudes, flying tends to be much better in the gurard/reserve. In a heavy unit, you can make a living just by bumming. I think it's a little tougher in the fighter/trainer world unless you can get a full time reserve slot. My .02.

 

[psysicx]

What is so bad about AD?

 

[pilotyip]

Ih8, I can tell you have been there and done that.

 

[Keydet]

Having just wrapped up a tour in the Corpus VTs, there were quite a few rumors circulating there--one of which was that they might be looking to contract civilians to fly the primary (T-34) trainers. Obviously, any mention of this possible idea drew the ire of just about every IP down there.

 

[Ih8AFYesmen]

Pilotyip, you more so than I, but yes...... I have. Due to the state of the current airline industry, majority of my buds are still "serving". There is pain everywhere, but I certainly have no regets divorcing uncle Samantha.