xwingexplorer

Hi all. Requesting feedback on my chances at a Reserves or Guard unit, and currently considering both fighters and heavies. AFOQT: Pilot 89 / Nav 98 / Acad Apt 95 / Verbal 94 / Quant 92 PCSM: 89 (with another 12 hours, this should bump up to 93, so I plan on getting those additional hours shortly) Flying: PPL, 88 hours, will start working towards instrument soon GPA: 3.57 (BA Economics), Also have master’s Prior Service: Previous active duty USAF officer (4 years, O3) in Contracting, deployed once (Baghdad) Age: 33 (turned 33 in Jan) LORs: 1 from previous squadron commander, 1 from coworker, 1 from good friend. I believe all are strong and highlight various qualities that I think units would look for. Misc: A couple ‘extracurricular' facts. Curious if anyone recommends including them in my cover letter as unique background that units may look for. I don’t want to come across as needlessly arrogant, but also don’t want to leave any stone unturned: - I have my skydiving license (48 jumps). - I currently work at the F-35 Joint Program Office (contract specialist). Job involves negotiating various F-35 requirements and putting them on contract / awarding them. Awarded a $150M contract for durability testing on the F-35B last year, and also negotiated the F-35’s automatic ground collision avoidance system (same AGCAS as F-16, updated for F-35 implementation). It's a crazy pace, but a very interesting place to work for sure. - My grandfather was a fighter pilot in the early days of aviation, and was later the commander of the Pakistan Air Force…got my love of flying through him. - Hobbies – photography, videography, personal finance guru, fitness. I’m genuinely considering both fighters / heavies at this point. I'm having difficulty deciding - the more frequent flying you get to do in heavies is very attractive to me, but then I would love flying fighters too I believe. A few people have understandably mentioned my age will probably make me a no go for fighters, but I’d still be interested in additional feedback on that point. Thanks, all!

Thanks. Yea I was really just trying to get an idea of what the biggest thing was for most people. I was in for 4 years and had no major issues with it at all - overall great experience. But that may also be because I wasn't in long enough to get to the point where I hated that feeling of total restriction. I did 1 deployment and 1 PCS, and I was satisfied w/ both. If I'd stayed in longer I may have understood better first-hand the disadvantages of AD others refer to.

Makes sense - I figured that would be the case. Thanks.

Got it. Thanks!

Thanks. Unsponsored leading to tracking T1s - is that a set / required thing? As in, that IS for a fact what you'll be tracking and then going on to heavies? In a couple other posts I was reading, people mentioned the possibility of going unsponsored and then trying to get picked up by a fighter unit. Admittedly it seemed unlikely since there arent many fighter reserve units, but it seemed possible unless there's more to it I'm not aware of ? Thanks.

Sorry to bump a really old comment, but I came upon this while reading through various posts. Does this mean that for some reason it's easier to go fighters if you go ANG vs AFR? I thought Guard still fell under AFRC but wasn't sure after reading your comment. Thanks for the clarification.

If I may ask, why do your friends dislike AD? I have an idea of the differences, but I'm trying to get a sense of which one is the biggest for people. Is it a collective combination of 1) control over location / deployments 2) ability to have a civilian career on the side if you want and 3) more relaxed environment? Or is there anything else too that I'm missing. I was active duty myself, and honestly didn't know a thing about the guard / reserves side until I started researching it actively 2 months ago.

Did you address your age in your cover letter / resume / application at all? Something like "I know i'm older but I bring xyz to the table..."? I figured I wouldn't, that if they like me enough to interview me I could address it at the interview, but curious how other older applicants handled this. Thanks!

Can I ask what this video for your application is? I'm at the beginning of the process - working on my first application now. But in everything that I have read on forums so far, I hadn't read of a video. Do some applications require you to make a video?

Thanks for all the advice. That's kind of what I was thinking too about the cover letter - avoid generalized stuff that everyone will include, and cover anything not addressed in resume.

I was able to call the PCSM folks directly and they confirmed the instructional hours are ones where you have been instructed - so I am good to go. I'll leave this post up as opposed to deleting it, however, in case anyone else has the same question in the future.

Question on providing the correct # hours to the PCSM folks. The PCSM worksheet requests "instructional and/or pilot in charge private flying hours". The "instructional" here refers to hours where I have been instructed, correct? Not hours where I have instructed someone else? (The latter wouldn't make sense to me as your logbook doesn't track hours where you are instructing someone, and the former does make sense since your logbook tracks ground / flight training received.) Want to confirm so I provide the right figure. Thanks!

Got it - will do. Yep, I pulled the standard format from my application and will follow it. Thank you!

Thanks. I was expecting that to be the case. I'll take another chop at it to get it to 1 page.

Is there a recommended limit on the cover letter length? Traditionally I've always understood it to be 1 page. But when I drafted mine, and added background on the various top-level points that I think might separate me from other candidate, I ended up at just over 2 pages. Would appreciate any thoughts / guidance. Thanks!