TankerDriver

$50,000 in debt is not a big deal. I lived just fine as a married 1LT living on base with a spouse who was unemployed. In the past 4 years, I've paid off near $20,000 in student loans and credit card debt while banking money to buy a house and paying all the other standard bills. We lived on base so I didn't pay for electric, gas or water. Just phone and cable. I was tax free 7 out of 12 months in 2005 and 5 out of 12 months in 2006. I was making an extra $1,000 a month while deployed with combat, family separation pay and tax free pay. My W2 showed me making $21,xxx in 2006 when I cleared nearly $50,000 without a housing allowance (and this in on 1LT pay). So, do the math. I was living in a very nice house on a military base for FREE, didn't have to worry about utilities and clearing $50k a year. If you can't live comfortably on that, you're doing something wrong. You're not going to live like Donald Trump, but you'll live comfortably (and it only gets better with time). There are other benefits that I'm sure were mentioned above. How about free health care for the whole family? Want to have 5 kids and not pay a dime for it? Go active duty. People complain about the military Tri-Care health system, but it's FREE. I paid $9 a month for my wife's dental coverage. That's it. Think about how much money people pay for healthcare in this country and think about not having to pay for healthcare for the rest of your life (if you want to do 20 years). That's a pretty big deal. How about discounted groceries and merchandise on base? Or cheap gasoline. It all adds up. The cost of living in the military is significantly less, freeing up $$$ for other things (like paying off debt).

The guard/reserves are not a bad deal, but it you have to work MUCH harder to find opportunities to get paid than you do on active duty. On active duty, you get paid twice a month no matter what. You're either present for duty or on leave, but you're getting paid 365 days a year. It's nice to know there's going to be a fat deposit in your checking account twice a month. Government jobs in the guard and reserves are hard to come by. There are still a lot of 40 year old furloughed airline guys/gals clinging to full time AGR/Technician jobs who've decided they don't want to go back to the line to take a pay cut and be gone 15 days a month with who knows how long before the next furlough event happens (I can't say I blame them).

Don't get me wrong. The military has it's many disadvantages and there are lots of sacrificies to quality of life, family life, your life in general (getting shot at) to be made in the military. It may not be one for you. That said, I guarantee you will not be able to do anything else like what you'd do as a military aviator anywhere else in the world. It doesn't matter if you fly fighters, choppers, heavies or even UAV's. You will never get to do the things you can do in the military anywhere else.

crewdawg

You should have no problem making enough to cover you loan payment. I have a cell phone bill/internet bill/car payment, max out an Roth and am putting quite a bit a way into an emergency fund and still pack away about 1k a month. Unless you have some severe spending issues you should have no problem living on AF pay and making loan payments. Plus I am pretty sure that if you go active duty that they will pay for you to get your masters if you don't already have one. Not a bad deal considering the cost of getting a masters!

I would say if you want to fly for the Air Force then go for it. I get to do things most civilian guys only dream of doing. You will get some of the best training there is and and will have a great time doing it. Where else can you do a low-level at 500 feet at about 300-350 kts in formation with another jet?

It's all a matter of what you want to do in life. If you only want to join to try to build time to get into a major then I you might consider not joining. There is far to much work involved and you would be better off just going to a regional.

I am part of the guard crowd and will most likely be looking at going to a regional if I can't find anything corporate when I get off my training. I can tell you that I will miss that steady income if/when I go back to the civillain side of aviation.

Hacker15e

What you also didn't figure into the math is the free health care that you and your family will have while on AD. I don't know what most regional FOs are paying for health care, but it is probably more than the "free" that an active duty military guy is having to pay.

ToiletDuck

You can get the $25k loan for like 2% once you sign the papers

1Seat 1Engine

None of the above. If your goal is to get to the majors, IMO, the USAF is a great way to get there with a lot less of bleeding of the regionals.

I think the current commitment is 10 years but that's been a moving target for a while. At various times during my 20 years there been Palace Chase, VSP or ANG hide-a-pilot, or other avenues to shorten that commitment.

I understand many people don't think the service is for them. I also think many of those people have a huge misconception of what the military is like.

1Seat 1Engine

Evidently the JSTARS community is nothing like the rest of the USAF. Personally I'm amazed at how much we get paid.

1Seat 1Engine

The first thing the ANG will do is put you on full time orders for at least 3 years. At the 3 year point in the USAF you're just getting to Capt pay which is nothing to sneeze at.

TankerBob

More like a a year and half if you are in a heavy unit.

TankerDriver

No $hit. If you think about what the standard day in the life of an Air Force LT or even young Capt is like and how much we get paid and oh by the way, we get to fly cool jets too, there really isn't anything else like it. As a LT, new out of pilot training, you'll come into the squadron at 8am or so, check email for a few hours, do whatever computer based training du jour has come down the pipe, due tomorrow, from some brown noser in a high place looking to add some more brass to their shoulder who thinks it's important for everyone in the AF to be familiar with Records Management (rant mode off ), stock the snack bar, go to lunch and the gym for 2 hours, come back and maybe do some mission planning if you're flying the next day, check some email again and go home. You're making $50,000+ a year to do this! Granted, some LT's will be grabbed for more serious jobs and will work much harder (exec officer, in the unit deployment shop, stan/eval, etc...), but usually those go to those who seek those positions. For the most part though, most of our LT's did a good job of getting lost, never to be seen. Of course, this was in a tanker squadron, so we're known for being a bunch of slackers to begin with.

Quality of life can change quickly though. You can go from living it up as 1LT Snacko to getting deployed to the desert, living in one tent, crapping in another tent, showering in water that smells like it came from a sess pool, trying to stay hydrated in 140F temps, etc..., but I can tell you that as much as it sucks to be "over there" away from family and the comforts of your own home, you will miss some aspect of being part of the war in some psychotic way when you're home. There was an 8 month span of which I hadn't been to the desert because I was involved with a higher priority job at home station and actually missed being over there. It bothered me to watch the news and see that our F-16's took out a building with 20 insurgents in it who were firing on our troops and I didn't have the opportunity to give'm the gas to get there. I digress.

There were a lot of things on active duty that I could ***** about all day long, but the pay and bennies were no where near being one of them.

CGFLYER

I'm new to the forum and this will be my first post but I was in the same position as you, Embry Riddle grad $50,000+ in debt CFI/MEI etc.

Didn't join the AF but the Coast Guard same pay scale etc. I haven't looked back since. As a brand new Ensign (O-1) I was making $45,000+ (all pays and allowances combined) and had no problem paying back my multiple loans.

Since then pay has gone up significantly, after only three years I'm in the $70,000 range. Granted in the Coast Guard we usually live in high cost of living areas so the housing allowance is usually pretty high. But overall not bad income compared to what I probably would of been earning had I pursued the regionals.

Financially you will have no problem, but there are definitely multiple other aspects to consider when looking into the military.

Fly Coast Guard!