Alright guys,

I am thinking about joining either the ANG or AF Reserve. Currently, I'm a captain for an airline but furloughs are right around the corner and I would like to have a fall back option. I'm not seeking a pilot slot but rather something I could use should the big "F" ever happen.
I'm thinking maybe ATC, MX, or maybe a boom operator just to stay in the air. What do you guy's think? What are the +/-'s of both ANG and AFR? Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

Good luck my friend! Both are great options...


- In the same exact spot, great question.

get your foot in the door.

go to the first unit that offers you the job you want.

go to the unit that is geographically convenient, or is where you want to live.

good luck

Begin with your location, are you trying to stay near a particular place? If so that will narrow your options. You can also get an officer recruiter to print you a list of Reserve officer vacancies off VMPF website to get an idea of what types of officers are needs where(reserve that is). Keep in mind that the reserve can more easily have their mission, plane or equipment changed, wheras the ANG has a governor to protect them, in theory, the latest BRACC did some damage to that theory. But the reserve has openings all over the world and seems to me to be a little more fluid. Just my opinion as a Reservist(IMA).

The "Aviation Jobs" section of Baseops.net is a good place to start your job search...also read their "Forums" section as it has a lot of good info and answers a lot of questions you might have about making the transition into the ANG/AFRES. Wantscheck.com is also another pretty good site.

Good Luck!

Thanks for all the good information guys! With the way the airlines are these days ANG or AFRES seem like great options!

Luv2Rotate:

I know I probably sound like the old grumpy man in the room, but I always speak my mind and will be honest with you.

Don't join the military if you are just looking for furlough protection. We don't need people like that.

Do join the military if you are wanting to serve the country and have the will to put up with the very real possibility of getting deployed overseas to fight a war, low pay (depending on whether you are officer or enlisted), and being treated like a kid (going through basic training and technical school) [this isn't a problem when you're 20, but it will drive you nuts if you're older]. No matter what your job is, you could get called up to go fight one of the wars and you might be doing something other than you trained for -- for example guarding a convoy, watching third country nationals ... etc.

I'm not trying to discourage you, we need good people in the military, but we also need people with the right motives. It isn't fair to your unit if you are just there temporarily, they spend a ton of money training you, and then you leave because you were called back and you no longer want to give up your weekends.

-Fatty

I agree with Fatty that you need the sincere desire to serve, and a hopefully an interest in all things military.

But it's OK to factor in some personal considerations too. Joining the reserves for short-term furlough protection is probably a bad idea.

But as a long-term plan, it is very compatible with an airline career. In some cases you can go full-time if you get furloughed, but you might also get to go full-time when you would rather not do so.

The retirement could come in very handy if your flying career to does not end with FDXUPS/SWA.

At least be open to doing the full twenty.

Also consider Navy and USCG...the navy hires some reserve officers off the street with certain specific educational credentials (Engineers, Intel, Public Affairs, Medical). The USCG hires anyone, with some preference for prior-service or degrees related to their environmental mission.

Well, I guess that'd take care of higher 50% seniority in every garden-variety ANG/AFRES unit. Me thinks it won't happen, these people will continue to construe the vast majority of the leadership roles at the aforementioned organizations. That's not onecy twosies, that's a boatload of airline pilots with skin in that game.

As a junior guy and a trougher, I'm totally for that altruistic goal, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. Units are like airlines, with seniority systems and all. The airlines dump a bunch of pilots, they come back full force to the squadron and displace all the young guys right off the money pot, without blinking twice. Step aside junior. These are our war heros. The truth is much less galant, among private circles anyways....

Have you even heard of an O-7 troughing?!!! I have. If that doesn't throw red flags all over your ADI you're probably who I'm talking about. Throw a dart at any -135 unit in the southeast and I probably have a fellow O-1/2/3 bum ('cause who can make a living on 35K/yr minus commuting costs...) displaced by a furloughee/mil-leave/LOA'd O-4/O-5s ransacking the money pot. And the latter are still taking a paycut so they aren't even totally kosher.


You should have heard some of the stories about some of them barking up a storm during OEF/OIF, losing money everyday they were mobilized and letting everybody around them know about it. Granted, mother blue did a lot of BS shenanigans with the way it put people on and off deployments, but the opportunity cost of that "weekend warrior" flying club was what happened post-911, so people knew the score. Does that mean they didn't and don't serve sufficiently? Of course not. The system is a whole lot grayer than what your statement above implies it should be. I agree with ya, I just don't think it's going to change, for it encompasses the majority of people in leadership positions.

Talking about change though, and for whatever it's worth, the place where the ANG/AFRC is going in the next decade is not something many people will find desirable, as it is becoming all the pain of AD without the paycheck and bennies. People more likely join up active duty for the bennies and deal with it than do it for king and country on 60% of the pay.Likewise, the airlines are not even a competitive vocational venture, that game is dead, so you have young guys like myself who are no longer concerned about flight time and the like, for we are already priced out of the flying biz (in our late 20s mind you), with our greedy goals like putting a roof over our heads and eating at night while giving the neighborhood gardener a break for the month and actually taking care of the wife ourselves for once.

People like me are better off treading water on the bum money and waiting until the aforementioned O-4/5 finally retire so we can move up the ladder and get a full-time job, ideally before junior actually graduates high school. Alternatively, maybe find other means of justifying our livelihood on the outside while min running the guard gig until working at the unit becomes so painful and economically insolvent we just tell uncle sam to suck it and let him inevitably find lesser quality to fill the cockpits. The latter is only been tempered by the crummy economy, but if anybody is waiting on this huge turnaround, brother you're gonna be bumming for a very long time; those are not giants Quijote, those are windmills..... (read: 2013 is bunk)

To answer the original poster, I'd go AFRC before Guard, in the latter it almost takes your first-born and a prayer to get a manday. But that has been my experience, YMMV. Good luck.

hindsight ....

I didn't say that there are problems with the guard or reserves. And I didn't say that there aren't people like that in the military. My point simply was, don't go into the military if furlough protection is your motivator. You will be a very unhappy person for all the reasons you just mentioned.