This is incredibly helpful.. thanks so much for taking the time to put this together! Hopefully they open it back up for pilots soon, as I'm very interested.
In the mean time, would you mind elaborating on why it's such a good deal, and what the downsides are from your perspective? You mentioned there's a lot more opportunity to string together flying tours... is that true more or less regardless of the community? And does that realistically mean accepting repeated sea tours (or whatever the AF calls them), or are there plenty of flying shore tours (even if OCONUS... just not separating from family for months at a time)? Thinking specifically at the O-4/O-5 levels.
Thanks again!
I wish I had insight on what the holdup is on the IST program, when it opens back up is anyone's guess.
As to why it's a good deal, to me, it's because the AF gives you a lot more paths and avenues to fly your entire career. So far, since I started flight school 15 years ago I've never left the cockpit. My entire goal has been to fly as much as possible and the Navy was forcing me into 3 years of non-flying, with no wiggle room. Instead, I've logged a little over 400 hours in the past 15 months. As you get senior, if you end up as a terminal O-4, the AF has a lot of options to keep flying. Right now they almost force you into flying and you have to ask to go to a non-flying job. If you make O-5, there's not as many options but there are still plenty of billets that will keep you in the cockpit and flying at least once every week or so, if not more. It's not like the Navy where, as an O-5, if you aren't a CO/XO, you are almost virtually guaranteed to never fly again.
For me personally, I just made O-5 so I have some choices to make, whether to pursue command or pursue some various flying options. One thing I do like about the AF and command screen is you have to opt in, and you don't have the narrow window to screen like the Navy does. The other nice thing is that I have options that will let me stay in the cockpit until the day I retire if I choose.
As to deployments, in my community it's different because they'll deploy individual crews and not the entire squadron. I just got home from a two month deployment and probably won't deploy again for quite some time. There are some non-flying deployments out there, and the AF has their version of the IA/GSA deployments called a 365 or 180-day. Those do suck but the number of those types of deployments are dwindling as ops in CENTCOM aren't as busy as the heavy days of Iraq/Afghanistan.