Best option to get an FAA ATC job

Goblue Newcomer

---Hello I am new to this forum but have been reading these threads extensively because of the huge amount of information available here. You guys seem to have great advice and a ton of knowledge when it comes to ATC so I'm here to ask some questions and I hope you guys can help me out.
I am 20 years old and have 2 years of college under my belt. I want to go ATC and CTI isn't really in the picture for me. I am done with the whole college thing so that's out of the picture too. I am absolutely committed to doing ATC and I was wondering what was the best/quickest way of doing this through the military and being hired by the FAA is. I have a couple options that I am considering and I wanted to know your advice on them. The options are currently Air Force, Air Force Reserve, Navy, Navy reserves, or the Air National Guard.
---Basically I want to know which one would lead me to being an FAA controller the quickest. I know the Air Force requires you to be enlisted for 6 years and that seems sort of steep for me but I would be willing to do it if it was the best route. From what I have read around here, the Navy is a 5 or 6 year commitment with an option of taking the last year off if you do not take the signing bonus. Now I prefer the Air Force because I have heard that ship duty and certain Navy stations do not count for the FAA. The main beef I have with active duty in the Air Force/Navy is the idea of not getting a guaranteed job and wasting my time doing some other job in the military. I would be royally pissed if I had to serve for 4 years doing something else. However, going enlisted sounds like a great life opportunity but I'm not in it for that. I'm doing this in order to become a civilian ATC. That is my goal and that is my main drive. If I end up loving the military, who knows, maybe I'll make a career out of it but for now im focused on working in an airport and having a normal civilian life eventually.
---As for the reserves/guard, I do not fully understand how this works. So you can sign up, do your basic training and tech school and then training and deployment (total 1.5-2 years I believe?) and you can then apply for a FAA controller job? I know you do the 2 weeks/1 weekend a month thing...but if this is the case, isnt this the quickest and most surefire way of becoming an ATC? I dont see the cons of this process which is why I want your feedback. This seems to qualify me, train me, and allow me to become an ATC in 2 years or so compared to the 4-6 that it would take being enlisted, would it not? Is there something I am missing here or something that enlisted provides that I am not aware of? Would the extra training in the extra years of enlisted duty equal a higher starting salary in the FAA once I switched over or would both options give me the same starting salary? If the latter is the case, I would much rather get into the FAA sooner rather than later. Since I'm only 20, I have enough time to go enlisted if that is the best route but I want to know the differences between that and the Guard/Reserves route.
---Ok that's enough of me rambling for now. I'm sorry for the book of a post I just wrote for you guys but it's a huge decision for me and I have 6 months to make my decision before I start paying off my outrageous student loans (another reason I am only considering the military). Another factor is that the nearest ANG station to me is hours away so I want to know as much as I possibly can before I take the long drive to talk to the recruiter. I would appreciate any feedback you guys can give.

whegner Junior Member

Frankly your best bet is to finish school and apply OTS or go through a CTi program. Joining the military is not what you want to do unless you really want to join the military. In other words you can't go in looking at it as a means to an end. If you do, you'll be miserable.

If you do join, the process is this:

First, get a high enough score on your ASVAb to qualify for ATC. Very important, if you don't score high enough, you can't get ATC.

Second, if qualified make sure the job is guaranteed in your contract...not one of 4 choices, not "open", not Air Command and Control. AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL. To get a guarantee you will probably have to do 6 years active duty regardless of branch.

Don't assume the Air Force is be all, end all on this. The Navy or Marines produce outstanding controllers who work all kinds of traffic at very busy East coast/West coast installations. If you are a Navy reservist you will not be assigned a ship.

I am a former Marine and the way it worked for us (1984, things may have changed) was you could join for either 4 or 6 years active or reserve. You go to the Navy/Marine Corps academy and learn Radar and Tower. Go to your first duty station and OJT for 6 months (radar) up to 1 year for tower (more than a year and you're done...off to cook's school ). Once rated, you are FAA certified (I don't know about now, but it used to be that only Navy/Marine controllers were FAA rated AF and Army were not). If you are a reservist you stay on active duty through OJT and once rated you go to once a month/2 weeks a year.

bigrex81 Rookie Oak Harbor, WA

I was in the exact same position as you. All I wanted to do is to use the military to get an ATC career, and thats exactly what I did. I chose the Navy. First, you have to score high enough on the ADSVAP to qualify for it, its not really that hard. Just go take the test. You can take it with absolutley NO commitment to any branch of service. Once the test is taken your score applies to ALL branches. Next for the Navy it is a 5 year enlistment and your ATC job is GUARANTEED. You might have to wait a while for them to get a school date for ATC but tell them that is all you want and they will work with you. DO NOT TAKE ANYTHING ELSE OR THEY CAN SCREW YOU. But if you hold out for ATC that is your job. It is true that on a ship any qualifications you get mean nothing for the FAA. So my advice is to work your ass off in school, if you graduate 1st in your class you have the first pick of available orders. If you get shore duty, your good to go. Thats what I did, and I got 5 full years of shore duty at a great facility. I am out of the Navy in 1 month and I have a lot of experience and a CTO at a busy facility. The Army will be mostly helicopter traffic, the Air Force you will work with a bunch of civilians (not a terrible thing, they have a lot of good info), and the Marines is not a guaranteed job (not sure how it works, but from my understanding they put you in for a pool of jobs and one of them MIGHT be ATC). If you go reserves in any branch 2 years is generally not enough time to achieve the qualifications the FAA wants. Thats just my experience. Hope it helps. And for what its worth, I would go active duty Navy. Any other questions you can message me.

whegner Junior Member

Just a side bar here but the Marine Corps will guarantee an MOS. I went in guaranteed 7312 ATC-Tower with a bonus and accelerated promotion through Cpl. (E-4).

Of course, that was 25 years ago so it may have changed. One thing about the Corps though, if you don't keep up both in ATC and basic Marine stuff...you will wash out and end up in Motor-T, Cooks, Infantry which is why the Corps is not for everybody. It is a great motivator to know your stuff though.

speediebang Senior Member Gulfport, Mississippi

USAF offers guaranteed as well, with a fast track to E-3 at the end of tech school. Make your choice bro! HAHA!

atcguruaf Rico Suave AZ

no to mention the re-enlistment bonus is up to 90K!

speediebang Senior Member Gulfport, Mississippi

Well said!

Goblue Newcomer

Thanks for the advice guys. Is it harder to get a job guaranteed in the AF? I took the preliminary asvab test at the recruiters and got an 84 so I'm not really worried about my ASVAB score.

whegner Junior Member

It's always based on the needs of the service. If the AF needs many more controllers in a particular year, they will be more apt to guarantee a contract...same with the other branches as well. Again the better you perform on the actual ASVAB enhances your leverage.

Also you need to understand that the different services utilize different aspects of the ASVAB and score it differently to determine MOS eligibility. For example, the Marine Corps uses the "GT" (Arithmetic Reasoning (AR)+Word Knowledge and Paragraph Comprehension (VE)) with a minimum of 105. The Air Force uses the "G" (Word Knowledge (WK) + Paragraph Comprehension (PC) + Arithmetic Reasoning (AR)) score of 53. The Navy just asks you to saunter around the recruiting office in a pair of tight white pants for a while...just to see how it feels.

Also, ATC almost always rates a re-enlistment bonus regardless of branch. I know my first re-up in '90 netted me 36k. I'm pretty sure it's higher now.

Radium Epic Member SoCal Tracon

holy crap. Such babbling.

I pm'd you but again short and sweet:

ASVAB is a joke. If you are not "smart" enough to qualify for ATC you should shoot yourself. (In fact atc is not that high requirement anyway).
Getting a guaranteed job isnt hard, just be persistent... Say you want ATC, they say no, you say ok peace out. Then rinse and repeat with different recruiters till you get what ya want. Every state should have 5+ recruiters... more like 100 if you are from California.
I'd do reserve and pubnat at the same time. Ideally getting picked up VRA would be pimp, but if pubnat got you in say.... 1 yr earlier... that would be the way to go.
Pubnat is looking at EASY 2 years from the day you apply to the day you get to the FAA Acad. VRA (reserve/guard) is more like 2yrs to get thru training/get a deployment to qualify, then 6-12mnths to get picked up/to faa acad.
VRA is gonna mean easily 30-50g's more your 1st year (sign on bonus, reduced time @ academy, d1 pay @ facility instead of AG pay).... but if VRA will take another say... 1-2 years, its not worth it, cause in that time you COULD be WELL on your way to CPC rated in the FAA.

Also, all this babble about re-up bonus money isnt really important, as you want to go to the FAA... not to mention RESERVE guys dont get the full bonus I believe... but even if they did, it still doesnt matter as that wasnt even a question from you.