I’m not too far ahead of you from the mil…you’re going to take a massive (but temporary) pay cut, so hope you have some solid cash savings to get you through for a while. Be ready to adjust your family’s spending habits for a while. Tricare is infinitely better than Delta, so make sure that is all squared away (and get the VA stuff done ASAP, don’t miss out on $).

Don’t go crazy buying “airline pilot stuff,” it takes a little bit of time to figure out what works for you; get what you need and then decide what nice-to-haves suit you best. For example, I already had NC Sonys, so I bought a nflight mic for that instead of spending $1k on a new headset (did all of OE with ship headsets…they work just fine despite the naysayers). Turns out that whole setup works awesome and I only have to pack one headset (I wear the Sonys every flight commuting). The only thing I kind of went against my own advice on is buying two “custom” shirts from Crew Outfitters, and those are completely worth it (the DAL ones are garbage).

Oh, and clip on tie all the way…that thing comes off/collar undone the second I get back from my pre-push lav stop. Clips on in 2 sec before I leave the cockpit at end of flight.