Originally Posted by rickair7777

What he said.

Also the reserves can be a very useful means of maintaining income potential and more importantly, benefits, during your training and the early poverty-level years in aviation. Also it can provide a fallback job and retirement benefits, I have found military reserves very helpful during my aviation career so far. Are you a CT? If so odds are good that you will have no problem jumping back to a full-time status for the forseeable future should you find the need.

Also you might want to consider your reasons for disliking the military...professional aviation has some things in common with the military, which is why airlines like ex-military people. But people who left the military because they couldn't hack it, work with others, or behave responsibly probably aren't airline material either. If you have a good record in the military, you should be fine in aviation even if you don't enjoy the military. But if you are a "problem child" you may need to do some soul-searching before pursuing the airlines.

And like somebody said, get your PPL asap and fly around for fun some to see if you like it. The GI Bill won't pay for that anyway so you might as well get started.

Originally Posted by chignutsak

Stay in the Reserves! Switch services if you don't like the Navy, but stay in. Your TS and your intel background gives you a world of opportunities to pick up orders if things in the flying world go south. And they will, you can bet on that happening in any aviation career. The great thing about the Reserves is even if you don't like it, it's only a couple days a month.

Originally Posted by Zidac

In an ideal world where I eventually get picked up as an FO for a regional, would it be feasible? I know that it's only 1 weekend a month and 2 weeks per year, but I understand that schedules for regionals (especially junior guys) can be quite demanding. I'm interested to hear from any regional pilots that made this work.