Alright, I have seached the web and I still cant find an answer to this. This question only refers to fighter pilots. How long do they have to serve after graduation. Also, do they get to live a life with a house, wife, and childeren? Or do they have to stay at base 24/7? How long is the recquired service length?
6 responses so far ↓
1 upthcrek
I believe an officer is required to sever for a minimum of 4 years after college if the military pays for it.
2 GoGo Girls
I don’t know about the service length, but I do know that yes they can and do have families. Now some pilots have to pull alert, but there is family time at the alert facility.
3 cpl3043usmc
Yes, you can have a family and be in the Air Force. You can live on-base in base housing, or you can live out in town.
Contract length varies, but know that ALL intial contracts are for 8 years–this is active, reserve, and inactive reserve (IRR) time combined. As an officer, and more specifically, as a pilot you’ll probably have to do 6 years, since you spend the first 18 months or so training between OCS (Officer Candidate School) and flight training.
As far as being restricted to base, only if you are on duty. Once you are secured from duty, you can go home just like normal people do.
I hope that this answers your questions. If you have more, I strongly urge you to talk to an officer recruiter for the Air Force. Got to their website:.
4 Nicole
4 years is generally the increment you sign up for. If you are already in the Air Force and change bases, you generally need to have at least 3 years left in your contract (especially if you ask for the move- in which case if say you only had 2 yrs left, and they approve your move, they’ll just add a year onto your contract).
As far as living with your family, as long as the base you’ve been assigned permits you to bring your family (Korea, Iraq, and several other places are too dangerous for you to bring family with you) then by all means move your wife and kids with you.
Not 100% sure, but I believe that all bases have family housing. And if there is not family housing on base, or if you do not for whatever reason WANT to live in base housing, you will be given monthly BAH (basic allowance for housing) which will give you adequate $$ for rent, or a good portion of your monthly house payment if you buy.
5 Brian C
If I’m not mistaken, and I might very well be, fighter pilots have a service length of six years, due to the length of their training and the fact that they have a critical skill. Most pilots I knew had a normal life unless they were on stand-by or alert, at which time they had to stay on base. The service length portion of my answer may be erroneous, but the second half is correct.
6 Dust
I have a figher pilot friend and he told me that the initial enlistment is 10yrs becuase the training is about 2yrs long and it costs alot of money. The 2yrs of training counts against your enlistment so really once you get to your first duty station you only have 8yrs left. And for reenlisting it varies.