How difficult is balancing civilian life with being a pilot in the National Guard or Army Reserves?

The biggest challenge I had was studying at home. Hopefully you can retain the significant amount of knowledge without a lot of studying post flight school but that wasn't the case for me so I was studying on my own time, unpaid, whereas AD, and AD pilots please correct me if I'm wrong, can get some of that studying done on the clock so to speak if they manage their time at work. Any officer or NCO in the guard, in any MOS, that is successful ends up working varying amounts of unpaid time especially when they are in green tab positions. Which isn't just a money issue but you're also taking time away from your other obligations to call into that training meeting etc. Also it is defiantly not one weekend a month two weeks a year. Probably an average of one extra day per week to go fly and add on schooling maybe not every year but more so than the average MOS. If you're not already tied to a location I would recommend starting on AD and join the guard later. The more established you are in your airframe the easier it will be to switch between pilot and civilian day to day. You could even switch to Warrant Officer in most states if that appeals to you.

The Guard (and Reserves) definitely offer a great way to experience the joy of Army Aviation while minimizing some of the less-than-flattering nuances of the Active Component. The Guard won’t be moving you around every couple of years and whether it is family, Civilian pursuits, Education, etc you will have a lot more flexibility. There are also AGR opportunities which are Active Duty positions in the ARNG and the USAR. AGR in the USAR is pretty similar to COMPO 1, PCSing every few years, HRC at Fort Knox, etc but AGR in the ARNG is full Active Duty Pay & Benefits which will leave you mostly in your home State. You won’t get PCSd involuntarily as a T32 AGR across the country. So there’s that mix for you. Most of your Guard pilots spend a lot more time flying around the National Airspace rather than staying “close to the reservation.” The flying hour requirements are identical. The Active Component will have more to offer when it comes to Special Operations, SMU’s, diverse international flight opportunities. But you are correct, the ARNG and USAR deploy regularly. I have been wearing wings for 10 years and have had 3 deployments as a Guard Pilot. (1 UH60, 2 FW) But there are a lot of civilian opportunities that you have the liberty to pursue as a reserve component Soldier. The Service obligation post IERW is now 10 years... you can do that Active Component... or you can keep it flexible in the ARNG/USAR.

I concur with the comments of the two prior posts. The guard/ reserve life is made up of at least five parts: 1) Family 2) Civil Life 3) Civil Work 4) Military Life 5) Military Work. More time taken by one results in less time available for the others. As stated in another answer, travel time from civil home to military work site is all lost time that benefits no one. Flying or not, the more intense (time consuming) your civil job and/or military job are results in less time for the others. Think of it this way, if you play sports in school then it takes time for school, social life, practice, travel, game play, etc. It is pretty difficult to have an after school job because the weekday time conflicts with after school social life, sports practices and games. It is pretty difficult to have a weekday or weekend social life if you don’t have an after school and/or weekend job to pay your way. I think you get the idea. 10 years from now you will be giving money to your child(ren) rather than receiving it from your parents. Military Aviation is an unforgiving business. You are either ahead of or behind the aircraft. Being behind the aircraft will get you killed. My suggestion is to go active duty until your aviation skill-set is sufficiently developed to allow sufficient time for you the option of having a civil work life (aviation or otherwise). Good Luck