Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
Re: Reserve figher pilot + airline + family in a post TFI wo
The short answer is going to be this (and if you've been researching this for a long time on the 'net like you say you have, you've seen me post this before):
You simply do not have enough time in life to comfortably have a fighter guard/reserve job and a 121 airline job (one of which you have to commute to), and have a family life. That was true about 8 years ago (when I was planning to leave AD and set up such a life), and is still true today. None of the TFI things you're referencing have made that scenario any better, considering the increase in deployment frequency and length that the current OPTEMPO brings.
As I said, I was thinking about leaving AD a while back and setting up the same lifestyle you're looking at: ANG fighter job (that I was going to commute to), 121 airline job (that I was going to live in base), and a young family that I wanted to spend more time with (because the pace of things as a USAF fighter guy had meant I was spending more time away from home than I wanted). As I started to research that plan, and got to talking to buds who were flying for the ANG and trying to play the same game, there were two distinct camps: There were the guys who made it work but didn't recommend it, and there were the guys who were having problems with it and didn't recommend it.
The guys who made it work were usually pretty senior-ish at their airline gig, and could modify their schedule to fit in family time...or they didn't have kids and could be a lot more flexible with when they saw their wife. As has been mentioned, those guys were usually also BMC at their fighter units (instead of CMR) because of the amount of time they could spend flying at the unit. One tough weather week, or some maintenance cancels during the time they spent at their fighter job, could totally crap on their ability to accomplish all the RAP squares they needed to in order to stay current.
Can it be done? Yes, but you HAVE to minimize the commute time....meaning you have to live in either your fighter unit or your airline base (I recommend your fighter unit since it's least likely to change). And you have to accept that you will have very little freedom to decide what kind of free time you want with your family.
But, more importantly...it's going to be 4 years before you even have to worry about this issue. After the alphabet soup of training (the UPT - IFF - FTU train will likely take 2 years alone), and the full time seasoning period at your fighter unit, then you can start worrying about the airline gig.
My advice: pretend you didn't even have the airline gig, and make decisions about where to live based only on the military flying you're going to do in the next 3 or 4 years...then make follow-on decisions about where to live (and where your wife will work) later on down the road when you know more about the OPTEMPO your fighter unit will be facing, and what the airline biz is going to be like then.
Brother, while I understand your stress over trying to make decisions about where to live in a couple years, that "training to pass" that you are referencing there are going to be major life events to successfully finish before you will even have time to think about what you want to think about right now.
Based on your sig, I'm assuming that you're the CFI and King Air pilot in that website...don't think that because of your civilian experience that you have OTS, IFS, UPT, IFF, and the A-10 FTU in the bag. I have been both a T-38 SUPT IP as well as an AT-38 IFF IP, and I've seen many students with many different experience levels come through the program.
Your civilian experience is NO GUARANTEE in any way that you'll even pass the program, much less perform at the level you probably want to perform at.
In fact, what I've noticed on my latest gig as an SUPT IP, is that there's more of a significant emotional impact on experienced civilian pilots when they get to the T-38 because it's the first time in a while that they've been completely overwhelmed by both the aircraft and the intensity of the training program. At IFF, it was usually the "I've been successful at everything in my life" types who had problems with the fact that they were suddenly up against something they weren't all that good at...but that's a different story.
The short answer is going to be this (and if you've been researching this for a long time on the 'net like you say you have, you've seen me post this before):
You simply do not have enough time in life to comfortably have a fighter guard/reserve job and a 121 airline job (one of which you have to commute to), and have a family life. That was true about 8 years ago (when I was planning to leave AD and set up such a life), and is still true today. None of the TFI things you're referencing have made that scenario any better, considering the increase in deployment frequency and length that the current OPTEMPO brings.
As I said, I was thinking about leaving AD a while back and setting up the same lifestyle you're looking at: ANG fighter job (that I was going to commute to), 121 airline job (that I was going to live in base), and a young family that I wanted to spend more time with (because the pace of things as a USAF fighter guy had meant I was spending more time away from home than I wanted). As I started to research that plan, and got to talking to buds who were flying for the ANG and trying to play the same game, there were two distinct camps: There were the guys who made it work but didn't recommend it, and there were the guys who were having problems with it and didn't recommend it.
The guys who made it work were usually pretty senior-ish at their airline gig, and could modify their schedule to fit in family time...or they didn't have kids and could be a lot more flexible with when they saw their wife. As has been mentioned, those guys were usually also BMC at their fighter units (instead of CMR) because of the amount of time they could spend flying at the unit. One tough weather week, or some maintenance cancels during the time they spent at their fighter job, could totally crap on their ability to accomplish all the RAP squares they needed to in order to stay current.
Can it be done? Yes, but you HAVE to minimize the commute time....meaning you have to live in either your fighter unit or your airline base (I recommend your fighter unit since it's least likely to change). And you have to accept that you will have very little freedom to decide what kind of free time you want with your family.
But, more importantly...it's going to be 4 years before you even have to worry about this issue. After the alphabet soup of training (the UPT - IFF - FTU train will likely take 2 years alone), and the full time seasoning period at your fighter unit, then you can start worrying about the airline gig.
My advice: pretend you didn't even have the airline gig, and make decisions about where to live based only on the military flying you're going to do in the next 3 or 4 years...then make follow-on decisions about where to live (and where your wife will work) later on down the road when you know more about the OPTEMPO your fighter unit will be facing, and what the airline biz is going to be like then.
Brother, while I understand your stress over trying to make decisions about where to live in a couple years, that "training to pass" that you are referencing there are going to be major life events to successfully finish before you will even have time to think about what you want to think about right now.
Based on your sig, I'm assuming that you're the CFI and King Air pilot in that website...don't think that because of your civilian experience that you have OTS, IFS, UPT, IFF, and the A-10 FTU in the bag. I have been both a T-38 SUPT IP as well as an AT-38 IFF IP, and I've seen many students with many different experience levels come through the program.
Your civilian experience is NO GUARANTEE in any way that you'll even pass the program, much less perform at the level you probably want to perform at.
In fact, what I've noticed on my latest gig as an SUPT IP, is that there's more of a significant emotional impact on experienced civilian pilots when they get to the T-38 because it's the first time in a while that they've been completely overwhelmed by both the aircraft and the intensity of the training program. At IFF, it was usually the "I've been successful at everything in my life" types who had problems with the fact that they were suddenly up against something they weren't all that good at...but that's a different story.
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