Tolpin

To your original question, if you do not complete your contract commitment, the AF policy is to recoup any unearned portion of the bonus. However in practice that means that they simply will not pay your next bonus payment.

TankerDriver

That would be the ideal situation over them holding us to the contractual commitment and not letting people out prematurely.

Gilligan13

What is AD pay compared to ART? I saw an Art job that paid $150k. Add in drill pay and that's another $10k. I didn't realize AD paid that much.

TankerDriver

$150k? No way. I grossed $135k last year between my ART pay and milpay combined (GS-13-3 and O-4 @ 12+). Take at least 30% off of that for taxes and benefits. AGR will always net you more unless your BAH is insanely low where you're stationed. It happens to be pretty darn high where I am so AD pay always wins by at least $1,500 a month difference in take-home pay.

hindsight2020

Yeah, ART pay is lackluster compared to AD/AGR for the same effort and work performed, especially O-4 and above. It all stems from the fact a large portion (BAH is the game changer) of full-time military pay is tax free. In addition, ART new hires take a 4.4% shave from gross pay on the spot in order to fund their FERS annuity portion. 4.4% as of Jan '14 new hires, you read that right. In addition, FEHB is expensive compared to Tricare Prime or standard, and being an ART makes you ineligible for TRS (Tricare Reserve Select aka Tricare Standard for TRs), which is much more competitive than Blue cross Blue Shield family premium or equivalent. So that's an additional effective pay cut you see as an ART versus your AD/AGRs.

Don't get me started on the retirement. 1% pension with 4.4% funding every year vs. 2.5% pension payable immediately and 0% employee funding. Nuff said. Plus in the ART job you have to squeeze your IDT in your normal work week, the AGR just gets paid straight. PLus, if you're doing the ART thing as an ejection seat guy, yeah good luck doing it til 57... Joke. The whole thing is just not even close.

BUT, the ART is more common across the force, and thus gains you access to better locations in the aggregate. Not an inconsequential factor for many. In addition, ART is a much better job these days from which to springboard into an airline job. Always has been a superior gig on that account. Of course, therein lies the irony of having a job be considered great by virtue of being easier to quit...

If you have a high earning spouse, ART is usually a better QOL option for the family based on location alone. AGRs are located in some of the more inhospitable locations for a reason (ask me how I know...). Opportunity costs abound, but working longer for less pay and worse retirement is something one does for reasons of QOL, certainly not as a primary breadwinner if one can help it. It's a paycut no matter how you slice it. Concur with the other posters, at O-4 and beyond it's anywhere between 1.5k-2k net home pay difference after civil service, healthcare and taxable income deductions. That's a lot of coin.

TankerDriver

A lot of coin for a lot less hours spent at work. Seems like a win-win to me. The ART program is going to die on the pilot side of the house over the next few years. The only ART's you'll see will be the O-2/O-3's that don't have enough time to go to the majors and the older O-5/O-6's who were over the hump and passed on the callback to the majors. Everyone else in between is bailing.

Gilligan13

I didn't realize that Art peeps had to pay so much into the pension system. I thought it was a traditional system that you didn't pay into it.

What are the hours like compared to an Agr position? What is IDT?

Do fighter guys ever come close to hitting 57? Or do they just take the penalty or file disability?

beavf16

At least in my part AETC Arts work more than AGRs. They have to do their mandatory 40 hours of civilian time plus their reserve time. They have to either work or take leave on any AETC day off that isn't a federal holiday.

hindsight2020

In actuality and in the aggregate? Hell no. They become airline pilots WELL before they're in a position to be medically disqualified from doing the mil job on a part-time basis, let alone before losing basic back mobility and/or weight carrying ability.

The rest of the ARTs either transition to the straight civil service, take the earliest deferred retirement option at 5 years vesting (seems these types are generally the AD/AGR deferred retirement in the back pocket crowd) or a few manage to lateral into non-ejection seat ARTs, where they have a better shot at finishing out their dual-hatted civil service.

TankerDriver

In the tanker community, it was common to see a few guys go to 57 and these guys seemed to be the ones who drank the ART CoolAid, but I can admit there has always been a "pink elephant" about the career of an ART for a pilot. In the wake of an airline industry that is going to see unprecedented attrition, the ART program is going to die a slow death unless they do something to keep pilots from leaving. It has happened before in the late 90's and I believe that is when they restructured the ART pilot pay scale to the GS-13 with 30% bonus by way of "locality pay". In a day when first year airline pay was $30 an hour and it took 5-6 years to break even with ART pay, it was a tough sell for some guys to leave the comforts of full-time ANG employment. These days, with first year pay anywhere from $65-80 an hour at the "Big 3", bailing from the ART world to the airlines becomes a lot more manageable. By year two, it's just about break even and by years three and four, you're ahead. Of course there's also something to be said about only working 75 hours a month for $100k a year at an airline vs. 160+ hours a month for the same pay and a lackluster retirement.

Of course some can argue about the stability of the Technician world and that it's a good job with a family, but I don't know if I totally agree with that. Last year I was gone about 90 days as a full-timer with two deployments, sim training, a few short over-nights, and some formal school. We're busy these days. Between CENTCOM and PACOM rotations, UTA's, sim training, and everything else in between, the old Guard has just about turned into the new Active Duty. Our full-timers do a lot because we don't have many Guard Bums and most of our traditionals are senior enough at their companies that they actually lose money to mil-drop a trip to come in and do a Guard lift or Business Effort, so who do you think does them? The full-timers.

A little over a year ago, we had our Noble Eagle mission taken away from us. One could say this was a "Gravy Train" and they'd probably be right, but it was a very easy mission for the ANG to have and we did it well. Of course the bean counters stepped in and thought the AD could do it cheaper (not better) and there it went, just like that with about 3 weeks warning. That was about $12,000 net for me a year, which leveled the playing ground a bit between the ART vs. AGR wars. A lot of us rolled the dice and pulled alert on weekends/holidays. Sometimes you won and sometimes you didn't, but the money was good regardless and it was Title 10 contingency orders towards your 90 per year deal, but eventually the bean counters smarten up.

For an ART to burn FTP's (Flight Training Periods), we need to either be on some sort of leave status from our ART jobs or stay past the ART duty day and fly at night. If we fly at night, we come in and do a normal ART duty day and then brief/fly between 1700-2200. It's a long day and many of us routinely do this 3-4 times a month. So, in reality I probably put in near 200 hours of work per month for $135,000 a year. That ends up being about $56 an hour. In the ART world, we make good money by putting in long hours. Our AGR's come in around 1400 if they're flying at night and make more money than I do.

One thing we haven't talked about here, but something I've been looking into; can ANG units "stop loss" AGR's?