Thanks for the great insight, everyone.

Sounds like a lot for me to think about.

What it is likely going to come down to for me is whether or not I think a military lifestyle, and all that comes with it, is going to be for me.

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-Crewdawg, I liked your suggestion of working for a regional and trying to get an ANG pilot slot silmultaneously....I'll probably shoot you a pm soon with some more questions about that.

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Is the difficulty of obtaining a pilot slot (transport or fighter) for a civilian trained pilot going to be such that it may not be worth the effort? Considering that I'll be facing competition from AD guys who know the gig already.

I only intend to fly (be it military or civilian)...so if I go for a pilot slot with the ANG and get washed out/dont get hired for one....am I forced to perform a job other than flying for the remainder of my enlistment term?

p.s. thanks everyone for entertaining my curiosity here....I'd like to be as well informed as possible.

 

If you are hired off the street as a pilot with the ANG and wash then no you can be separated w honorable discharge no probs.

If I had things to do over again I would log as much time as possible, get hired with a regional carrier flying RJ's and as soon as I was flying the line I would apply to guard units... and this is my reasoning,

1. you keep your seniority # while on military leave from the airline.
2. you have the experience necessary (hopefully) to survive UPT.

The guys that performed very well in my UPT class were an ex NAV, and two CFII's with above 700hrs. This might be a coincidence though as there were other folks that did extremely well with just a private ticket, but, i think that was just natural ability... meaning no learning curve and they were just natural flyers. Golden gloves so to speak.

When I went to AMS one of my squadron mates who was slotted for fighters actually got an upgrade to ENJPT at Sheppard. WTF? He said his guard unit said he was the only one (of 4) that was qualified for it and they were allocated a slot. I dont' think this would make an ultimate difference though, since you would be flying 38's in track anyway. Yes he was a regional FO. Not sure if that was the reasoning, it might have been AFOQT scores or who knows what.

Anyhow, good luck, hopefully you'll do better than I.

 

I think I failed to elaborate on ENJPT since you are considering fighters.
Euro Nato Joint Pilot Training. You have to be nominated for it moreso than a regular UPT slot. I think most guys who get the slots from ROTC have engineering or flight related degrees with a great deal of flight time and extra high gpa's and afoqts etc. I think that is the case but I could be wrong (concerning high flight time and engineering/flight degree). This doesn't mean only fighter jocks come from enjpt, you can also track T-38s (fighter/bomber) from a regular UPT base.

 

It's ENJJPT. Euro-Nato Joint Jet Pilot Training. Major does not matter. GPA does. Flight hours over 201 do not benefit an applicant. AFOQT Pilot is used in computing PCSM along with the TBAS test. Don't forget FAIPs...

I dropped ya a PM by the way.

 

wups, forgot that extra J...

he asked about being an ANG (fighter) pilot so he isn't going to FAIP.

 

and even if he was active duty going to follow on (not to be confused with track or drop) fighters and was a FAIP, he would still have to have tracked 38's and dropped 38 FAIP. none of this will actually apply to our thread starter as he inquired about being an ANG pilot. ANG pilots can attend ENJJPT, however rare, but they can not FAIP.

and just in case our threadstarter doesn't know FAIP...
First Assignment Instructor Pilot

 

AZ, I am pretty much in the same boat as you. Have you checked out baseops.net? I have found a lot of information on the Military Forum about the ANG here.