Thanks in advance for all responses.

Leaving AD soon. Thinking about reserves. Unsure of applying for a TR slot or IMA cat A/B slot. I’m looking more into staff/non-flying gigs. What are pros and cons of each?

Congrats. Being done with AD is an amazing transition. Reserve life is great and, thought Id never say it, but staff work as a TR is great.

I've heard nothing but great things about IMAs. Less required to make a good year, niche duties, cool locations (if reqd) .

Pros:
- Staff means next to no TDYs/deployments
- Only 1 jet to worry about
- Obvious addl income
- Flexibility of schedule
- Complete your 20 for pension/tricare
- Teleworking option

Cons:
- 2 jobs. Airline life is great, but also still having Reserve work adds up
- Staff baloney and the ever present queep. I'm at the grin and bare it stage to get done my last few years. Nothing is difficult, just annoyingly frustrating; as Im sure you're aware.
- Not sure about IMAs, but Staff TRs are usually expected to do more than min run a 50 pt good year, so expect to work more than 2 or 3 days a month.
- Pay status changes/orders lagging causing tircare issues which can be frustrating or cause coverage problems for you and your family
- Getting paid. AD you got your check twice a month and that was it. Reserve...What's your status? Orders good? Pay lags, then it's messed up; so you constantly have to stay on top of it to make sure your money is right and your pts are good to go.

Good luck.

A couple of caveats from a retired ART Ops Officer:

Do keep track of pay and points. I always heard tales of someone who tried to retire on their exact 20th year date, then found out they didn't have a good year. Then, I had a 60-year old man come in and ask me to back-date a Form 40 (record of UTA Attendance) for about 20 years prior. Seems he missed it by one UTA.

Flying is hard, full commitment, just to back up your thinking.

IMA Cat E is a possibility, no pay, just points very min run deal.

Cat B is half the commitment of Cat A, but I'm not sure where those positions are.

THIS! Happens a lot, seen it many times with unit members and even once myself.


Many different ways to screw this up, three different "years" you have to account for...

Years commisioned service starts day one as an O-1. This can screw you because you might hit HYT based on this, while still short of 20 reserve "good years".

Fiscal year can screw you because if .gov goes broke there might not be any drills authorized late in the FY and orders can get canx, and depending on your anniversary date you might need those points. Legally (federal) you can drill for free, points only, but make sure your organization actually allows that before you bank on it. If that's not an option or something you want to do, make sure you have enough points by say 1 Aug each year if your anniversary is late in the calendar year.

Reserve anniversary year can screw you because if you don't get 50 points (good year) there's no way to go back and fix it after that year. Always map that out well in advance, and it doesn't hurt to get more than 50 pts each year, I'd recommend that. In addition to *qualifying* for the retirement, points also increase the value of the retirement so they're never wasted.


There are plenty of ppts on this, and I'd sit down with an experienced reservist and map out your service history and plan your anniversary years to get the points you need, when you need them. The risk of missing a good year is that if you get sick, you can lose the ability to drill or do orders for points. Also if you hit HYT without 20 good years (or at least 18 for sanctuary) then you're SOL.


If you screw up your point count, you're screwed unless you can legally serve additional year(s). For the 20th year, all you need is 50 points, then you can go inactive you don't need to slog out 12 months once you have the points.

If .gov screws up your point count, and issues you a retirement NOE, you're still good. In the past they would do audits years later and canx folks' retirements, at which point they were usually unable to return to drill stratus and were SOL. Law changed to prevent that, so as long as you get the NOE you can safely retire (only caveat is no fraud on your part). Don't lead turn the NOE, even if you think you're done. Wait until you have it in your hot little hands before submitting resignation/retirement papers. Resignation is especially dangerous in this regard, but some folks do it to ensure they don't get recalled for the next MCO. You can still get retirement pay and bennies after resignation, just with some minor caveats.

If you didn't catch it, no, I couldn't help him out. I could sign and wouldn't processed anyway.

The other hidden gotcha is sanctuary. If you have a lot of AD years of service, commissioned or enlisted, your man-days will get closely watched. The reserve forces don't want you getting into sanctuary and the get hit with 2 years of AD to get you to 20 and paying a Title 10 retirement to a reservist. Somewhere around the 18-year point, all orders get signed off after a review. I had a AES CC who was down to double digits of sanctuary (17 years and 9-ish months of AD). Every man-day got reviewed. I had a Mustang pilot, O-3, got out after two AD tours, say 8 years, but never got wind of his nearly 10 years of enlisted time. Both of us were carpet dancing for a one-star. Dan liked to pull out his copy of the sanctuary rules from his flight suit.