Medical officers are staff but JAG officers in the Air Force are line officers.

As far as the guard goes, I was just lucky a bud clued me in.

 

Interesting.

I had my chance to go Active Reserve after my first tour (either Hornets in one of the Reserve Units or F-5s in our Aggressor squadron), but I chose one of those out-of-cockpit tours and spent a year with 1stBn/2dMar as an Air Officer. Looking at what some of my peers did who went AR and the time spent in flying billets for a majority of the time, if not the entire time I spend a lot of time doing the 'what-if' game, but I might also not be right where I am at this moment where I am very happy......so I can only say it all works out in the end (so far )

USMCFLYR

 

ENJJPT hasn't been the same since the early '90s and the bank...

I'm not certain I agree with your assessment that military aviation is overmanned. In what regard?


There is a fly-only track in the AF...don't do your PME and you won't get promoted to O5 and you won't go to school and you likely won't go to a staff job. You need to be in a specialized & small field so your talent is valued enough you're not sloughed off somewhere as a "slacker" and pursued for your experience.

As for the commonwealth AFs - I agree. There are aspects of their system that I think are outstanding. I did an exchange with the RAF and loved most of their system...I abhored some of it too. Nothing is perfect.

The Guard & Reserve of today is not the Guard & Reserve of a decade ago. Gone are the flying clubs and "big blue" has infiltrated them all.

Regardless, I do wish I competed with other rated guys and my FEF was part of my evaluation instead of some ancillary duty....

 

The two retired AF O6's who work for me said this is not the case, AF JAG's are staff. Did it change recently?

 

The USAF JAG site says they are Line Officers.

USMCFLYR

 

Nope, just a common misconception.

LowSlow,
I agree that the guard is a different beast from 10 yrs ago but I don't see non flying tours/assignments being passed out unless the individual is doing it for pay days. Correct me if I'm wrong but guys are still getting to fly the entire time there. I get the tempo is greater, but once again, the decision to stay or go is yours. Also, the fear of UAV is a unit thing not just an individual. Even then, you can decide to stay or go. Not the case in Big Blue. The guard is like pizza and ( ), even when it is bad, it is really good and normally beats the alternatives.
Pakage

 

I like this idea. The Navy is not big into leading from the cockpit much anymore. When I entered 19 years ago and into my first tour, the CO/XO's had 4-5000+ hours flying. Now get CO's with 2000 hours maybe, had one with 1800 total flying time not so long ago. He was not a good stick but I but could do some fantastic power points. Now to each their own, if you want to be a careerist, fine but I do like the idea above, let the pilots lead and the staff officers do what they do best. IMO, the Navy's ability to select quality leaders is lacking, just from my experience.

I've been lucky, only one non flying tour in my career but I dodged and weaved and it cost me rank...but that was my choice. I didn't make O-5 because of my decisions and that's fine as I've done what I wanted to do.

 

HA! Too true. Funny that some of you other services look at us as "lesser qualified aviators" but then drop your jaws at how much we actually fly in a year and think that it is "unfair".

Who's laughing now?

Flying is flying in my opinion. A good aviator will excel no matter what airframe or mission, tactical or garrison.