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You NEVER walk into an ART position, unless you are a prior ART at another base and have re-employment rights, get RIFd, or your score is so much higher than others applying that you get the position. As a guy of the street, you will need to be in the unit for a couple years. Many units have revised the ART job descriptions to include full qualification in the AC they fly.
These days, you can make good $ working part time in the unit aka - bumming it - and then apply for the ART job. Now for a personal commentary - before you apply for the ART job - be prepared to be at the Sq for 10 hours a day, but only get 2 hours of work done. That is due to 1) constantly beating your head against a wall known as "the rest of the wing" and 2) after beating your head for a year you throttle back to do the minimum possible.
If you can do that -you can be an ART.
Not that some ARTs dont work their tails off. They do.....then they leave the ART program.
'2' and you just described my current career plan to a T, kinda scary actually lol. Originally Posted by dtfl
As a new guy you might get an ART slot...if you complete SUPT, work in the unit on your seasoning tour, and bust your butt, they can get you a "baby ART" slot..which lasts for a year, I believe. Then you have to hope that can be converted into a permanent ART slot. You NEVER walk into an ART position, unless you are a prior ART at another base and have re-employment rights, get RIFd, or your score is so much higher than others applying that you get the position. As a guy of the street, you will need to be in the unit for a couple years. Many units have revised the ART job descriptions to include full qualification in the AC they fly.
These days, you can make good $ working part time in the unit aka - bumming it - and then apply for the ART job. Now for a personal commentary - before you apply for the ART job - be prepared to be at the Sq for 10 hours a day, but only get 2 hours of work done. That is due to 1) constantly beating your head against a wall known as "the rest of the wing" and 2) after beating your head for a year you throttle back to do the minimum possible.
If you can do that -you can be an ART.
Not that some ARTs dont work their tails off. They do.....then they leave the ART program.
Ditto on the ART job particulars, they are hard to get, but it's more about timing and your exposure to the unit (which is indeed attained by bumming rather than min running the unit, ESPECIALLY in the beginning) than qualifications. Availability of such billets varies a lot among different units; it's a very airframe-depenent contention IMO. I'd say in this environment getting an ART/AGR is a scarce endeavor and one that could/probably would require some level of financial instability and limitation for an unspecified period of time; I've accepted that opportunity cost for myself at least. Most like to suggest 2 years of bumming but since it's more dependent on 1)availability of new billets and 2) internal squadron movement within the currently existing positions, it could be shorter or longer, therein lies the uncertainity and risk of pursuing and/or holding out for such positions... Dues-paying in the most common sense, just like the airline mentality about step-up jobs.
As to the pitfalls of an ART job, my $.02 is Jesus you guys can have the airlines, I'll take my govt cheese and pay the bills on the 1st without sweating my job and have my version of a commute be walk to my kitchen in the morning. I'd be hard pressed to forego a civil service job of any kind (never mind ART) for a 121 gig in this enviroment. It is true that it's not for everybody. For those of us who like to homestead, hold a check that doesn't bounce every 5 years (furlough), have a shot at a govt pension and happen to have the innate ability to have Wing and SQ office politics roll off our backs like water on a duck (it's a job after all, not personal, works great when you're not trying to make O-6 anyways) while getting to do what we love (fly and get the mission done), civil service is where it's AT.
I know several airline guys at the unit looking into civil service (not even the ART program mind you) positions to get out of 121, and these guys drank the kool-aid and did the rat race to the major cockpit, and discovered the little man behind the curtain at Oz a little less than what they vested themselves into the profession for. I also don't expect to ever go back to buck-fifty gas at the pump, so I figure the airline industry is doomed from a margins of profit POV, then add that our peers will continue to line up 10 years from now to get paid in takeoffs and landings; no thanks brother, my landlady only takes greenbacks and I don't get a discount for the sweet touch and go I got last week. I seriously question the economic wisdom of pursuing the airline industry vis-a-vis a civil service job (and a flying one at that), inefficient bureaucracy jabs accounted for and all...mileage may vary of course. Good luck.