LUV FLYING

Yes, aviation contracts are offered. Be sure to get the aviation contract prior to college graduation. Otherwise, you could be faced with stiff competition at TBS where there are over 200+ 2ndLt's per class. Most Lt's want infantry, but there are also a lot who want aviation and the number of aviation slots is random. I've heard of 2 slots for a whole class, and I've heard of a dozen for a class. When I went thru, there were only 6 slots.

Officers on the front line. Not before flight school. The supposed info from the recruiter may be misunderstood. What you will do is: Spend a few months at OCS (Officer Candidate School, Acad grads don't do OCS) and 6 months at TBS (The Basic School). I guess that could take a year. This is probably what the recruiter meant. After the completion of these schools, you will head to flight school in Pensacola. Majority of studs goto P-cola, but some will train with the Air Force for Primary flight training. At P-cola, you go thru API, then Primary flight school (T-34 or T-6). You can also do Primary at Corpus Christi, TX, but only after you complete API at P-cola. After Primary, you select your pipeline (well, you ask for something, and you might not get your first or second choice). It'll be helos (AH-1W, UH-1N, CH-53D, CH-53E, V-22), props (C-130), or jets (F/A-18, AV-8B, EA-6B). Again, you pick pipeline, not platform at this point. It's based on competitive grades. I'm not sure how the V-22 is fitting into the equation, you might select that out of Primary, I dunno. After Primary selection, you goto Intermediate and then Advanced flight training. Intermediate and Adv for helos are at Whiting Field, FL in the TH-57. Intermediate and Adv for props is in Texas, not sure where and what platform that is. Int and Adv for jets is in Meridian, Miss and Kingsville, TX in the T-45. The old version with steam guages is in TX and the new one with a glass cockpit is in Miss. At the end of Advanced flight training, you select your platform and duty station. Use the power of google if you want to see where all the platforms and duty stations are located. Or, just PM with some more specific questions.

Typical day as an Officer. Your flight will usually determine your day. Sometimes you fly first thing in the morning, and sometimes you fly late at night. Your flight really sets the pace for your day. When not planning, briefing, flying, and debriefing your flight, you will be spending your time with your ground job/s. Yes, you have responsibilities other than flying. And, you will not have time to get everything done. So, you prioritize and accomplish the most you can. With the current optempo, you are gone a lot to combat and regular deployments. Helo guys have told me they typically get 5-7 months between deployments. Although I have seen situations where they get 13+ months off between deployments, a rarity. In C-130s, you will not do deployments per se. You will do a lot of dets and have long periods of no flying. You won't fly each week, you will have dry spells. At least these are things that C-130 guys have told me. In jets, you will get typically 12-13 months between deployments. There are of course, exceptions to everything.

Pay. You get basic pay, flight pay, basic allowance for housing, etc. Pay is decent and improves steadily. After your aviation contract (6-8 years) is up, you can sign on for 3 or more years and get a bonus. The amount varies, used to be $25000 per year, but I think it's $18,000 per year for fixed wing guys. Goto www.dod.mil/dfas for military pay information. Also, check out www.usmc.mil and click on Maradmins. Do a search on aviation continuation pay and you can see detailed information about that. For comparisons, the Air Force apparently will pay their guys $25000 per year all the way to 20 year point. The Marines only pay out to your 16th(maybe 15th?) year of commisioned service. So, don't join the Marines for the pay. Join the Marines because of our proud tradition of service to country and our comraderie. For those of you in the Air Force reading this, I mean no disrespect, I have been on the receiving end of your Close Air Support and have great respect for your traditions and professionalism.

Chances of getting desired aircraft. Check www.airwarriors.com/forums for some insight into that. This is a forum site visited by many flight school students. For answers on air force flight school info, check out www.baseops.net and click onto the message board. I will say when I was going thru, everybody and their dog wanted jets. Just kidding. But, there were not enough jets spots for guys and gals wanting jets. The toughest thing to get was props, since there were very, very few slots for that. Helos, were pretty much the most common thing to pick up out of flight school. Probably the best deal in the Marines is flying CH-53Ds in Kaneohe Bay, of course you gotta like Hawaii and flying helos.

The last question you had was do Officers see the front line. Yes, they do. The most common way for this is to be a Forward Air Controller (FAC) after your first flying tour in the fleet. In general, you do 2-3 years of flight school, get your wings, and do about 5-10 months in the FRS (Fleet Replenishment Squadron) for your specific airframe. Then, you typically do a 3 year flying tour. Some guys see 4 years especially when they excel and the squadron benefits from them. This varies among the communities. I have heard of helo guys staying in a squadron for 5 years. After that first tour, you can do a ground tour and the most common job is FAC. In this day and age, expect to goto combat. Then you can do another flying tour. The standard pattern is to do flying tours with ground tours in between.

Any other questions, just PM me.

Best of luck.

Fly Marines!