The Air Attacks primary function is to act as an airborne controller, while the tankers drop the fire retardent. It is hard to quote you a pay scale due to the different contract lengths. Bases in northern CA have the shorter contracts and the length increases as you work your way south. The southern most bases go almost year around. We are union so everyone hired has to start off in the OV-10 and wait for their chance to bid on a tanker seat (some never do, they stay in the OV their entire career ). Tanker pay is more than Air Attack pay. You can live on both salaries comfortably. As for former military, we do have a couple that flew the OV-10 in the Marines before they retired the aircraft, but the majority of our pilots have come through the tanker industry ranks. Like i said it is very competitive and i last time i checked there were over 700 resumes sitting in the office. As for SEATS all are private operators contracted with the BLM. There are several SEAT operators out there. Most operate 802s. There is also alot of competition for these positions. Everyone i know who has gotten on flying an 802 has a couple thousand hours tail wheel time and a couple thousand hours spraying (AG work).