BeeVee,
I'm separating with 14 years, 1 month and 15 days in service. I decided to get out at about the 12 year point, so I think I know exactly what you're going through. Let me give you a few of the points that led me to this decision.
1. It's NOT about the money -- I want to get up and enjoy going to work in the morning. And that was the case for about the first 11.5 years I was in. Then something terrible happened -- I got promoted to Maj and all of a sudden the job wasn't that much fun anymore. No longer running a flight of 10 motivated pilots, I was suddenly sitting in a cubicle at stan/eval and flying about once a week. And the future didn't look much brighter -- alternate staff and flying jobs, and when I was flying it wouldn't be my primary job -- instead I'd mainly be doing staff work and flying about 5 times a month. Added to that, there are an awful lot of field grade TDYs to do things like run the frag shop at PSAB -- spending 6 months in the sand box out of every two years while not getting to fly isn't on my top 10 fun things to do.
2. The long deployments weren't bad when I was single or it was just me and the wife. But now the kids are getting to where it would be really nice to coach Little League and do all those other "dad" things. I enjoyed serving my country, but also feel that I've done my part -- it's time to take care of what's really important.
3. Okay, it's at least a LITTLE about the money. Let's take a look at that (I ran the numbers in-depth, but will just generalize here -- BTW, I'll use 2002 dollars and make the assumption that military pay increase percentages = airline pay increase percentages = rate of inflation; I know that won't happen, but we have to use something as a baseline). Anyway, that last 6 years in the AF you'll avg about $110K a year (counting the bonus). But to get that you'll be giving up your last six years as a major airline pilot, where you'll be averaging somewhere around $250K a year. Even given the lost investment potential during those first 3-4 years, you still come out way ahead on base pay looking at the airline route.
4. Retirement. Like you said, if you stay in you'll be drawing about $30K a year in retirement. But six years of seniority with a major will usually equate to well over $30K each year (until those last few years when everyone's a capt -- but $30K doesn't mean much when you're making those kinds of bucks). Now, by having 18 years vs 24 years of airline service, your A fund is going to be reduced by about 25%, and your B fund by considerably more. With the numbers I used, this reduction came out to about $35K a year, so in my book retirement is a wash.
5. Other options. I'll be going into the guard -- not really for the money, but more for the options -- if I'm furloughed it's a nice backup, plus with my active duty time and 8 years in the guard will result in a retirement check that's about 80% of what I would have gotten had I stayed active through 20. The only catch is that I won't see any retirement checks until age 60, but I really shouldn't need them until then anyway.
6. I guess the final point would be hiring. You've got 18 months before you can get out, and as just about everyone on this board will attest, that's an eternity in the airline hiring business. I started planning my separation about 2 years ago, and watched the hiring go from a fever pitch in 2000 to where it is now. With that being said, even in today's market there are jobs with the majors to be had -- you're just going to have to put more work into it than you would have. If a slug like me can get two great job offers, then anyone else should be golden. And the picture should continue to get better.
Take this all for what it's worth. I am completely happy with my decision and have absolutely no regrets, but I'm not you. Do your research, ask a lot of questions, and in the end make the decision that feels right for you and your family -- and don't look back.
