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Old 01-11-2018, 09:38 AM
  #14  
evamodel00
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Joined APC: Feb 2014
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Originally Posted by BeatNavy View Post
You can be a warrant officer and fly helos or king airs in the army with no degree. Look up the Warrant Officer Flight Training program. https://www.nationalguard.com/153a-rotary-wing-aviator

There is the PT aspect and occasional field exercise as an army aviator, and it is definitely different than anything you’re doing now. I was fairly physical/military minded and kind of wanted to go infantry and do all that cool stuff, but after 4 years of military training in college, the limited army stuff we had to do in flight school, and 62 days of ranger school (especially when watching the helos fly support missions for us and then go home each day when I was cold/hungry/tired/miserable), I realize how miserable I’d have been had I gone infantry. Especially as an enlisted guy, your life will suck. Sure there are great dudes who have great careers that they give up to go enlist in the infantry (Pat Tillman), but it’s a crappy life. You’ll spend more time on cleaning details mopping floors, picking up cigarette butts, doing mx in motor pools, cleaning weapons, doing inventories, doing stupid “don’t rape women” classes, and other stupid training than you will doing infantry tactics/physical stuff. And even that stuff isn’t fun after the initial cool factor wears off. I was never infantry in the active duty or guard, but had some good friends from college and ranger school who were. No thanks.

Recruiters HATE when people want to be Warrant officers/Pilots off the street. There is something about the way those types of recruits don’t fill their required slots and it takes a long time to finish the whole training footprint and be a successful “hire” for that recruiter. Many will lie and insist that you enlist first to be a crew chief/mechanic before becoming a warrant officer pilot. If you go the pilot route, you’ll have basic training like any other MOS, WOCS (6 or so week course on how to become a warrant officer), 3 weeks of SERE, and a year or so of flight training. They pay to move you and your family to Ft Rucker and it’s about an 18 month Experience. Your family won’t see you during basic or much if at all during WOCS and SERE. Depending on what you fly you will have to deploy. LUH-72s are the only non-deployable aircraft, so if you get hired by a unit that flies those you won’t deploy, at least not in a flying capacity.
ahaha I literally texted my recruiter before I even read your second paragraph and almost word for word she repeated what you wrote lol. Yeah no that actually sounds like a very cool opportunity. She told me I should be a mechanic for a year or two and then I could drop my warrant officer packet off once I have some familiarity with the helo. It gives me something to think about. I kind of pushed flying out of my head because it seemed unrealistic. My second choice was tip of the spear. Thank you for the advice! As I said before the main reason I am doing this is to put on the uniform and earn my keep. I just would rather if at all possible not hate what I'm doing.
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