Originally Posted by
jpmizzou
I appreciate all the feedback. I know separating at the 15-16 year mark sounds crazy to some. Not doing what I want in life for another 4-6 years sounds crazy too. I still love the Navy, but would rather play part-time and enjoy it more.
My wife fortunately has watched me go through two flying tours and now two non-flying tours. She tells me I’m a miserable bloke when I’m not flying and is actually excited for me to get out. Fortunately, she has a great career in medical sales that can support the transition and a stint at the regionals. Getting stability of location in the near-term for her career is part of the motivation to jump as well.
I’m honestly just trying to make sure I’ve thought the various paths through so we can make the most informed decision together and plan accordingly. I’ve got some researching to do regarding AF Reserves/Guard, not sure how hard it is to affiliate to a squadron as an 0-5 from another service, but I imagine it wouldn’t be terribly difficult to go to a non-flying UNSR gig.
Here’s to me hoping I’ll be owing Hydrostream that beer in another couple of years.
Also look at the Army Guard/Reserve. You will probably have to revert to WO, but you stay in the cockpit. I reverted from O-4 to CW2 and had no regrets. Downside is that it would probably be RW flying which would do nothing to help toward a goal of flying for an airline. But you would fly. I enjoyed it because I had the best of both worlds, RW and FW flying.
If you want to fly and you want to fly for the airlines then anything other than a 121 gig or possibly an Air Force Guard/Res gig is going sideways. Even an Air Force gig would probably take you away from the goal of a legacy/LCC (if that is your goal) linger than a 121 regional gig.
Like I wrote earlier, the RTAG Nation FB Page has many RW pilots, Army, Navy/Marine and Air Force who have been in your position.