hello, im seriously considering joining either the navy or marines as an aviator. currently im working on my instrument and commercial ratings and should be done by febuary at the earliest. after that i'll have my bachelor complete in like three years or so. i want to join for 2 reason. 1. i want to serve my country and 2. im that type of person who goes balls to the walls and unless i fly a fighter i don't think i'll ever be satisfied with my career. i'm not too concerned about my chances on getting a fixed wing cause il be instructing those three years while getting my bachelor and with all the f-35s going into service i figure as long as i keep my mouth shut i should do just fine. i have a few questions however:

1. Single engine vs. multi engine: if i would end up on an f-35 would this hurt me post service since its a single engine compared to an f/a-18 superhornet which is multi when i apply for a job?

2. flight time: on average how much flight time does a typical aviator get in a 10 year term(not saying i wouldnt do 20 year, just keeping it simple)

3. Officer bonuses: i mean lets be honest im going to most likely be about 40K deep in private school loans once im finished so do they offer anything to officers such as signing bonuses...i looked into nrotc and while im pretty sure i could land a scholarship, that dosent really help me that much because the loans that i need help paying off are already in my name.

if i think of anymore questions il post um but these are my primary concerns...like i said the answers to these questions may be everything i dont want to hear but il still be interested in joining so dont take me as someone doing this for money and such...i feel like my reasons are right i just need to do some research now.

thanks

 

I'm no fighter pilot but I'll answer the questions as best I can. 1. You don't get multi time in a hornet. Centerline thrust I believe? So it doesn't make a difference whether you have one or two rockets under your ass. 2. Some airlines count every hour in a fighter as 2 or 3 hours since fighter pilots typically fly less than heavy pilots. 3. If you are joining for money, get a different job. 4. I wouldn't worry about "post service" jobs right now anyway, seeng as though that is about at least 10, probably at least 15 years out for you. I really really wish the Air Force and Navy were out advertising a $40k or $50k signing bonus to go have the most badass job in the world. Good luck with that one. There is aviation career incentive pay and the Air Force will sometimes pay you large amounts of money to get out and go to the airlines, or pay you a lot of money to stay in. But some guy off the street who wants to be a fighter pilot? A "bonus" would be hard to come by I'm afraid. Maybe some sort of enlistment bonus, or if you took a ROTC scholarship they would pay for schooling, but I think those loans you got will be paid off by you unfortunately.

 

1. IT does not matter what you fly for the military, as long as it is fixed wing, you will be in good shape when it comes time to apply for the airlines. Fly what you want to fly, so long as you can qualify.

2. Flight time: Fighters - maybe 200-300 per year, could be more
Heavies - 400-800 per year, could be more or less
Drones - yes, you could get a drone, and it is worthless when it comes to an airline job.

Figure 11 + years minimum for Air Force (Pilot Training + 10 years once you get your wings)

Talk to an officer recruiter about financial programs. They are always changing. After many years, you can get the $25K/year bonus, if it is still available. If you go "Balls to the walls", you will be way ahead of everyone else, who are just balls to the wall

Oh, I just read where you said Navy or Marines. Sorry about your luck.

 

1. Won't matter from an airline point of view. The Hornet is multitime, but restricted to centerline thrust. They will simply look at the two the same for hiring purposes at the particular airline.

2. That truly is like answering a stock market question. Past performance is no indication of future performance. While at war and deployed, hours generally go up and when back on the beach, your hours will likely fall dramatically. May get 40-80 hours deployed one month and then 6-10 hours on the beach after deployment. Throw in career path requirements, congressional politics, UAV philosophy, new combat tactics and other technology issues leaves the answer to this in the future as an unknown. The good news, it will be relative to your peers from the airline perspective. So you will be OK. Example: Every fighter pilot in the Navy/Marines will likely have the same range of hours. So if your hours are in the same range as your peers, the airlines will accept that as the the hiring range necessary to apply for the job.

3. Already answered, they don't need to offer bounus' to aviators to get them to join, only to stay after they have the requisite experience years into the career. You will have to pay these out with your military wage like many of the rest of us who incurred college loans. Personally, since I wasn't married for several years I paid them off quickly and lived simply to get rid of the obligation. (i.e. lived with a bunch of fellow bachelors like an airline crash pad, drove an old, inexpensive car, and ate like was still in college) The strategy worked well. Loans paid off years early.

Good luck!

 

[quote=FlyArmy;432827]I'm no fighter pilot but I'll answer the questions as best I can. 1. You don't get multi time in a hornet. Centerline thrust I believe?


It is multi-time, but it could be considered centerline thrust. Depends on the airplane. I know a guy who got centerline-only removed from his license from the F-4 because he showed the FAA an emergency in the flight manual that had a minimum-controllable single-ingine speed.

So it doesn't make a difference whether you have one or two rockets under your ass.

It does matter if you go to a job that needs multi-time. Your license would just have a centerline-restriction until you passed a checkride in a non-centerline multi.

2. Some airlines count every hour in a fighter as 2 or 3 hours since fighter pilots typically fly less than heavy pilots.

NWA had the highest multiplication factor I knew of: double. However, the reason is that fighter-flying is generally much more hands-on-throttles-and-stick, whereas heavy flying tends to be more autopilot. They tended to count "number of sorties" as more of a factor than "number of hours." Fighter flying tends to be much more mentally intense as well.

If you went by equivalent hours, a typical fighter pilot gets 200-220 hours a year. I think USAF heavy drivers get 800-900, so you would have to multiply by 4 or 5...again, highest I knew of was two.

Museic:

If you want to fly fighters, there are more cockpits in the USAF than the Navy or Marines, but not by much. However, the chances of getting a helicopter in the Navy/USMC are about 10 times higher than the USAF. About 50-60% of all Navy/USMC pilots are helo drivers.

That being said, only about 30% of all UPT students end up in a fighter. 3-5% of all USAF pilots are helo.

 

Incorrect. If you have more than one engine you can log multi time. The centerline thrust restriction only restricts you from acting as PIC of an aircraft without centerline thrust. It takes about $1000 and a weekend at a local flight school to get the restriction removed. I think the restriction is also removed when you get your ATP if I'm not mistaken.

That's a little misleading unless you're including FAIPs that go fighters after their FAIP tour. On average, only about 3-4 AD T-38 slots are given out per class. A UPT class is generally 20-25 people which equates to less than 20% that go T-38's. Out of those 3-4 AD guys one usually gets FAIPed. Keep in mind that you can also get a bomber out of T-38's which would lower that number even more.

 

You should very seriously consider the Guard or Reserves. You would fly whatever that unit flies, and very few units have more than one type of aircraft. You would go on active duty for training, and have to do normal drills and flying for a number of years (or like now get sent to Iraq with the rest of your unit.) This would free you up to look for an airline job years earlier, and take the pressure off of first year airline pay. It also provides an excellent retirement plan if you stay in the reserves or guard for 20. I wish somebody had told me about this 35 years ago.

 

first of all id like to thank everyone who responded to my thread, your answers have been very insightful.

ya i suppose the whole mutli engine thing isnt that huge of a deal with military flying and considering i will have my comm me and mei before i would sign up i guess it wouldnt make a difference(plus for some reason i didnt make the connection that its centerline thrust). right after i posted about the bonuses i had a revelation and realized that was a pretty stupid question haha. and for flight time i wasnt too concerned about it the first place i figured id just ask...im sure the fact that you were an officer in the military is saying alot when applying for a job.

but has anyone been in the civil air patrol? im thinking about joining up but im not too sure how it all works.

 

Check out www.airwarriors.com for great info on the USMC and Navy.....do some good searching before you post any questions though.

They have extensive information though, and I read a while back that the USMC now pays off student loans for new officers.

As for the Civil Air Patrol....thats a whole nother story. I imagine each wing is different, but my wing is a bunch of oldtimers that sit around and BS about flying stories....its fun to listen in on, but nothing that will help your military career. You may get a good letter of recommendation and some flying hours out of it. I bet it depends on where you live as to how active the CAP unit is.

 

Ref getting the CLT restriction removed when you get your ATP: No.
If you take your ATP ride in a Citation, your liscence would say ATP MEL, with a CLT restriction and (I assume) Commercial privileges SEL, plus appropriate type ratings. If you take the ride in a B737 then all mention of CLT goes away. If you take the ATP ride in a Cessna 172 like I did, then the liscence reads ATP SEL, commercial privileges MEL. Note: None of the airlines that I applied to asked if my ATP was SEL or MEL, they just wanted to know that I had one. I didn't get my ATP MEL until I checked out as Captain on the B737.