Yep, that's at least 48 more 12-hour days and 12 full weekends of work, or 96 12-hour days a year if accomplished weekdays-only...for less total money than an AGR, and a more expensive healthcare bite than an AGR or even TR. The opportunity cost is of course, centered around the homesteading angle (and that is very unit dependent) and/or the ability to quit the job for an airline gig without the potential for the military involuntarily retaining you. In times of no airline hiring, the job is coveted. In times of hiring like right now, the job is often scoffed at and difficult to sell.

This also creates an additional hardship; ARTs usually comprise supervisory positions, and that tends to make people who no one wants in those roles, end up in them by gravity and lack of better applicants, creating morale problems amongst the TR cadre and toxicity at the unit level. Very hard to get rid of an ART once he has dug his/her heels on the job. Not all ARTs are this way of course, but it's a widespread enough stigma to hold true as a generality. I've seen it first hand in the several AFRC units I've been a part of.

The biggest false economy relating to ART jobs is the proposition of making it to the MRA. That is simply intellectually dishonest when we're talking about G-pulling jobs. Perhaps one would be able to coast on a crew aircraft. Then there is of course the idea of dealing with the DOD corporate qweep (the very thing driving people into the airlines in the first place mind you) for a full 10-15 years longer than even an Active Duty guy would have to. That's a pretty tall glass in it of itself.