How competitive are guard/Resere units exactly?

W

wannabejetpilot

Member
Hi, I'm considering the ang/reserve route to becoming a pilot. I hear every unit is really competitive based on location and airframe and also the fact that they like to hire from within their unit. Does anyone know how many people applied to the reserve upt board for each of fighters, heavies, and rescue units vs the number of slots that were available? I'm curious because I want to get an idea of how competitive and how many applicants the reserve board gets each year. I heard that the reserve application process is different from the guard in that they apply directly to the reserve headquarters instead of each unit. Can anyone give me statistics from the most recent Air Force reserve board? Also, can anyone give me a rough average of the number of applicants who apply to each guard heavy unit? I just want to know because I want to become a pilot( preferably fighter), but considering the fact I plan to apply as a civilian, and I plan to have flight time in helicopters, I am at a big disadvantage. I will soon be a college student majoring in biology with helicopter experience( I prefer over fixed wing because the careers pay better but I am intent on flying fixed wing for the military).So can anyone give me rough average numbers? I apologize this is long but I tried to put in details. Thanks.
 
Rotor-wing careers pay better than fixed-wing careers? I'd always understood that the opposite was true, at least from mid-career onwards. I don't know of any RW jobs that pay what the LCCs pay, let alone the legacies or big freight haulers. Anyone with more knowledge, please advise? (Traffic in the area, please advise? :D :stir: )
 
I was recently selected by the AFR board and I have no prior military experience. My scores were: PCSM - 99, AFOQT 99/94/92/86/88. As long as you do well on your tests you should get picked up. I'm a regional pilot, but I know several guys who were selected with just a private and/or instrument and many of them were not prior service either.
 
Ruck said:
Rotor-wing careers pay better than fixed-wing careers? I'd always understood that the opposite was true, at least from mid-career onwards. I don't know of any RW jobs that pay what the LCCs pay, let alone the legacies or big freight haulers. Anyone with more knowledge, please advise? (Traffic in the area, please advise? :D :stir: )
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May as well give up in aviation as a RW guy. No future. :)
 
MikeD said:
May as well give up in aviation as a RW guy. No future. :)
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Okay, except yours :D Seriously, not sure if serious (and you view your career as an exception) or sarcastic (and there are a ton of good civilian RW jobs I don't know about other than HEMS, oil rig taxi, 135 if you have the experience, etc?)
 
Ruck said:
Okay, except yours :D Seriously, not sure if serious (and you view your career as an exception) or sarcastic (and there are a ton of good civilian RW jobs I don't know about other than HEMS, oil rig taxi, 135 if you have the experience, etc?)
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Nah, I'm being funny. There's good future in RW, but obviously not 777 international captain pay. But still respectable work that is easily into the low to mid 6 figures, especially RW corporate work and some oil rig work. It really is better than it used to be.....certainly has improved. Entry level stuff like CFI, mid level work in air tour, then longer term work that will pay good pay.
 
MikeD said:
Nah, I'm being funny. There's good future in RW, but obviously not 777 international captain pay. But still respectable work that is easily into the low to mid 6 figures, especially RW corporate work and some oil rig work. It really is better than it used to be.....certainly has improved. Entry level stuff like CFI, mid level work in air tour, then longer term work that will pay good pay.
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Oh, so nooooowwwwww you tell me...
 
He keeps the good jobs to himself:

HelicopterMoney.png


:D
 
Try the airforceots, wantscheck and baseops forums. You meet many of the actual kids applying for the boards right there and they post their scores and results. I will say that your PCSM doesn't differentiate between RW or FW hours. That said, the cost/return of investment ratio favors FW.

If you have high AFOQT scores, flight time will matter less from what I've seen.
 
Ruck said:
Rotor-wing careers pay better than fixed-wing careers? I'd always understood that the opposite was true, at least from mid-career onwards. I don't know of any RW jobs that pay what the LCCs pay, let alone the legacies or big freight haulers. Anyone with more knowledge, please advise? (Traffic in the area, please advise? :D :stir: )
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So this is not true? I've read that helicopter pilot salaries start out higher than what fixed wing career salaries start out as(example: 20k/year for regional pilots).
 
wannabejetpilot said:
So this is not true? I've read that helicopter pilot salaries start out higher than what fixed wing career salaries start out as(example: 20k/year for regional pilots).
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Disclaimer: I'm gonna reply so you know I'm not ignoring you, but I'm just a flight student who happens to follow the industry relatively closely, so I'm not really the best person to answer this stuff from lived experience.

But, for what it's worth, I do know a couple things. For example, it's not at all true that 'starting out as a fixed wing pilot' is equivalent to 'starting out as a regional airline FO'. For example, starting out in p135 cargo nets starting pay that can be substantially higher, and that's not even getting into charter or corporate or a few other things you can do.

Plus, you have to remember that the upsides of that low 22k/year regional FO first-year pay are 1. it generally improves in relatively short order, 2. the guys that go to regionals may have a better chance at getting on with larger airlines, which can pay very well indeed (at the top end, better than any RW work) and 3. there's no direct helicopter equivalent to airline work, which in itself is what attracts some guys to the FW side.

But for any more detail than the above very rough overview, I'm gonna have to light the JC-signal and ask for people more experienced than me to come help me out in this thread! :)
 
aobt14 said:
I was recently selected by the AFR board and I have no prior military experience. My scores were: PCSM - 99, AFOQT 99/94/92/86/88. As long as you do well on your tests you should get picked up. I'm a regional pilot, but I know several guys who were selected with just a private and/or instrument and many of them were not prior service either.
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My main goal is to apply to mostly fighter units. I heard that the reserves(not including the guard) have very little number of fighter units. Is this true? Do you know exactly how many fighter units do they have?
 
wannabejetpilot said:
So this is not true? I've read that helicopter pilot salaries start out higher than what fixed wing career salaries start out as(example: 20k/year for regional pilots).
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What is it you are wanting to do? Pursue a helo career or a fixed wing one?
 
aobt14 said:
I was recently selected by the AFR board and I have no prior military experience. My scores were: PCSM - 99, AFOQT 99/94/92/86/88. As long as you do well on your tests you should get picked up. I'm a regional pilot, but I know several guys who were selected with just a private and/or instrument and many of them were not prior service either.[/QUOTE
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awesome!! What type of airframe do you fly?
 
Ruck said:
Disclaimer: I'm gonna reply so you know I'm not ignoring you, but I'm just a flight student who happens to follow the industry relatively closely, so I'm not really the best person to answer this stuff from lived experience.

But, for what it's worth, I do know a couple things. For example, it's not at all true that 'starting out as a fixed wing pilot' is equivalent to 'starting out as a regional airline FO'. For example, starting out in p135 cargo nets starting pay that can be substantially higher, and that's not even getting into charter or corporate or a few other things you can do.

Plus, you have to remember that the upsides of that low 22k/year regional FO first-year pay are 1. it generally improves in relatively short order, 2. the guys that go to regionals may have a better chance at getting on with larger airlines, which can pay very well indeed (at the top end, better than any RW work) and 3. there's no direct helicopter equivalent to airline work, which in itself is what attracts some guys to the FW side.

But for any more detail than the above very rough overview, I'm gonna have to light the JC-signal and ask for people more experienced than me to come help me out in this thread! :)
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When I stated "starting out" I meant entry level jobs. I heard that RW pilot entry level careers pay more than an entry level career for fixed wing pilots. The airlines start to pay well during the later half of their career, based on what I've researched.
 
MikeD said:
What is it you are wanting to do? Pursue a helo career or a fixed wing one?
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I think this is the question you must really answer. I'm not saying you should only ever fly one, but if it were me at the point of not having started college yet and being early in life, I'd be picking the one I wanted to do more, and putting my focus on that for now so as to excel for prospective employers - whether military or civilian.
 
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