Originally Posted by
MedHawk60
Wondering if anyone has done it in the last few years. I found a few post of this topic but all pretty dated. Currently I am a Warrant Officer flying UH-60 in the Guard and flying for a Regional Airline. I am turning 31 this year and am curious if I am eligible to even apply for an inter-service transfer? If eligible what is the process? As a military pilot would I have to take the traditional UPT route (AFOQT, TBAS) as every other candidate off of the street?
There are some threads on baseops.net you may wanna check out. Yes you’re eligible and don’t even need an age waiver if you got hired soon. UPT age limit is now 33. Don’t know about inter-service transfers, as everyone I know who went the green to blue route got out of the army then swore into the AFR/ANG, either the next day with no break in service, or at a later time with a break in service...the IST wasn’t as clean cut as just getting out/swearing in the next day in another branch/component. In fact one of my army AD now AFR friends tried that and they wouldn’t do it. They made him just separate from army ad and aligned his swear in date accordingly.
If you want to fly HH60s or V22s, you just go to that qual course. If want want to fly fixed-wing, you have to go thru UPT, and have to take the AFOQT/TBAS. You also have to get an IFC1 flight physical (that’s knocked a few army pilot buddies of mine out for color vision and depth perception...not a huge deal just be aware you’re no different than a civilian off the street when it comes to the IFC1). My UH60 friend went HH60s in the ANG and still had to take the AFOQT despite not needing to go to UPT for that transition.
ANG/AFR units pretty much require you to “rush,” so you can read about that process on baseops. You don’t just go sign up with a recruiter. This whole process can take a while. Rushing can take a while, or be quick. Just depends on the hiring cycles and your ability to get picked up. Then it took me about 16 months from getting “hired” to starting UPT. There’s a thread about guard/reserve timeline to UPT on baseops as well. Good luck.