Work4life

I did a RTU tour but my buds who were T-38 and T-6 IPs racked up a lot more hours obviously. Of course, T-1 guys racked up the most. The one downside of a UPT tour is the crappy location, Hell Rio topping the charts.
Btw, there are “white jet” reserve units at UPT bases incase you weren’t aware.

Airbum

It was a easy decision for me also.

Adlerdriver

I'm not sure this timeline and rationale is really making sense. Here's why:
Going to the ANG to fly a fighter while gaining seniority at an airline isn't going to happen quite as fast as it's being advertised.

That's because any brand new guy going into a fighter isn't going to be a part time, true traditional Guardsman for at least 3-4 years from starting UPT. He's going to be on full time active duty orders for UPT, IFF, FTU, MQT and then his seasoning time at his unit. Any unit worth a crap is going to put their new guys on full time orders for at least a year if not more of seasoning - hopefully more. After one year of full time flying as a fully checked out ANG fighter pilot, a top notch driver might be starting to become proficient as a wingman. An average guy might take longer. So, that's a minimum of 3.5 years from the start of UPT.

At the end of those 3.5 years, that pilot MIGHT have 500-600 hours of total time including all his student time. Not all of that will count as PIC time. So, at that point, he's not going to have the 750 hours required to get an RJ job. If he flies his ass off for another 6-months, he might get the extra 150 hours. That means the best case scenario is get an RJ job at the 4 year point from starting UPT and go part time as a marginally proficient wingman in a fighter squadron.

He's still not qualified to get a job at a major airline. So, unless he plans to make a career out of being an RJ pilot, getting and building seniority at that regional airline isn't of much benefit (other than getting an upgrade as a 121 Captain to continue to build PIC time faster than in his fighter).

So, I'm not really sure why everyone keeps talking about getting an airline job as a new fighter pilot to "build seniority" that isn't going to matter once he moves on to his desired job at a major airline. Build PIC time? Sure - that's valid. But if his ultimate goal is a major airline job, he's not going to be at that major, building seniority at anything close to the timelines folks are discussing here.

The bottom line here is this: If you want an airline job as fast as possible, don't bother trying to get a job with an ANG fighter unit. Go to a heavy unit or just stay civilian. Flying a fighter isn't a mission you phone in for the first couple of years to get your airline job and then do part time for grins on the weekend. It takes years to be truly proficient and then have the skills and experience to go part time and leave the fighter for possibly weeks at a time to go work at an airline. Most traditional Guardsmen have 10 years (2-3 fighter tours) or more flying on active duty before they join the ANG and juggle two jobs.

Delta Echo

This situation sounds better, than in Hungary. Here your military flight hours are not valid in civil aviation.... :-o
I know people with thousand of flight hours starting a civilian PPL from zero...

KTM1524

I appreciate your insight man. ANG is probably my best bet. I need to make some money while flying, and going 70-100k in debt flying civilian and having zero chance to get picked up by a major right out of the gate is not my first choice.

Adlerdriver

Just to be clear - it takes a while to get hired.

Once you get that part out of the way, gaining seniority will happen just by being there and having folks ahead of you retire. But, I get it - the sooner you start that the better. Just keep in mind that spending some of your 20s and 30s flying a military aircraft rather than jumping straight into the airlines may be worth a little seniority sacrifice. I know it was for me.

"Best possible route" isn't probably going to be the one that gets you there "as quickly as possible". Getting good training without paying for it may be worth not doing it as quickly as possible. That's for you to decide. As the hiring wave continues and pilots are in demand, going the civilian route may shave a couple of years off the military (ANG) process. Not all civilian applicants get hired at the earliest opportunity. You may end up spending the same amount of time gaining the competitive qualifications necessary to get hired at Delta as you would going the ANG path.

The other thing to consider is the airline industry is notoriously cyclical. It all looks like unicorns, ice cream and BJs right now but that can change in a flash. You may decide to put yourself into 6-figure debt and go full bore civilian for the fastest route to a Delta/FedEx cockpit. Just about the time you're ready to get hired, the economy could tank, another 9-11 event could happen, etc. Now you've got all these quals and nowhere to use them.

Take the ANG route and you've still got at least a part time flying job in that same scenario.

All your reasoning makes sense. The most important being that you want to serve. Becoming a military pilot in any capacity is going to take a lot of work. If someone is only doing it to get an airline job, their chances of success and truly contributing to the unit mission are reduced.

Then there's the fighter vs heavy discussion. In my opinion, if you pursue and get hired by a fighter unit, you're doing that because that's what you want to devote the next 8-10 years of your life doing. At your age, once your finish UPT, all your other training and start flying regularly at your ANG unit, you're going to be at least 30 before you're getting truly proficient in employing that aircraft. So, I would recommend that if you decide to go that route, you put any airline pilot stuff wayyy on the back burner. It's definitely possible to get to a major airline from an ANG fighter. But, it's just not the fastest route and you've really got to keep your priorities in line until you've gained the required experience in the fighter.

Going to the Birmingham tanker unit or some other heavy unit may give you a little faster opportunity to start thinking about pursuing an major airline job. Even still, a heavy ANG unit is going to expect your number one priority as a new guy to be getting and staying proficient in that unit's flying mission. Early on, you're going to be a co-pilot which is going to mean no PIC hours that count for an airline job. Depending on timing and the unit's manning and your capabilities, you may not upgrade to Aircraft Commander (PIC) for a few years after UPT and all your training is complete. If you transition to a part-time Guardsman at some point, there may be a shot to grab an RJ job and maybe get to the left seat there faster than at your ANG unit. Lots of variables and it's all just guesswork at this point.

My point is, at age 24, if you go any flavor of ANG, I think you're going to be at least 30 before you might have the quals to apply to a major airline like Delta or FedEx. But, as you said, you'll get to that point without any debt from pilot training. If I were in your situation, I'd take the ANG option hands down. Just be ready to spend at least the rest of your 20's completely focused on your military flying rather than worrying about making it into an airline stepping stone. Airline stuff will happen soon enough and in the mean time, maybe the Mrs. can throttle back on her "expensive tastes".

rickair7777

I believe that fighter experience, even just a little, will get you hired faster at a choice airline. Maybe with as little as 3000 TT, with most of that at a regional (might not even need regional PIC). So the timeline is not apples to oranges comparison with a civilian. It's better than AD because you dson't have to wait ten years to apply. Kind of a hybrid.

in fact, even though it takes a couple years longer, you might well get a really choice job which might never have happened as a pure civilian.

No guarantees, but on average fighter experience goes a long ways.

Adlerdriver

I'm not going to pretend that there's no possibility an outlier might accomplish what you say.

I don't know what's happening at other airlines, but for now at FedEx, they have specifically said they have not found the need to hire anyone with less than 1000 TPIC.

I also think you're discounting the fact that major airlines understand the fighter training process and are going to look a bit deeper into someone's quals than simply whether they have a couple thousand hours of RJ SIC time and can check the fighter pilot box.

You're also ignoring the real fighter timeline. A mil guy still needs 750 TT to get on as an RJ first officer. As I already said, a zero to hero ANG guard baby isn't going to be at 750 TT realistically for at least 4.5 to 5 years into his ANG career (with prob around 500 of that being TPIC). 3000 TT is still a long, long way off at that point even by supplementing his ANG hours with RJ SIC time. I simply don't see this as the express lane to a "choice" airline job that you're saying it is.

I was active duty flying F-15s and it took me 9 years from the start of UPT to barely squeak past 1500 Total time for my ATP. A full time ANG pilot might be able to do a little better, but not by much.

The last factor is this idea that a new ANG fighter pilot is going to be able to rush out at the earliest opportunity and land himself an RJ job. I watched the new guard babies come back to my unit from UPT and FTU. They were the priority. If we could we flew them at least 3-4 times a week if not daily. When they weren't involved in mission prep or flying, they were in the vault studying. Our a/c, threat a/c, weapons capes, simulator training and the list goes on. It's a serious full time job. They don't get any better at it by walking away two years into it to go get an RJ job and start time sharing between the two. Once they're reasonably proficient as a wingman, the next push is to be a flight lead, then a 4-ship flight lead, mission commander, instructor pilot. There's always a new opportunity. Not everyone has to progress to the highest level, but going part time as a semi-experienced wingman one or two years after coming back to the unit from training isn't something most units are going to abide.

Anyone who pursues an ANG fighter pilot position with this as their agenda is making a big mistake, IMO. Most unit's with good leadership will never let this happen. For someone who wants a fast track to a major airline job, I would suggest there are better paths for everyone involved.

rickair7777

You know more about it than I do. But from the civilian perspective, there are plenty of highly qualified guys who have been at it for 20+ years and are not getting called because they have no way to differentiate themselves from the herd. Likely to change over the next few years, but when I was flying RJ's there was a sharp contrast between my civilian co-workers who going nowhere fast and the guys in my reserve unit who getting called like clockwork as soon as they got a couple years of recency and/or FW time at a regional. I never even flew with mil guys at the regional because my base was very senior... they were gone before they could bid in.

I guess I would caveat it by saying that mil experience will be more of a sure thing, and more predictable. A civilian RJ FO might get hired by DAL with 3000 hours TT and no PIC if he has the right "whole person" ingedients, or he might languish for 20 years, and then go to an ACMI after the kids are out of the house to try to make enough money to fund his retirement. Seen both, and everything in between.

Work4life

Lot's of good advice but I'd side with Adlerdriver, mostly.
The fastest path to the majors is the civilian route in my opinion assuming the rosy future of the airlines remains unchanged. Everything in life is a gamble and cyclical, right? Using military flight training as a means to get to the airlines is a good option but there's a price for everything. I flew fighters on active duty but if I had to do it all over again, I'd choose to go guard/reserve mainly because you can just be a pilot, if you so desire. Many of my guard/reserve buds were guard bums during the airline downturn and were able to survive financially during the tough times.

As Adlerdriver have said, you'll spend most of your 20s getting proficient and advancing in the fighter world. You'll get 250-300 hours a year for about the first 2-3 years on full time orders while becoming a "seasoned" fighter pilot, which equates to approximately 600 hours in your weapons system. This means that you are flying 3-5 times a week. No community, especially the fighter world, wants stagnant/weak sisters so you'll have to work hard to progress - 2 ship lead, 4 ship lead, IP, and preferably EP. Once you are a seasoned pilot, you'll be able to fly less just to maintain your proficiency. I, for one, don't want a barely proficient wingman. It's not fair to others, especially to the troops that put their lives in your hands. There are a lot of requirements in order to stay proficient in a fighter unit which was one of the reasons why I didn't join the guard/reserves after I punched from active duty.
Depending on your civilian flight time/total time, your path to the majors will definitely take longer than someone who flys heavies in the guard/reserves. If you want to check the military box and be on the faster track to the majors, I'd look for a heavy unit. Just my 2 cents.