Coast Guard
 

Can anyone tell be some information about becoming an officer in the coast guard and possibly becoming a pilot. I'll be 25 when I finish my BS degree. Tell me how life is in the coast guard and what you enjoy about it. Ive always admired the coast guard and had a great interest to serve. I will also have a PPL when I graduate. My vision is not 20/20 unless I wear glasses.

they use to go thru navy flight school.... i assume they still do. the Herc pilots went thru the AF school house in Little rock.... when I went thru my initial co-pilot school we had a female coastie in our class. they have alot of nice places...and NOT SO nice places for aviators. Lots of choppers.... some of the falcon jets...and the hercs..... i suspect they have the 27 1/2 age limit or something to that effect as well.

OCS will be your best bet. About a year before you graduate, or sooner, contact the nearest CG recruiter and tell them you are interested in Officer Candidate School. You'll have to put together an application package which includes a narrative, a resume, interview results (to be coordinated by the recruiter), college transcrpts, several letters of recommendation, and some other required forms. There may be more or different items, it has been several years. All this will go to an OCS selection board in D.C. and they make the decision. The sooner you start the more time you'll have to make sure everything is in order. The process will be frustrating at times, but stay focused.

Getting to fly is a whole different ballgame; there are no guarantees when and if you get to go to flight school. As far as the eyes go, the last I heard you had to be 20/50 correctable to 20/20 for distant vision and 20/20 uncorrected for near.

Each OCS class will send a few straight there, everyone else goes somewhere else the CG needs junior officers. Ultimately, keep in mind that that the CG considers you an officer first, then whatever your operational specialty might be.

You'll go through Navy flight school to earn wings. It is fun and intense. Once designated a CG aviator, you'll go to a duty-standing job and have some other collateral duties to occupy your non-flying time. The flying part is a blast. As far as the collaterals go, ...

Hope this helps a little. Just get in touch with a CG recruiter and get an OCS application packet. It should list everything you need to do.

Best of luck.

-4FF

Thanks for the information.

Coast Guard guys I've spoken to always complain that the CG never receives enough funding so they have to fly old equipment and don't get enough hours.

sounds like the military to me......when i went thru C-130E initial school ....20 years ago... the herc i flew for my checkride was older than me THEN.

It really hurts me to say this, but I just flew a jet today that had 34 hours on it! I almost felt guilty when I spilled some crumbs on the floor....

In case anyone is wondering, Dover AFB, DE is in the process of receiving brand new C-17s. I'm on a trip to Alaska right now. Yes, it really is spoiling me...

:D

Time & Money
 

True about the lack of funding. For flight time, however, not to hard to average 500 hrs/yr in Hercs.

-4FF

Well, my fellow CG IP's down here at Whiting aren't hurting on flight time. Lets see, 2-3 hops a day, 5 days a week...they get about 60-80 hours a month via military flight time. If their flight time is hurting in the fleet, welcome to military aviation, at least in my experince :)

Flight time in the military has a lot to do about managment and a little to do with missions. If you have scheduled missions you will of course be flying quite a bit. If you don't have missions then it's time for training, and that is where managment comes in to play.

When I showed up to my current unit this past May I was shocked to learn that the battalion was forcast to complete only 40% of its flying hour program. That, to me, is unacceptable and the new Co Commander is doing his best to fix the situation.

On October 1st every unit knows how much they can fly for the next 12 months and it is up to the command, maintainence, and scheduling officers to get the aircraft in the air and spread the hours evenly among the aviators.