RPA Questions
Hey RPA folks, if yall have the time could you please provide me with some insight/advice regarding the following questions:
How is the family life balance with this career? I initially wanted to apply for a pilot slot but since learning more about the afsc especially from the heavy pilots I have read from, the biggest thing I saw was a mentioning of constantly being away from family with being gone a lot of the year from TDYs and deployments. I have read with RPA deployments are more so voluntary and the issue in family life typically is within the often night shifts. Could you shed some light on this?
What was your overall job satisfaction? Did you feel as though through being an RPA pilot you were making a direct difference in the mission and have had an overall enjoyable time doing your job day to day? I personally at least as of now with my limited research on different rpa aircraft am looking at maybe trying to get an RQ-170 slot assuming all goes well with getting selected for RPA in the first place; do you know if reconnaissance planes such as the RQ play a big role in the mission?
How are the bases? I have heard there is a limited selection on bases to get stationed at in this career field, is this a big deal? Are the areas of the bases good for a family?
What are the after retirement opportunities looking like? One thing I am hesitant on with RPA is if I'll be able to find any RPA pilot related jobs after the airforce. With a manned pilot slot I know I could go to the airlines afterwards and make 200k + but with RPA I can't really find many opportunities when researching on the topic. What would you say about this?
Lastly, if you could go back, what if anything would you have done differently? Do you have any regrets in this AFSC?