Originally Posted by TankerDriver
Airline pilots at regionals start at about $20,000 a year. 4 years later, they may be making $35,000-40,000. An O-1 out of OCS, OTS, ROTC, Academy, etc... is making $35,000-40,000. 4 years later, as an O-3, you'll be making around $65,000-70,000. I'm pulling in $6,000-7000 a year above normal just in tax free combat pays because I'm deployed so much. I've been tax free 6 out of the last 7 months. Out of about the $60k I've made this year, only $21k was reported to the IRS.
Your question about what to do depends highly upon what you want out of life. I for one wanted to go military but couldn't get past the eye exam during my ROTC at college. Even went up the chain for a visual waiver, but no luck.
However, the pay at regionals aren't that bad depending on who you go to. I am at Chautauqua Airlines right now. Yes, it did suck the first year making $20K, however, I upgraded in 2 years and was making $63K once I became a captain. Now after being here for 5 years, I'm making over $74K and that's on a Embraer 145 baby jet. So, it's not as bad as you think.
Now here comes the flip side, if you can get your pilot slot in the military, you are almost golden because the majors will look at you more than they will just average joe blow regional guy, and rightly so. We have decent training at the regional level, but nothing compared to what you'll get in the military. So roll the dice and see which one comes up.
So, I leave you with this, what is your true desire. Pursue your dream of going into the military or go straight into the regionals. It's up to you. By the way, we have about 4 of you MTSU pilots over here and I trained one of them.