Originally Posted by
mb1685
That sounds great to me! I want to fly with the Guard as much as possible and would hope to get a full-time position eventually. I honestly don't have a ton of interest in flying for the airlines in general, I just figured it would be a good complement to flying with the Guard. I'm mainly just concerned about making enough money to support my family, and the uncertainty of bumming worries me a little.
Understand that.
You are correct that it will be hard to manage and excel at a traditional civilian job/career while serving in the guard/reserves (assuming you're "in it to win it" long term)
Things to consider...
- You typically can't be a military pilot (including technician) for your entire working life, unless you get promoted to general (in which case you won't be doing much flying, or have been doing much flying for many years). How long you can stay depends on getting promoted, and you won't know for sure until you get there.
- The airlines are ramping up to a 10+ year period of literally UNPRECEDENTED hiring and pilot demand.
Keep an eye on the airline situation and don't rule it out. You don't want to be 50 and facing looming unemployment and wishing you were a senior widebody captain making $300K with employment to age 65 or 67 (which you could have been). Don't take this hiring boom for granted, it will not last forever (I lived through the last one, was a bit slow on the uptake and missed it).