Tristan,

I was on your shoes about 19 years ago, I wanted to fly for a living and didn't quite know how. I did a job mentorship program from my HS and got to visit the Comair academy in Sanford Fl. The instructors have me some advice about how to get my ratings the civilian way but I also got advice from some family members, notably my grandfather, a B-29 pilot from WWII and a good friend of his who was an Army Aircorps pilot in the big one and eventually flew for PanAm. They both steered me into the Air Force through the ROTC program. There are no guarantees in life but I was told if you work hard and apply yourself be happy with your effort and see what happens.

So that's what I did, I joined ROTC and competed for and got a pilot slot. I got a KC-135 out of UPT and have also been a T-6A instructor. It was great fun to be an instructor, especially since my grandfather was also an instructor in the original T-6. I'm getting ready to get out of active duty and it's been terrific flying. I've got 4,500 TT and a masters degree and trying to wade through the conversion to civilian flying at this time.

As a brand new 2Lt I got paid 23,000 a year, which is about 31,000 in today's dollars. It was just after 9/11 when I graduated UPT so I've hit the ground running with many deployments and racked up hours quickly. I upgraded 2 years later to Aircraft Commander with 1,300 hours total and racked up 3,000 in my first 3.5 years. The deployments are tough of course, especially if you have a family, but airplanes are built to travel great distances in a short period of time, so you rarely takeoff and land at the same airfield, and that's just the nature of aviation. I love to travel so the lifestyle fits my personality, but it isn't for everybody. If you get homesick easily and like predictability in your schedule this isn't the life for you, but if it sounds like you want to jump inboard, I recommend you try to get hired by an Air National Guard or Air Force Reserve unit that fly transport (c-130, c-17, KC-135) aircraft. Sometimes they hire while your in college and send you to AMS after graduation but every unit is slightly different and have their own personality. If you join a guard or reserve unit you'll be able to apply for and work for civilian airlines after you build up your hours in the unit. It's actually the best of both worlds and I wish I had known about the guard and reserve before I got into active duty.

You'll probably get lots of other advice on the subject, good luck, take it all in and make the best informed decision for your future.