Forum: Future F-16 crew

I am very interested in applying for an ANG pilot slot with the 150th FW in New Mexico. I currently work for the Air Force Research Laboratoy as a Civilian Research Mechanical Engineer.

What is pilot life like in the ANG? Roughly, how often and how long could I look at being deployed for?

I would like to be able to tell my supervisor these kinds of things to see what he thinks.

F-16.net Sponsor

Hi Spit, welcome to the forum.

Have you talked with a recruiter yet? If not I could probably get you in touch with the right people.

Taco44

Hey spitfire,

First a disclaimer, Im not sure how spot-on this is, the info is based on a conversation I had with a ret guard fighter pilot.

Deployments with ANG fighter units are typically rotations. It works sort of an on-call system where the ANG fighter units take a turn in the barrel for 2 month periods. Should a situation arise that needs a fighter squadron (ie southern watch, OIF etc.) then the n-duty unit gets shipped, typically for 60 days at which point the next squad is rotated in to fill their spot. It works out that your ANG unit will be "on-call" once every 3 years or so (this may change with BRAC)

Follow your passion, the rest will fall into place!

~mix

Taco44 wrote:

Have you talked with a recruiter yet? If not I could probably get you in touch with the right people.

I have talked with a recruiter and am planning on taking my qualification tests around the end of May. The recruiter I spoke with also hooked me up with one of the pilots out there. He was a really cool guy and helped me out a lot with all my questions. I look forward to meeting with him again and hopefully I'll be able to meet some more of you guys out there.

Do you have any suggestions on what I need to be doing to increase my chance of selection?

I currently work for the Air Force Research Laboratory as a mechanical engineer. I'm also currently working on my Master's and should be done in December. I have some civilian flying time and am currently working on increasing my number of flying hours, as you all know it is pretty expensive though. I think I will be able to get some pretty good letters of recommendation as well, a general and ex-governer hopefully.

trailmix wrote:

First a disclaimer, Im not sure how spot-on this is, the info is based on a conversation I had with a ret guard fighter pilot.

Deployments with ANG fighter units are typically rotations. It works sort of an on-call system where the ANG fighter units take a turn in the barrel for 2 month periods. Should a situation arise that needs a fighter squadron (ie southern watch, OIF etc.) then the n-duty unit gets shipped, typically for 60 days at which point the next squad is rotated in to fill their spot. It works out that your ANG unit will be "on-call" once every 3 years or so (this may change with BRAC)

Follow your passion, the rest will fall into place!

Thanks for the info and the encouragement. I read that other forum you started about the AFOQT. Man,... congratulations those are some awesome scores. Hopefully I'll represent us engineers just as well as you when I take it.

I've read many places that Pilot's must have a minimum score of 25 for the pilot section of the test. They don't mean 25 percentile do they? That would seem to be way to low.

yeah thats exactly what they mean... 25%. If you fly already you'll have no problems getting into the 90's. I was confused at first too because I was like... 25% to fly jets? really?

I think I am in the same boat as you... just finishing my masters and not looking forward to real world work just yet. Lemme know if you have any other questions and good luck.

~mix

Forum: Future F-16 crew

F-16 pilot life in the ANG