Originally Posted by
DustoffVT
This. AMO is the career you never thought of when you got into aviation. But is absolutely a career position and should be approached as such. We do have aircraft that will get you to a major airline, but if you start here without previous twin turbine PIC, it will take a whole career to accumulate the hours.
An exception might be ugleeual's type: that experience level will bring value here even just for a few years. But I would expect AMO to be wary of those types. But, who knows.
One point I differ with RCpilot on: In my view (and experience) we are pilots who happen to be LEOs, not vice versa. With few exceptions, our job is to fly and leverage that skill set to enhance the ground mission. Like most flying jobs, we are really paid to bring back the aircraft with all the paint and all the people. No AMO pilot has ever been written up for not putting cuffs on enough bad guys, but plenty have for unsafe flying. JMHO.
Dustoff -
Interesting opposing view point on the pilot or LEO first.
i guess I could see it your way too.
you were hired because of your pilot experience into a LEO position.
Also - if you couldn’t fly......would you be retained in the LEO (meaning if you lost your medical for instance would you be moved to the ground side to continue in the CBP)?
I contrasted it with the military.
I always considered myself a Marine who’s weapon system was an airplane - like an a Infantry Officer would his platoon or a Tanker his iron horse! :-)
I was asked one time during my AO/FAC tour by a young Marine if we went to war would I want to be with the battalion or back with me squadron.
I said that the Marines had spent a lot of time and money to train me to employ that particular weapon system so I’d be most useful in that cockpit, but I took his point. I’d do my best job where ever the Corps needed me at the time.
would you say that your view of pilot first/LEO second is the more common viewpoint of other AMO AIAs than RC12’s viewpoint?