Last few O4/O5 boards I looked at pilots had the lowest promotion rates of all. I live next to an intel O5 who is about as clueless as they come and he made it BTZ. Generals get put in charge of random ****** because they're supposed to be "General"ists. Why the hell I'm defending the AF I've no idea, burnt out as I am.

I agree completely with AK Hawg on the career path issue, it was depressing meeting RAF and RAAF pilots and learning it was perfectly okay for them to be pilots, and nothing more. Not that I want to (re)join the Army but they definately have the right idea with warrants as the full time pilots, wish we did that.

To the guard/reserve vs active question, I'd say if you're even asking you probably should avoid active. Coming on active duty solely to pursue a civilian flying career will I think lead to a long unhappy period of military service, for the reasons everyone else has already mentioned. Never having had to worry about a paycheck I find the uncertainty in the guard/reserve mildly frightening, but other than that clearly the quality of life is so much better there's no comparison.

One of the truely amusing memories of my life was starting pilot training and meeting all the guard/reserve guys. All of us on active duty at first silently, then collectively aloud begain to wonder just what the heck we'd done to ourselves by going active duty. We just didn't know about the guard/reserve, now you don't have that excuse.

You have to do what you want to do but based on the questions you're asking...