Quote:
Originally Posted by robspenc
I have not really considered the Army NG. Though, I am interested in flying helos. Is the hiring process similar to the ANG? Do they hire guys off the street like the ANG? How competitive is it to get a flight slot compared to the ANG? Though a degree is not necessarily required, is some college needed? I would want to get a bachelor's degree eventually. If I went the Army route I would probably only be interested in the guard rather than active duty.
I HIGHLY recommend you consider it, then. Especially if you are interested in helos, since the Army NG has more helos and employs more helo pilots than any other branch/service. To answer your questions, the Army NG regularly hires civilians off the street to fly. In fact, it's the only service that hires high school graduates to go to flight school without a degree. Absolutely no college is required, no matter what the recruiter tells you. The Army hires literally hundreds of people per year for pilot billets who have no college education. If you are enough of a rock star, you can go from high school graduation through boot camp (BCT), Warrant Officer Candidate School (WOCS) and flight school at Rucker and be a rated helo pilot by the time you're 20 years old. Even if you go Army NG, you'll spend 12ish months on active duty just getting through BCT, WOCS and flight school. By the time you're done you'll have enough active duty time to qualify for the Post 9/11 GI Bill, which you can then use as a reservist/guardsman to pay for college while flying on the weekends. That's in addition to Tuition Assistance (TA) and any tuition waivers your specific state offers for state universities.
In terms of hiring, yes, it's usually similar. I have a cousin who did it recently. You first get in touch with a local Army NG helo unit and speak to one of their pilot recruiters, who is usually another warrant officer or NCO. After that, you'll probably meet up with both the recruiter and a senior warrant officer (probably a CW4) who is a pilot at the unit you want to join. Assuming he likes you and signs off, you'll submit your resume and any FAA licenses you have like your PPL. Then you'll take the ASVAB and do the dance at MEPS, which is pretty much a universal requirement. You'll also take a test specific for Army pilots called the SIFT; each service has its own aviation-specific test you take and all make you go through MEPS.
Anyway, assuming you do well on the ASVAB/SIFT tests and are medically qualified via MEPS, your recruiter will also make you take the army physical fitness test (APFT) which is required for your WOCS/WOFT package. The Army is very strict about this for warrant officers. I don't know what the current scores are but my cousin needed at least a 200 (out of 300) to be competitive. Once you've done all of this, your recruiter submits your package. Assuming you get picked up, you have 3 phases. First is boot camp (BCT) which is 8-10 weeks. Second is Warrant OCS (WOCS) which is 6 weeks. Third is flight school, which is 10-11 months last I checked. So, a little over a year total, and you finish with about 200 hours of rotary time and then you go back to your unit and fly on drill weekends. In other words, it's significantly more abbreviated than the other services and you can become a rated, operational pilot a lot younger/faster in the Army. As far as I know, it is less competitive to get into an Army NG pilot slot than any other branch/service, as long as you pass all those tests (ASVAB, SIFT), are medically qualified and get a decent score on the APFT.