Originally Posted by
gringo
Unless things changed within the last 10 years, your PPL won't open too many extra doors. In fact, it could even hinder you a bit- they're going to teach you from the ground up how to fly their planes.
Remember- recruiters will tell you what you want to hear. Flight slots are SUPER competitive. Your eyesight shouldn't be a problem- I think 20:70 is the cutoff. (BTW, when I checked 4 years ago, the Navy and Marines were accepting PRK (NOT Lasik) candidates, while the Air Force wasn't)
Also, when you say "recruiter", are you talking to one who handles the enlisted side, or to an Officer Candidate recruiter (or whatever they're called there)? MAKE SURE you're dealing with an OFFICER recruiter. (Hint: they're usually not the ones found at the strip mall locations)
Either way, good luck. After seeing the Chicago Air & Water show this past weekend, I was reminded how much I wished I had better vision to fly those Eagles...
I spoke with the recruiter on the phone, so I'm not sure... he did try to get me to go in enlisted, so I figure he was not an Officer Candidate recruiter. He seemed dodgy about aviation questions, and I suppose he didn't know or was simply tired of people asking him all day, "How do I become a pilot?" I figured it would be prudent to run it by you guys.
The thing is, I
love to fly, and even if the USAF or a career as an airline pilot doesn't work out, I would still want to be a weekend recreational pilot. I figure the experience that would come with a PPL would give me a leg up in the beginning, and I don't want to wait two more years until I have completed college to see if the USAF would work out before I start flying.