Ideal Military Pilot Career Path – Spelling it Out – Part 1

BogiDope readers, I continue to believe that a pilot can achieve the Ultimate Military Pilot Career Path by skipping Active Duty altogether and just joining the Guard or Reserves. However, for the thousands of military aviators who will join Active Duty every year anyway, the path I outline in this TPN Guest Post is their Ideal option. Enjoy!

You don’t see my name appear so frequently on TPN because I’m seeking fame or glory. Although I value the title of TPN Staff Writer, you won’t find it on my tombstone. I write what I do because I like helping people get the best possible flying careers. As such, I’m pleased to get frequent emails and DMs from you…asking for help or advice on your particular situation. Please continue to send me your questions!

One of the interesting things about fielding so many questions is that I see a lot of trend data. Many of my articles originate because I get repeat questions, and/or see the same questions in posts/comments on social media. That’s what prompted me to write this today.

I’ve posted extensively about considerations on whether to leave active duty as soon as possible, or stick it out until 20 years. My original post (http://www.aviationbull.com/2016/jun/23/military-pilot-should-i-give-retirement-join-airlines-now) said that the money is a wash, so you should consider other factors. After 2.5 years at Delta, with a cosy armchair-quarterback’s view, I now realize that my numbers in that post were way too conservative. If you compare those numbers to what I actually made during my first two years (http://www.aviationbull.com/2018/feb/26/airline-pilot-second-year-review) you’ll see that airline pay has the potential to drastically outpace military pay, even including retirement and heath care. In short: there is no financial justification for staying on active duty past your initial ADSC.

I feel like I’ve made this obvious, and that the resulting career path should be clear. However, based on several recent questions and discussions, I feel like I’m failing to communicate my intended message. What follows is my personal opinion of the ideal career path for any military pilot who wants a military pension. (If I had my way, this would be required reading for every pilot officer and warrant officer in the Air Force, Navy, Army, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. Please help me achieve that ideal by sharing this article with at least one of your fellow aviators.)

Military pilot training incurs an Active Duty Service Commitment/Obligation (ADSC/O) of 10 years, starting the day you get your wings. If you include time spent waiting to start, and then completing training, this means most pilots hit free agent status around 11 or 12 years of total active duty service.

Whether your primary concern is lifetime earnings, a secure retirement, or overall Quality of Life, I humbly assert that there is almost no reason to stay on active duty past that point. Separate…immediately. If possible, use Palace Chase or a similar program to get out early. Even if you choose to stay in, don’t take the bonus. Ask Admiral Akbar why not.

From here, you do two things more or less simultaneously. 1) you join a Guard or Reserve unit (hereafter just “Reserve,”) and 2) you start work at an airline. Ideally, you go directly to a major airline. If you can’t, there’s nothing wrong with doing a Regional Airline Touch & Go. (https://community.thepilotnetwork.org/posts/why-not-do-a-regional-airline-touch-go)

If you start at a regional, it’s critical that you focus as much as possible on flying there and doing whatever it takes to get hired by a major. The most critical point in this whole scenario is getting a seniority number at a major airline…because Seniority is Everything. (https://community.thepilotnetwork.org/posts/seniority-is-everything)

Once you’ve been hired by an airline, you continue serving part-time in the Reserves. Most units will want a minimum of one week per month from you (though there are exceptions we’ll discuss later.) If you want, you can do this week of military flying in addition to you airline flying, though I don’t recommend it. Sure, you’ll make a lot more money this way, but I feel like it’s just too much time away from home. You’ll burn out and it won’t be worth it in the long-run. Thankfully, though, there’s a good deal that protects every single one of us in this situation.

There’s a federal law call the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, or USERRA. (https://www.esgr.mil/USERRA/What-is-USERRA) This protects America’s reserve military capability by requiring all employers to give their employees up to five years of leave for military duty without any negative repercussions. At the airlines, this means that they have to let you keep your relative position on the seniority list while you’re out flying in the Reserves, among other things. This law is a great thing for us pilots!

You could take a full week of this Military Leave (or “Mil Leave”) every month for 9 years and only use up 756 days (2.07 years) of your 1825 day (5-year) USERRA limit…leaving you a full three years of slop. If nothing interesting happens in your career, you continue like this for 9 years and retire from the Reserves. This retirement isn’t as lucrative as the Active Duty pension, but it’s a whole lot better than nothing!

After retirement, you have a full week of your month back, every month, for the rest of your life. You can use it to increase your earnings significantly, or just keep your airline pay were it was and use that extra week for being with your family, pursuing a side-hustle, or relaxing.

For you Army types, like my buddy J-Lo, here’s the visual depiction of this career path:

That, to me, is the ultimate career path for a military pilot. You get to enjoy exciting, fulfilling flying in the military. You get health care and a military retirement. Yet, you don’t have to sacrifice your seniority position (and the associated Quality of Life) with your airline job. Not bad, eh?

But wait, there’s more!

Say something interesting comes up in your military job. Chances are you’ll have to deploy. Once you’ve done this a few times, the excitement largely wears off. However, after a few years as a glorified bus driver, you won’t mind as much heading out to kill the Commies. A deployment will eat up a lot more Mil Leave than usual, but remember you have a full three years of wiggle room available to you there. Using our assumptions above, you could spend 4 months per year deployed, for 9 years, and not expend your full 5-year USERRA allowance.

You might also get the opportunity to do something special. Maybe the U-2s get desperate and offer to hire reservists. (I’m not holding my breath, but I kind of am. How would you folks at Beale like to drink for free for the rest of your lives?  Maybe you get offered a command position. Even in the reserves, that’s a full-time job for 2-3 years. I’ve flown with current or past Reserve squadron commanders. I’ve even flown with a graduated ANG Wing commander. This guy had command of all the Air Power for an entire state…and he flew F-16s for 27 years…all without having to sacrifice anything at Delta. Maybe you’re a sick, demented soul and you just decide that you really miss doing staff work in a cubicle. There are Reserve jobs in places as high-up as the 5-sided wind tunnel, just waiting for you. USERRA gives you enough flexibility to take one of those jobs and do something truly unique for a few years, without giving up your airline seniority.

There are so many different kinds of opportunities available in the Reserves that I assert there’s almost nothing you could want out of a military career that you can’t get in the Reserves.

Don’t take my word for it, though. Let’s do a little exercise so you can prove that to yourself. Go grab a pen and paper, or power up a notepad on your smartphone.

I’m serious.

Go do it…I can wait.

Good. Now, I want you to write down the parts of military service that you truly love. I don’t mean the things you tell your Mom or your church friends when they ask you about your service. I mean the stuff that propels you out of bed with a smile on your face when you have to wake up at 0400 to go to work…the stuff that makes you secretly excited when you have to put on a pretend frowny-face and tell your spouse that you’re headed out on yet another deployment.

Here are some of the things that I wrote down:

• Flying the Bone

• Red Flag

• Deployed U-28 flying supporting friendly boots on the ground

• NVG ops

• Hanging out with great people
  

• All T-6 flying

• Giving flight instruction (all aircraft)

• Flying solo vs a solo formation student in the T-6

• IP vs IP formation cloud chasing in the T-6

• Flying upside down

• Leading people - maximizing effectiveness while minimizing stupidity
  

• Mentoring others

• Roll Call

Here are some things that aren’t on my list, yet might have appeared on yours:

• Managing large programs to benefit the taxpayers

• Elegantly solving big problems

• Science projects for my commander

• Educational opportunities

• Paperwork

• Attending staff meetings