Does flying start feeling like a job after a while?

[Boomer6]

10 hours ago, Bropofol said:

Cheers everyone. I think I’ll go ahead and try my luck for a spot.

Side note, do you find time to go on vacations and travel? I think that’s one part that I like about my current job and would like to keep. Though most of you are probably airline pilots and just want to be home most times. I think I read somewhere that you have to check in with your unit and so long you are not going to Moscow you should be good.

All of the things you've mentioned related to preserving medical job opportunities, vacation, etc. make me confident in the following statement:

Regarding vacation, I can only speak for what I've seen and heard in the fighter world, but it is quite commom depending on your CC, DO, or WO. You're in an upgrade: don't take leave. You have to projo a TDY: don't take leave. We have an inspection to prep for, there is a base exercise, etc..dont take leave. I know a lot of bros that have lost leave due to these very things (myself included). I also know a few dudes that said, "F that noise my parents have never met their grandchildren so I'm taking leave to go see them." They were taken out of the upgrade, set as the lowest priority, or screwed in their next assignment. All this because they didn't show enough "commitment" based on when they took leave, or that they took it at all during the above events.

My point is, this is not how the guard operates. This mindset of screwing over ppl for living their lives because it causes the bobs a minor inconvenience is one of many reasons if I could do it all over again I would never go AD. I'd go straight to the guard. You can still do TFI if you want to dip your toes in to see what active duty life is like.

Edited May 12 by Boomer6

[SocialD]

On 5/11/2024 at 9:50 PM, Springer said:

After being paid to fly, some of us will pay to fly.

 

 

 

Springer Johnson is spot on!   If the weather is nice tomorrow, I'll be stopping by the airport on my way from my airline trip, to go bounce around some local grass strips.  

[Smokin]

You get 30 days of leave per year.  You can only accumulate 60 days at the end of each fiscal year and it looks bad on the squadron if you get leave taken away for not using it.  I'm approaching retirement and I've lost 1/2 day of leave in 20 years.  If you are not taking 30 days of vacation a year, then there's a 90% chance its a you problem.  Obviously extenuating circumstances exist (deployments, exercises, upgrades, etc) but even bad commanders rarely gives anyone grief for taking leave if it isn't during an exercise or something like that.

[Majestik Møøse]

The key to satisfaction in any job is work-life balance. You’ll go through periods in military flying where you get a lot of satisfaction from doing it all. You’ll want to double turn every day while instructing tactics, advising test/acquisitions projects, honchoing real/LFE deployments and spend all night in the bar talking about it afterwards. More more more. The key is to figure out how to keep that mental energy to a sustainable pace before you fall off a cliff without realizing it. Plenty of pilots surge 100% for years and suddenly burn out. Can happen in any job, try not to do that.
 

If there’s so much going on that you can’t enjoy flying a military jet, you’re probably doing too much.

[Standby]

10 minutes ago, Majestik Møøse said:

honchoing

Every time I try to get this word into an OPR some exec takes it out. Maybe future officers will have more success than I.