Quote:
Originally Posted by runge
OK.... so in my mind it all boils down to one question:
AF Reserve pilot + Civilian career in academia. Can It Be Done?
Can it be done? Yes. Are you putting the cart way before the horse? Without a doubt.
I was having
somewhat the same internal discussions as you are now about 6 years ago. I too was trying to figure out how this whole thing was going to work with a non-airline employment, and I too had long realized I was not interested in the airline "walmartish" rat race. I too was thinking about TPS and how it would be "natural" given my aero engineering background. Then life happened and I woke up.
A couple of things that struck me about your posts are the TPS thing and the fighter thing. We'll address that in a bit.
You can search for my posts and you'll see my dissertation on TFI, if you haven't become familiar with that term I suggest you research that topic. This isn't your dad's Guard/Reserves, this thing has disintegrated into AD Lite. To pursue this organization with the mindset of the early-mid 90s model of the Guard/Reserve flying club is really to do yourself grave diservice. Guard/Reserve commitments under TFI are strenuously unfriendly to civilian employment, 9-5 more so than airline but even junior airline gigs suffer.
As to your comment that 8 days would be worth it to fly a fighter, I'm afraid to tell you that's stereotypical, and in that respect you're just another dude wanting to fly a fighter for the Guard. Hell, I was in your shoes 6 years ago (overconfidence included). Rest easy the latter is just lack of information as opposed to an endemic character flaw, you can take my hindsight to the bank on that one. At any rate, part of the reason so many people are hating the TFI thing is because of the insistence of some numbered Air Forces (in this case I speak of the AFRC) to pursue a "this Viper is more important than a wife and kid" attitude towards schedules that conflict with civilian employment. That WORKS to a large degree in fighter units, among Traditional reservists that are airline at that mind you, and in par with what you instinctively blurted out in your post, but when that carrot is not there (non-fighter units and/or units located in places where competitive employment is skosh) guess what, people don't whistle while they work anymore. I'm sorry to stir up that pot, but when you push the local Herc unit to treat their people with contempt under the mantra of "well you get to fly this thing so thats more important than your off line QOL" people give you the finger and go work at Home Depot or look for a govt contracting job and fly on the weekends where/how it suits them. My point to you is this, do a gut check on the reasons you want to join the AFRES/Guard, and if the only reason you find that "opportunity cost" worth it is the shot at flying a viper, I'd say don't quit your day job. I did the fighter chase application shotgun a couple of moons ago, got interviews but never the job, and let me tell you it's a tough cookie to crack, just the way it is. But don't waste your or other people's time going to a unit just to gripe and b%tch you're not flying a Raptor and counting the days to get back to your academia pursuits, that just makes you dangerous as a flyer (distracted MQT guy) and not fun to be around with, plus it probably blacklists ya with the unit for a full time job (never say never).
As to TPS, I'm afraid to tell ya this isn't the golden days. You won't be doing dramatic edge of the envelope flight testing, most of it is report writing and data babysitting. You get to fly a metric ton of airframes in a short amount of time during training, sure, but then you go to an operational squadron (Active duty) for at least 3 years, and in the middle of nowhere, CA. Will it help you pump the C.V. for tenure? Sure. But you can also win the lottery and forego the long way about getting to the same place. Astronaut training? That's cool if you like majoring in Latin (read: the equivalent of applying to a Guard unit that's losing their flying mission by the time you get back). How do I know all this? 'Cause I've gotten recruited by test bubbas in my airframe to come to the dark side because of my aero engineering background and graduate degrees in the same and AC qual at the young rank of LT. I asked all these questions now from the other side of the fence (as a winged bubba) and these are the realities I discovered. I'd pass on that. Honestly, I would go active duty if TPS was such a desire of mine. But guess what, that probably won't mesh well with your academic pursuits.
Talking about academia. I actually can tell you from first-hand experience what happens with your scenario. I was offered a tenure track assistant professor job at a university 60 miles from my unit. That's the first thing that happens. They want you to live there, but guess what, moving to said college town and commuting to the unit would have meant automatically min running the unit and getting pinged by the squadron to make more time for the unit. Converesely, the academic job expected me to serve my country outside of the hours of 9-5 and outside student counseling hours. Yeah that was going to work out great. Then I was giving up something I truly have a passion for (serving my country in a flying capacity) for a what? a 42K job with a probationary period (tenure review) of 6 years. Eff that. I cna make that at the local taco bell and have more time to burn periods at the unit, and I get to save the commuting costs at that. Academia is a joke, and there's no more money in it than in the modern airline industry but I digress.
Alternatively, commuting from my unit to the college would have been a non-starter, at 120 miles a day round trip just so I can hop on a night sortie and fly for 4 hours. That would have gotten old real quick. These are the things people don't tell you about the idiosyncracies of working the AFRES with a 9-5 job. If you score the trifecta (guard/job/family in the same location) that's great, but it largely cannot be done. So again, gut check that one, because transferring units is not that nilly willy jiffy lube quicky easy as you may be predisposed into thinking. 8 days a month doesn't sound that great now does it? I've worked 25 days in row this month as a trougher/bum and I still made less than my AD counterpart, while my unit expects me to hold up the fort for king and country and because they know I'm unwilling to drive 120 miles a day for a job that pays less than bumming. Do you think they'd call that bluff if I lived in MSAs like Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Indy or the like? Of course not. TFI is a dirty dirty game, but it's the new reality, so gut check brother.
I sincerely wish you luck in your pursuits, but thorougly research these important details before you go foot in mouth before you hit the interview at the squadrons. Oh and my condolences on GaTech, I wasted 3 years of my productive life in that place. Fortunately I was lucky to realize a 3.8 from Alabama and 7 times more abundance of partying female genitalia felt better (oh so goood) to get to the same pilot jockey job than swimming up the river at the grade-deflating school for the blind boys of Georgia[tech].
Purdue was also a mistake of mine, but I did get a free degree and a wife, so that was par for the course... Roll Tide.
P.S. I don't have anything against Viper bubbas, I just want to make the point that it has become a nasty habit of high leadership as of late to utilize the viper squadron model as a means to push the TFI agenda upon the very volunteers that make the AFRES what they have been, and likely the agenda that will kill it.
04-24-2024
