In the next 14 months, I will be retiring after 26 years in the Army. I plan on applying to a number of regional airlines. My question is what military records will I need to provide for the airline to validate my flying experience when I interview? Is it just the 759 and DD214?

PRIA is only for civilian aviation employment correct? As I've never worked as a pilot outside the Army, other than as an independent CFI on the side, I don't have to do anything with that right?

Lastly, since I will have leave saved up, I will be able to inteview/start working 3 months before I actually retire - how does that work with the DD214 - which I can't get until I actually reach the retirement date.

Thanks in advance.

Should be good for regionals.

Correct, PRIA does not apply to military employment.


Just tell them. May want to be prepared to show other docs (orders, commission/appointment, OER, ID, etc). Majors would be familiar with terminal leave, might be something new for some regional HR folks.

I'm also retiring from the Army, I'll be out of uniform 1 Apr 2020. I went to the interview with SkyWest with a 759 closeout, the hit or miss logbooks I've kept over the years, and an electronic logbook printout from Safelog. I used Safelog to clean up my mess basically. Some single line entries were straight off the 759, some summarized civil time that I had in my logbooks, and about 3 years of daily entries. I have a mix of airplane and helicopter time both civil and Military and as I had never intended to do the airline thing it was a bit of a mess. The guy that did the HR portion was a former Army guy as well. I handed him the Safelog logbook, told him I had done with it, and piled it all on the desk. He basically took a brief look at the Safelog printout and a glance at the 759 I had in there and closed it up. Anticlimactic.

Wow, sounds like we went to the same records management school! I have ForeFlight with the one line entries for my military time that I update yearly on close out. I never really kept a military logbook because I never intended to fly in the airlines....

Thanks. This is definitely helpful info.

How does the majors look look up your mil records? Such as failures from upt?

I’ve been curious about this as well. I’ve never failed anything in Army flight training or throughout my career, but I did wonder if the airlines has some mechanism to do this... I assume that once they know you are military or were (see your un-deleted DD214) and you haven’t been kicked out, then they have probably seen all they need.

They have no PRIA equivalent. But they are VERY good at wading through documents and logbooks and reading between the lines.

Conventional wisdom is to never lie to an airline, because if they find out you'll be 100% fired and blacklisted from all but the worst 121. There have been cases where they found out years later... most folks don't need that hanging over their head.

Don't lie to the FAA either, they will put you in prison.

A friend of mine at Delta (retired Army) took his entire IATF (training folder) along with his 759 to his interview for transparency. What do you guys think, good practice or overkill?

I brought my IATF and IFRF with me to the interview. Your Commander and SP should not have any problem with it. The two folders give the interviewers a good look into your career growth and training history. In my IATF, I had a combination of the old paper DA-7122’s and DA-7120’s (yes, I am old) along with a current, up to date, print out from CAFRS as well, which encompassed everything on the old paper 7122’s. It gives the interviewer a quick run down as they scan for any ‘U’. An Unsat ride isn’t a deal killer. Situation dependent, it is a great opening for an explanation of why and how you fixed it.

I had an Unsat on a Prog ride in a college Part 141 program years ago. Instrument oral evaluation, I dropped cargo for fuel in my planning because I planned around an MOA I didn’t need to. I also was poor on chart symbology... It wasn’t anywhere on my PRIA but I brought the pink slip in the front pocket of my logbook binder and owned up to it. I have looked at that damned paper for decades since. We spoke about it and I explained how it has changed my approach since. I got hired.

1. Your signed 759 is verification enough of your military flight time. You do not have to transpose it to a civilian log book if you don't want to.

2. If your military time has been transposed to a logbook, some majors will still want to see a copy of your 759.

3. If you you did not log PC,SP,IP,IE,MP on the -12, do not put it down as anything other than SIC time in your civilian logbook. To the majors, PIC time is ONLY for when you signed for the aircraft and they do not count sole-manipulator or safety pilot time as PIC.

4. If you had checkride failures for anything, list them in your app (each airline is specific on if they want pilot training stage check failures or not). It will not stop you from getting a call and it won't stop you from getting hired ( 3 check ride failures {2mil, 1civ} and sitting at a major).

No military does not have PRIA but, given that some majors will want to see your military records, you would not want to show up to the interview and have them see it in your records.

Also, TRUE STORY, a guy I worked with got an interview at his dream job (DELTA) and did not get the job because he did not list a military check ride failure and the Captain who ended up interviewing him was the one who busted him on the ride (awkward!). This was an extremely unusual case but strange stuff happens and its a small world. Dudes have been removed from indoc classes for lying during interviews and false info on apps that was later found out.

5. United takes a snap shot of your app when you get the invite. Again, dudes have been uninvited because they "revised" their app after getting the invite to include negative information. The assumption is/will be made that you did not disclose the information in order to "improve" your app.