I couldn't agree more with Humey.
1. Bullet flew for 21 yrs with the AF, many of his friends went commercial. Believe it or not that world is a networking world, and I mean huge! In a way it is who you know if you don't want to go regionals. We saw friends get references from pilots that use to be in the squadron and flying with that airline. It than was easy peasey for them to be hired on.
~ One WSO (back seater) got his commercial, hired on as a regional and left the AF as an O4 believing that he would jump up quickly. Well, after a few years of low pay, he went back to the AF and asked them to take him back. They did because he was still in the IRR portion. What actually hurt him was not only the pay loss, but bc he came back 4 yrs later, he was still an O4, whereas, my DH never left and was now an O5. His clock had to restart and it would be years before he would be up for O5. He retired 5 yrs after DH as an O5. We on the other hand had moved onto Bullet's 2nd career, getting retirement pay and his new career pay.
~ Another friend left the AF as an O4 in Mar 2001. He went to the airlines, used past AF connections to get hired on. He did not go regionals because --- A. Airlines love military trained pilots. B. Military pilots have lots of hours.. However, airlines are line number oriented, iows, you got hired 3/1 than you are going to go left seat before the person that got hired 3/2. Now notice I said 2001. 9/11 occurred. Airlines took the hit and had to start furloughing pilots. They dropped him from right seater (747) to a smaller plane, still right seater, than to regionals. He too came back to the AF after being out for 6 years. They again brought him back as an O4, but this time instead of flying fighters, they said we need you to go RPA. He retired this past year. He was a CC, but only an O5. He was 1 yr before Bullet's yr group, but Bullet retired 8 yrs before him. He is now flying again with the commercial airline that furloughed him.
2. The thing about going that route is the AF has their own way of training their pilots. It is hard to change habits after you have hundreds of hours, but the AF is going to expect you to do it their way.
~ If you ever fly, the next time you land watch how the landing goes. Bullet and I joke everytime when the plane lands. Navy pilots have a habit of dropping you down on the runway as soon as they see it. AF pilots have a habit of using up all the runway. Why? because 20 yrs of landing on the size of a football field that has moved while you were gone and is moving now is different than landing on a runway that did not move ever!
UPT IPs will not give a fig how many hours he has or doesn't have, everyone walks in with a clean slate. Every student will be berated at some point by an IP, as if it is the right of passage. Every student will study and eat while chair flying for a yr+.
I am not saying don't go down this path. I am just saying that really think about it long and hard when it comes to this major. Nobody saw 9/11 coming, but it did and many of my friends were furloughed for a very long time. Now everybody is talking about the airlines hiring at an enormous pace and the AF is short on pilots. Broken record here, but your child is 17, the earliest, be it AF or Marines he can walk will be 2032?. The airlines have stated that by 2022 they should be back up to status quo. This is incredibly important to understand. The airlines by law must force pilots to step down at 62 (?, they may have increased it to 65 due to the shortage). Because of 9/11 they did not hire for about 10 yrs. Many of their pilots were retired military, making the young ones @ 52 in 2011, and now @58, if it is still 62 they are losing pilots like flies in the summer. Hence, they have to hire at an insane pace, which means the AF is losing them at insane pace. However, they are not bringing on more planes, they are just replacing pilots. In the end what that means is in a few short years AF pilots will not be giving up that 6 figure bonus to stay because the airlines will slow their hiring rate down. In turn, that means the AF will need less pilots in the pipeline.
It is cyclical. Flieger will probably agree with me. In the 90s after Gulf I (@93), the AF basically cut the spigot off for the pilot pipeline. If you were number 1 you got heavies. Mid 90s (@96) the airlines started hiring at an insane pace, and the spigot was open to full force ---granted age waivers, vision waivers, etc. 9/11 occurred and the AF had enough pilots bc airlines were not hiring that waivers were hard to get.
~ Nobody here knows what that spigot will look like in 2021 when he is an AS300 up for the rated boards.
~~ I would say that the airlines will be a driving force on how that spigot will go regarding the amount the AF will need.
You will come to learn really quick that timing in the flying world is everything which is why I agree 1000% with Humey about the degree. Our DS is lucky on the timing thing and the network connections (we have several friends that will still be flying for the airlines and are left seaters). When DS winged, 1 friend even said " I will be your left seater on your 1st flight with SWA. DS laughed and he replied, I am not kidding!
