Somebody with coast guard experience, would you mind expanding on how that all works or a PM would work too. Thanks! Appreciate the info.

 

What do you mean by this?

 

Shack!

Ask yourself what you want to do.

Then make that your singular focused goal. Chase that goal with every bit of energy you have.

You sound like you are young and looking for adventure.

I was similar to you. My goal was to fly off carriers and blow **** up. I did that in spades.

Chase your dreams my friend. You are only young once, grab life by the balls and chase your dreams...anything less is rubbish and a life of regrets.

"Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off your goal".

 

This! I saw a lot of prior experienced guys struggle, some with more flight time than me as an IP! It was all attitude.

 

Current Navy guy flying P8's after transitioning from P3's..very much echo everything OrionDriver said, especially the whole officer first pilot second..gotta run, have to go write NATOPS quarterlies

 

NAE is in a perilous state right now. Airplanes that were supposed to last 20+ years at a Cold War OPTEMPO are being worn out in half that. Squadrons that have a ramp full of broken/canabalized airplanes just to put a handful in the air. Squadrons that exist on paper only because a true decommissioning requires an act of Congress. Boats in the yards for 2-3 times what was forecast. On and on and on.

15 years of war has completely worn out the fleet with no real affordable future for replacement. Blocks of F-35 orders have been shifted to superhornets because they're cheaper. Marine Corp TACAIR is in even worse shape. The sunset of the legacy Hornet fleet has been moved forward because they're just worn out.

Can't speak to the rotary or maritime piece, but the other shoe has dropped on the Hornet community and its ugly. It's going to take a lot of years and a lot of money to repair/replace.

Plus, who wouldn't want to live in San Diego/San Fran/Tampa/Hawaii/Alaska etc and fly helos in real world ops? Those guys don't have to do a year of work ups and then another year of deployment... over and over and over again.

Don't get me wrong, I would go back and do it all again... but if I knew then what I know now, it would be a REALLY hard choice.

Put it this way, unless you know, gouge/rumor be damned that your place is in a grey jet/helo flying off ships at sea, if you need to be convinced, then it's probably not for you and you have your answer. If you're not willing to pay any price, suffer any pain, do any job required of you, endure any injucstice to one day take that cat shot on a glorious day at sea.... it's probably not the place for you.

 

First 10 years of being a Naval Aviator are fun. Being a Junior Officer in a wardroom is fun. You will get leadership challenges that you did not expect as being a Naval Officer is your primary function and pilot is your warfare specialty. Same thing for ship/sub drivers.

Jet guys can have good/bad years but 300 hours per year/900hrs per sea tour seems to be the max. You can probably expect to leave the service after about 10 years with 1000-1500 hours depending on your type/model series and what you do during your shore tours.

With the delay in the T-45 training pipeline - I would not expect to see that many new jet guys selected for the next year. The backlog should be over by next summer.

If you can embrace the fact that you will not "change the system" as a Junior Officer and that most of the stuff that really ****es folks off are either mandated by law or some other directive than the first 10 years can be fun. It goes rapidly down hill after that unless you like "organizational leadership" office type work. With the new retirement system in place it will be hard to keep any pilot in the service after their initial obligation.

 

Good one here! I knew I wanted to land airplanes on pitching decks at night in the worst possible conditions imaginable with no divert options and then chase girls at the Cubi Point Officers club.

I got to do the first one but they closed Cubi Point while I as in school and we invaded Iraq/Afghanistan so I got warm diet cokes and pizza with sandbox liberty in Dubai instead!

 

This is incorrect. I am an Air Force reservist T-38 instructor. I also work for one of the big 3 airlines. In every single AF pilot training class we have reserve and or guard students. The guard and reserve have a pilot shortage. They hire off the street college grads, just like you, all the time. Once hired by a unit you will go to Officer Training School, then 54 weeks of Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training, then follow-on training in whatever fighter or heavy your guard/reserve unit flies (follow-on training is 6 to 9 months long). Upon completion of follow-on training you will return to your guard/reserve squadron for 2 to 3 years of full-time orders. If you want full-time orders for longer, no problem - pilot shortage.

So, find guard/reserve units that fly aircraft you want to fly and call them to inquire about their application process.

If the airlines are your goal, stay away from helicopters.

Active-duty SUCKS. As others have typed, go find a Guard or Reserve job.

 

As a former Naval Aviator (Jarhead flying with the Air Wing), the easiest way to get into the Guard was to be a Rated Pilot and get hired as a Traditional. Something to think about long term.