FlyerFanatic

Hey Guys,

I am in a unique circumstance and any advice will defiantly help.

So I am currently processing to a fly fighter in the ANG while also finishing up my ATP. I would ideally like to fly fighters part time, as well as hold a line at a major airline (as I enjoy both types of flying). However, this fighter unit is requiring me to serve 8 days a month once I am on part time orders!

And here is the twist. I need to stay close to home at CLE or PIT to stay close to family so that my parents/in-laws can watch the kids with my crazy schedule.

This means I will be commuting to both my guard unit as well as my airline job.

Is there any schedules that I can bid on to make this work? If l can ideally bid on 2 4-day trips consistently with the airline (with low seniority) and then do my 8 guard days, that will work out great.

In other words, since I am commuting to both my airline base and military base, how can I bid to maximize time off? And what is the minimum amount of days per month I can have while holding a line?

I can use military leave if needed, but under USERRA I only have 1825 days in my entire career since I will be staying with the same airline for seniority purposes (and I feel like a few long deployments may eat at a lot of this over a 12 year career).

Any help is greatly appreciated because I am pulling my hair out trying to make this work. I really value both types of flying and hopefully I can figure it out.

Thanks again!

Airbum

I’m a retired Guard fighter pilot and flew for the Airlines during 15 years of my Guard service. The double commute will not work IMO. I’ve done it for 6 months with no kids and it was a huuuuge pain

FlyerFanatic

Thank you for the quick response! It looks like I may have to move after all.

If you had to pick, would living in the airline hub or guard base be better?

usmc-sgt

Airline hub.

Omniscient

Yup..without a doubt.

Among many reasons, being in hub for a premium trip is worth it, along with day trips...reserve...etc...

Peacock

I believe you’re wrong about only having 1825 days of military leave under USERRA. Plus most deployments for a fighter squadron would be exempt anyway. Even if you did have a hard limit of 1825, that works out to 152 days per year for 12 years. That’s a LOT.

FlyerFanatic

Thank you for the responses! It is really helping save me a lot of headaches!

FlyerFanatic

That is great news! One of the guys at my squadron who flies for a major told me that I have up to 5 years of total military leave with one employer. I made the assumption that would be for all military activities. Would the deployments be exempt then?

detpilot

Check the legality of being "forced" to do 8 days per month. There is only so much a guard squadron can legally make you do, as a traditional. Strongly encouraged, maybe... But I haven't had to fight that battle (I've heard of others who have).

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rickair7777

There are numerous exemptions to the 5 year limit.

Basically any mandatory duty should be exempt. In your case that would be...

Initial training
Seasoning with the guard unit.
Essentially all drills (monthly participation, ie "weekend per month"+)
Annual Training ("two weeks per year"+)
Involuntary deployment orders

You should actually be able to do an entire career without ever touching any of your five-year limit... that really only applies to additional active duty which you volunteer for (you might have to do some of that to be competitive for promotion, but not five years worth).

In the federal reserves, many voluntary orders are also exempt if they support war efforts (essentially everything in the Navy). The guard is not as generous, due to it's legal structure, but at this point you do not have to concern yourself with the five year limit. And you probably never will.

As others have said, don't do a double commute. Personally I would live in the military domicile, at least initially, since while airlines have numerous hubs, guard units only have one and you might spend your whole military career there. Also I prefer flexibility with the mil, makes career progression easier. With the airline you just need to build hours and wait to upgrade. My work life mostly revolved around the mil, flying airline trips when it made sense. Fighters is probably going to resemble that, especially at first.