Air force reserve

Pilot86

Pilot86

Well-Known Member
If you are a member of the air force reserve, serving one weekend a month. Is it possible to leave the country on travel as long as you are able to make it back before you have to leave to serve for that weekend? How much freedom do you have as a reservist?
Also, you are able to move anywhere in the country to take a job as long as you can commute back to your unit when you have to serve?
 
Drill weekends can be rescheduled, and individual units vary on the latitude of reasons they allow reschedules for.
 
So actual serving is very "forgiving" just as long as you serve atleast one weekend a month. Can you serve more than 1 weekend a month?
 
Pilot86 said:
So actual serving is very "forgiving" just as long as you serve atleast one weekend a month. Can you serve more than 1 weekend a month?
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If you are aircrew, you WILL have to do more than just one weekend a month. You do this by 15 days of Annual Tour you have that you can use whenever, and 48 periods of Additional Flying Training Periods (AFTPs), each being 4 hours. You can burn two a day. You manage these along with your Unit Training Assembly (UTA days, drill weekend days) for the Fiscal Year. If you don't use your AFTPs and AT days, you lose them at the end of the year, and thats money you are losing as well as training time.
 
The short answer to your questions is "Yes". You're free to go wherever and do whatever you please when you're not on duty. Like MikeD said, you have to put way more into it than the minimum one weekend per month, two weeks a year if you're going to stay current and make a useful contribution. I have a full time job traveling internationally and probably also put about one week into the reserves every month. You do have to do your two weeks of annual tour, but you're not required to use AFTPs (although they're there to keep you proficient at your job). You will also likely do deployments of 4-6 months or more from time to time, and you also have professional military education and other training courses that will eat up some of your time. By federal law, your civilian employer must give you time off to fulfill your military duties. I hope that answers your questions.
 
Great info! How does it work for a non-flying job (say acft Mx officer)? Also, how does it work for this scenario: Person gets job at Travis AFB active duty, can that person go reserve and do same job at same base on reserve side? Furthermore, what if that person gets job at say Ameriflight and doesn't get the Oakland base and instead gets the Portland base. How does that work for his reserve job? Is it not feasible to go to that base for work since its so far away? Also, what if that person has to move to a different location after a year, how does that work with keeping the reserve gig at Travis? Does that person have to apply at the next nearest reserve base for a position (if close enough)?

Sorry about the thousand questions, I've just always wondered these things.
 
Armarsh24 said:
Great info! How does it work for a non-flying job (say acft Mx officer)? Also, how does it work for this scenario: Person gets job at Travis AFB active duty, can that person go reserve and do same job at same base on reserve side? Furthermore, what if that person gets job at say Ameriflight and doesn't get the Oakland base and instead gets the Portland base. How does that work for his reserve job? Is it not feasible to go to that base for work since its so far away? Also, what if that person has to move to a different location after a year, how does that work with keeping the reserve gig at Travis? Does that person have to apply at the next nearest reserve base for a position (if close enough)?

Sorry about the thousand questions, I've just always wondered these things.
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Yes that person can do the same job reserve side. Moving further way from the unit for the civilian job can work a few different ways.

1. You transfer to a reserve unit closer to your civilian job (if they have openings), but buyer beware changing units constantly does not bid well for ones later opportunities and career. Most people end up making longer commutes to stay at the same unit.

2. You stay at your current unit and commute. At my unit they pay for the commute if you're on orders, for everything else, getting there is on your dime, but they do billet and feed you.

3. It begins to become too large of a commitement and you quit, see below.

Whether things are feasible or not is up to you and your civilian employer. It all depends on how busy your unit is, how much they need you there and on the flip side how much your civilian employer can stand gone for the military. Ya I know they can't take any punitive action against you or fire you for military service, but in my experience the law and how companies treat you are two different animals entirely. Being a mx manager at a 135 would be pretty hectic I'd imagine. I wouldn't exactly plan on them following the law to the letter. Also don't forget between balancing the two jobs you have to see your wife and kids sometimes, as well as downtime for yourself. It's all a big balance.

As far as getting into to a unit already, they have to have a opening to apply to. For officers they usually make an announcement and enlisted people looking to promote as well as people that are already officers from other places apply and interview for the position.

Edit: Reserve and Guard work pretty much the same, don't skip over the same opportunities in the Guard!
 
Thanks for the reply! I was considering the idea of being a Mx officer in Reserves/Guard and Flying for AMF (not Mx manager). Regardless, it would still be a big balancing act with the family as you have said. Thanks!

P.S Also looking into civilian UAS/RPA/UAV pilot options. I've seen some companies are looking for 300 hrs PIC with Commercial certificate and Instrument rating.
 
It's probably doable, I'm just not sure how they would fill in when you were gone. At the airlines they have guys that sit reserve waiting for someone to get sick, in a car crash on the way to work, go fulfill their military duties etc etc. However at a 135 carrier each pilot has his own line. i.e. You fly Cleveland - Columbus - Hamilton - Erie - Cleveland in a Caravan/Beech 99/Piper Twinstar etc etc 5 nights a week. So I really don't know if they have a reserve or fill in system set up. They must guys that fly 135 get sick too, I just have no idea how their system works for that kinda stuff. Again the guys over in the freight pilots forum would know all those specifics.
 
Ameriflight has jump seat agreements with a lot of folks from what I hear. I am interviewIng at another place a lot like ameriflight where there is a good chance of living else where. I still plan on giving the reserves their time as well. My wife and I talked about it though and if the civilian career proves to need more time i need to drop my reserve commitment, obviously using chain of command, not just stop showing up. I've been to units that are pretty understanding and other places that think they should be first 100% of the time over God and family.
 
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