Having just read through several threads on this board about how its becoming more and more common for pilots to get comparatively undesirable assignments straight out of training or from being plucked out of their desirable equipment assignment, I am finding myself posing the ANG vs. Active Duty question.
I'm about 12 mo's from completing a BS at ASU and have been considering a military flying career for sometime now, but I'm not too sure how keen I am at rolling the dice to end up driving UAV's or doing something else that was not a part of the 'vision' I have.
With that said, I also see on here many people who talk up one of the advantages of flying guard being you get to choose what aircraft you apply for (If I understood correctly). This sounds tempting, after having read the otherstuff about AD pipelines.
And lastly, and this is more of a silly personal beef, but I've
always told myself that if I go mil to fly, Im going Navy. And the thought of piloting an AF aircraft nearly sounds traitorous!
(Not really of course, I'm just most drawn to the Navy)
I'm a single guy right now, and nothing is really tying me down after finishing college.
So, I guess I pose this to you, gentlemen: If you had the opportunity to start a military flying career fresh from the start in today's world, given the circumstances that seem to be occuring as I described, how would you react? If fighters were your thing, is it worth possibly being handed a PC-12 (as an example from the other thread) just to fly AD?