Gentlemen,

I want to give a sincere thank you for the advice. You have all given me a lot to think about. Ive decided against flying C-12 or UC-35 in the military based on advice here and elsewhere. With that said, Id appreciate any thoughts on the following:

Over the course of the last week I spoke to a few AF Reserve units in my home town to fly C-5's, KC-135's, etc. One of the units seemed pretty interested and wants to meet in a few weeks while I'm home on leave. It sounds like if they pick me up the timeline would work well for no service gap from active to reserves. Training thereafter would be close to a year on active duty orders for the training pipeline (a positive or negative based on time to the Majors?).

While moving to my home town would be great, the issue is that after the active duty training, and I go to a strictly reserves schedule, the only way I could afford to live in the area would be a contract ISR job. Regional pay would be untenable based on cost of living. Is the juice worth the squeeze with the ultimate goal to be a Majors airline pilot? It sounds like the regionals provide more annual flight hours than contract ISR, also from many peoples comments it seems the regionals offers the fastest way to the majors for helo trash like myself.

With C-17 or other military heavy lift time and a primary job of contract ISR, is the resume is better or worse than just going straight to the regionals now with only helo time? Any thoughts?

Again thanks for the responses!