Originally Posted by
museic
hello, im seriously considering joining either the navy or marines as an aviator. currently im working on my instrument and commercial ratings and should be done by febuary at the earliest. after that i'll have my bachelor complete in like three years or so. i want to join for 2 reason. 1. i want to serve my country and 2. im that type of person who goes balls to the walls and unless i fly a fighter i don't think i'll ever be satisfied with my career. i'm not too concerned about my chances on getting a fixed wing cause il be instructing those three years while getting my bachelor and with all the f-35s going into service i figure as long as i keep my mouth shut i should do just fine. i have a few questions however:
1. Single engine vs. multi engine: if i would end up on an f-35 would this hurt me post service since its a single engine compared to an f/a-18 superhornet which is multi when i apply for a job?
2. flight time: on average how much flight time does a typical aviator get in a 10 year term(not saying i wouldnt do 20 year, just keeping it simple)
3. Officer bonuses: i mean lets be honest im going to most likely be about 40K deep in private school loans once im finished so do they offer anything to officers such as signing bonuses...i looked into nrotc and while im pretty sure i could land a scholarship, that dosent really help me that much because the loans that i need help paying off are already in my name.
if i think of anymore questions il post um but these are my primary concerns...like i said the answers to these questions may be everything i dont want to hear but il still be interested in joining so dont take me as someone doing this for money and such...i feel like my reasons are right i just need to do some research now.
thanks
1. Won't matter from an airline point of view. The Hornet is multitime, but restricted to centerline thrust. They will simply look at the two the same for hiring purposes at the particular airline.
2. That truly is like answering a stock market question. Past performance is no indication of future performance. While at war and deployed, hours generally go up and when back on the beach, your hours will likely fall dramatically. May get 40-80 hours deployed one month and then 6-10 hours on the beach after deployment. Throw in career path requirements, congressional politics, UAV philosophy, new combat tactics and other technology issues leaves the answer to this in the future as an unknown. The good news, it will be relative to your peers from the airline perspective. So you will be OK. Example: Every fighter pilot in the Navy/Marines will likely have the same range of hours. So if your hours are in the same range as your peers, the airlines will accept that as the the hiring range necessary to apply for the job.
3. Already answered, they don't need to offer bounus' to aviators to get them to join, only to stay after they have the requisite experience years into the career. You will have to pay these out with your military wage like many of the rest of us who incurred college loans. Personally, since I wasn't married for several years I paid them off quickly and lived simply to get rid of the obligation. (i.e. lived with a bunch of fellow bachelors like an airline crash pad, drove an old, inexpensive car, and ate like was still in college) The strategy worked well. Loans paid off years early.
Good luck!