USMCFLYR

Well the OP started it

Flyboyxc91

Well so far I respectfully am considering everyones input since I have a lot of different options available to me and i'm learning more options through all of you who give me more input/paths to flying career progressions... I really appreciate the help, I love this forum! I'm going to go flying tomorrow out at the local airport I'm rated in a DA-20 so I think I'll do a cross country over to RDU full stop and see whats up at ATP.

Timbo

I've got no experience with Navy flight school, or with the ATP flight school, so I defer to your knowledge of both. All I know is my first IP in Del Rio had never flown an airplane 18 months before I met him, (I was his first student) and he'd never flown outside of West Texas.

When he told me you cannot fly an airplane in a snow storm, or in a thunderstorm, I just laughed, and said, "You'd better call American Airlines up there in Chicago come January, or Eastern in Miami in July and warn them, because I'm pretty sure they do it every day."

He was a good guy and we got along fine, we learned a lot from each other, but at that time, having just got his wings a few months before we met, he only knew what the books told him, and he'd never seen real weather of any type, from inside a cockpit. He's now a 767 Capt. at Delta, so he obviously learned as he went along. I'm pretty sure he flies through both snow and rain now.

When you graduate from AF UPT, they give you a critique to fill out. I told them to get rid of the First Assignment Instructor Pilots, send all the pilots out into the real world for a few years to get some experience, then bring them back to instruct. They'd have much better IP's if they did.

Most of the guys I knew in my class that got FAIP'd didn't want to be IP's and they certainly didn't want to spend another 3 years in Del Rio!! One guy's wife left him on assignment night when he got FAIP'd to the T37. What they should do is tell every pilot that gets his first choice plane and base, be it fighters or heavies, you WILL come back and instruct after your 3 year tour is up.

MALB

I'd suggest calling them before you leave (ATP-RDU that is) because right now Bryan and David are the only ones there and well, they might both be out when you drop in. Never hurts to call first.

Yazzoo

Dude, take a year off from life and travel around the world. You'll never get the chance to do something like that again so take advantage of it while you still can!

canav08

I'm pretty sure, almost 100% sure you can apply to AF OTS before you have your actual degree. I think you can even start in your junior year with transcripts proving an adequate GPA and under the condition you maintain it/keep your nose clean. 2010 was the last time I delved into AF OTS and I'm pretty sure those were the rules back then.

I ended up going Navy OCS with a pilot slot and nearly died from a freak infection after wisdom teeth extracted in P'cola so now I'm DQ'ed due to it doing damage to my aortic valve. Id give anything to be in your shoes but that does not necessarily mean military is right for you of course, just don't write it off so quickly.

No matter what branch you deal with applying to OCS/OTS, you will almost definitely be told inaccurate info at various points along the way. Individual recruiting commands, recruiters and even people who work for recruiters (civilian secretaries, etc) can seem to have their own ways of looking at the world that are neither explainable nor repeatable. I wont throw the "recruiters are lairs" cliche out there because its not necessarily true but they are known, for whatever reason, to have creative interpretations of the rules. Google "OCSFoundation forums" or something like that, there is one for every branch. That will help sift through any BS you hear along the way when you get a whole bunch of people in the same shoes from all over the country to bounce it off. Most everything in the military world is spelled out and applied universally, in theory. Don't be afraid to politely and professionally point out regulations to your recruiter and go above his/her head if they are still not getting the point. Its not personal, some need to be made to do their job correctly.

Again, the college timeline thing is simply NOT TRUE. No need to be graduated before you apply.

On timing, don't believe any of the BS your recruiter is told to tell you about OTS wait times, etc. Yes it could be a year, it will likely be ALOT less from acceptance to the time you are boots on the ground at OTS. When I got into the Navy game, I was accepted in Feb and told to expect October or so for a class date at earliest. In late April I got a call asking if I could potentially show up at the beginning of MAY!!! Fortunately it was not that quick as I was not in good enough shape yet (Navy OCS is wayyy harder than AFOTS).

Beyond that, you have this outlook that things are mutually exclusive; "if I do one I can't ever do the other" type mindset. Not an insult, I can be the same way with things.

You have a PPL and you fly and you have $30G sitting around with NO debt. Start knocking out the ratings at whatever flight school/airport is going to provide the most networking opportunities for you. Stay involved and keep showing your face, flying, etc. You will probably get job opportunities from that alone if you are good/persistent and you will never have to overpay for something like ATP. You could work a job in your degree field at the same time which you imply is easy to get/lucrative. Instead of loosing money at ATP, you can be making money and building ratings/hours. Whats to loose?

You are very young in the grand scheme of things, you have time on your side more so than alot of us. You could do 7 years active duty, transition reserves and retire with 20 years and a pension and then go onto a second or third career flying with ease. The reserve time you can obviously have another job as well. Military benefits your entire career ability to earn GOOD income with a consistent retirement check later in life, health benefits paid for, you have alot to gain to write the entire thing off over a "rule" that is not true or being unwilling to wait a year.

If you don't want it for other reasons, say so, thats fine, your current reasons are not valid.

Adlerdriver

I believe you have that quote a little bit wrong. What the handbook stated was "There is no peace time mission that requires flight through thunderstorms." If we avoided "adverse weather" during my time stationed at Bitburg Germany, we wouldn't have flown from October through March.

As far as the instructor discussion goes: Getting a PPL and a few hours under one's belt doesn't mean a pilot is going to automatically be ready to provide valid instruction. There's an experience gap between being a proficient private pilot with good general knowledge and actually telling/showing/teaching someone else how to do the various tasks and maneuvers. The only way to close that gap is personally gaining that experience on a regular basis. When someone can describe yoke/pedal/throttle positions in detail, amounts of control inputs, what the aircraft will feel and sound like, what mistakes their student is likely to make in most situations, how they will handle those errors - just to name a few - then they might want to think about actually attempting to provide someone with some actual instruction.

I was never a FAIP, but my first T-37 IP was. He was very competent. IMO, there's no point comparing a product of a high intensity training program like UPT followed by PIT with someone out of a 3-month ATP course. Apples and oranges.

831pilot

Good point. I know I didnt want that. But unfortunately thats the way it goes in the pilot mills- a cfi trained by a 300hr cfi trained by a 300hr cfi. I was fortunate to find high time civilian and military instructors for my initial ratings, payed as i went, and got through debt free while received quality instruction. Not a fan of fast track programs, but in Flyboy's case, who's looking into one, i did throw that out there as one of the options for consideration. In the end, both roads get you there, but to each their own.

Timbo

I was based at Pease for 8 years in a Guard KC135. I went TDY to Bitburg many times, back in the mid 1980's, to refuel you guys. At least half our missions there were cancelled because the ceilings were too low for the fighters to fly... We got a car and did a lot of sight seeing on all those no-fly days, so we had a good time there!

As to who does what, and what creates a better IP, have you been through a Civilian Instructor Course? Or are you just repeating what they told you in UPT? It's a lot more than just a few hours on top of the PPL.

I agree about the pilot mills; too little, too fast, and the biggest problem with the civilian training programs are that there is no real Quality Control. It's hit or miss, depending on where you go and who you get and how much money you have to spend. There's no real way to wash out the bad apples.

When I was a kid my Dad was CFI'ng every day, and flying mail runs in a twin Beach at night. He used to say, "Given enough bananas you could teach a monkey to fly." The Civilian program allows anyone with enough money to keep coming back and getting more lessons, no matter how lazy they are about studying and working on their skills.

When I got to UPT, I saw that they'll only give you 10 bananas, then a check ride, 10 more bananas, another check ride, etc. You bust one checkride, you are one more bad ride away from being out the door. So there is a much tighter quality control there, no doubt. I was amazed that they could take a guy with zero time and in 49 weeks have him flying a T38 in a 4 ship and IFR qualled too. But, the washout rate is 30%. Not so in the Civilian world, as long as the student has money, they'll keep taking it.

At UPT, Flying is all you do for those 49 weeks, you eat, sleep, drink it. No day job or other distractions that most Civilians have to deal with, no trying to save up enough money for your next lesson either, still some guys find a way to party too much and wash out.

OK, sorry to get so long winded, back to my original point, wich was a reply to your statement about pilot mills:

I feel that the two programs, the Civilian Pilot Mill, and the Military, would BOTH produce much better pilots if they both used IP's with some real world experiece, vs. 250hr. FAIPs and Pilot Mill grads. As I said in my UPT critique, send them out to get some flying experience for 3 years, then bring them back to instruct.

I've been through both programs, and I've had brand new IP's in both, and I've had very highly experienced IP's in both. The guys with the experience were much better, no doubt. That's my only point here.

USMCFLYR

Our feelings of FAIPS amd SERGRADS are the same - no disagreement there.
The discussion was in the comparison between a FAIP/SERGRAD and a newly minted CFI. What makes the programs even remotely successful is that they are instructing in a very narrowly defined syllabus; but this stuff about not taking students into weather and such is not what I experienced.