Thanks for the response. I want to fly and I want to be in the military, any combination of the two I'll be happy with. Since I'm planning on starting a civilian career whenever practical, the way I've worked this out out is: if I end up in rotorcraft and it's active duty, I'll have to make a pretty good effort to move from active to reserves. I know that helo time is valued very little if it all by most carriers, it seems if I do end up flying one I'd have to hold a civilian career at the same time.

That being said, the airframe doesn't matter diddly to me; I can work around what I've got. Well in everything except for the UAVs. Thats the serious downside to the Air Force at this point. I can't imagine what it must be like to go make it through flight school AND jet training only to be assigned to a UAV afterwards. It IS an inherent risk afterall, and it seems the only thing I could hope for is that the Air Force will take the que of the Army and start training enlisted in the MOS, rather than spending X millions of dollars just to place someone in a UAV.

Finally, I don't have any restrictions to whom I'm applying for; I want the flight slot. However, I know the Air Force and the Army are my most realistic bets, because they do not put anywhere near as much weight on the GPA as the Navy/USMC does. Yes, I know GPA shows up on Air Force f56, and can be part of the whole person picture, but I'm thinking I've gotten lucky because it is no longer a central part of the application. The only downside to my package is I'm looking at a 2.2/2.3 final GPA; my school just got ranked 9th in the world, but it's international and the standards are different. I'm working my ass off this year and I'll probably be looking a semester GPA of MAYBE 2.6/2.7, our school's average gpa is a 2.3. Now, I know I can justify these marks with a few articles that have been published on it, but I'm not thinking a Navy/USMC board is really going to care about my school's reputation, but rather just my final GPA. However, that may not be the case and I know the whole person concept factors in, I'm just so far south of competitive in that field that I look like a dud.

Anyway thanks for taking the time to respond, I hope what I said here is mostly accurate. Would you say that most branches allow those on AD to switch to reserve at some point in their contract, or am I just making that up?