I'd rather be shot at.


Everything is dangerous. Driving your car, walking down the street, playing sports, riding a motorcycle, doing the friggin hokey pokey. Its all dangerous, but it is one of my most cherished philosophies that one must live every day like it is his last. That doesn't mean I should go bonkers, but "I refuse to tiptoe through life only to arrive safely at death" -Unknown. I am not a safety freak. But, I am by no means reckless. My goal is trying to find a balance between living life to the fullest without being reckless. That is my purpose here, to decide if military aviation is reckless, or at least my definition of reckless. There is no question that it is dangerous.

Its good to know that a great number of servicemen think for themselves, contrary to what I've been told.

I'm doing that next summer.

I've been researching the ANG, and it seems quite nice. That's probably exactly the type of service I was looking for, part time but no less intense.

EDIT: Shoot, I just made three posts. Sorry guys! There doesn't seem to be a delete button. Don't bite my head off.

Again - I'll answer for my community - and I'll lay down money it defines other communities too - but military aviation is ANYTHING but reckless. It is calculated, risk mitigated, practiced, and professional to the extreme; and when the time comes to get the job done - we do it **very** well.

USMCFLYR

I don't doubt that for one second. I meant reckless in the sense that it is very risky.

So you are saying you know it's "dangerous" but are just wondering if it is "very risky?"

What's the difference?

Just a quick chime in here:

From what I understand your typical F-15 pilot will fly about 150-250 hours/year, not a whole lot (I do about that in a month sometimes), and the rest of the time you're not doing PT or other military things you'll be in a simulator, simming the s*it out of procedures, maneuvers etc. etc. until you want to blow your mind out.

So some things for you to consider (if you really really want to be a lawyer) are... joining the Army as an NCO and flying heli-choppers, from what my friend tells me more flying and more actual combat flying (face it, the average modern F15 pilot has downed 0 bogies and has never targeted an enemy aircraft in flight, you did mention you liked the idea of being shot at), the other route you might want to look into is the National Guard (possibly FT Guard Duty), which would allow you to (almost) come and go as you please and would allow you to pursue your law career from the get go instead of spending time in the military first.

The real question to ask yourself is "Do I look like a pilot?" :cool:

.......because if you don't kinda resemble the greats like Mayo, Topper, or Maverick then you won't even make through the application process.

No NCO's flying HeliCOPTERS in the Army. CWO's i.e. Chief Warrant Officers. And yes they are commissioned at CW2. Warrants have a different job in that they are specialists (Instructing,Maintenance Test Pilot, Safety, TAC OPs) where RLO's are generalists. Warrants stay in the cockpit most of their career where RLO's bounce in and out to staff and other jobs. I don't want to thread-jack but the misunderstanding needs to be clarified.

Thanks for the correction/clarification (I remembered it has 3 capital letters in it so I took a guess at one of the few sets of 3 capital letters I remembered), I'm not and have never been associated with the military, the advice I gave was generally based on my observations of my friends who are in the military... is most of the rest correct?

PS. Yes I know it's a helicopter, I just like writing/saying heli-chopper.

Well...not exactly.
F-15s had kills in the Gulf War and other aircraft had kills in the Bosnia/Serb conflict.
The latest sets of wars that we have been involved in - our opponets were either smart enough to not send up their aircraft in direct challenge or don't have aircraft.
If you are basing your decisions on that - then you are making a mistake that many others are making - namely overlooking China and North Korea - both of which I would bet you a Coke would send up a formiable air force against us in conventional warfare.
Will it happen? Let's hope not. One of the least recognize roles of the military is DETERRENCE. If someone is willing to test our mettle (in conventional warefare mind you - not asymetrical warfare) then we have not done our jobs. IMO.

Btw - about those 150-250 hours flown by F-15 pilots.....I don't know - I'll let them answer about their proficiency but yes - we would ALL love more flying time; but a lot gets done in that time. If you are flying let's say 250-300 1.0 hr flights a year - that is a good amount of flights - though I always wish for more hours :) (and it isn't on autopilot (at leats much!) as many on this board complain about professional flying)

USMCFLYR