Hello, this is not intended to be a flame war (famous opening line). But, I dually applied to the USN and USAF and have been offered two different career paths.

The Navy offered Student Naval Aviator, and the Air Force offered Combat Systems Officer. My heart is definitely in flying, but I know too little about the CSO position to just blindly decline.

If anyone has any advice or insight when comparing these two careers / branches I'd like to talk. Again, I'm hoping this doesn't spiral out of control, I'm really just trying to make the best decision for my future career in the military.

And if the first person to reply puts this up, then not only are you unoriginal, but it was never that funny.

 

There is no question. Branch of service matters not when weighing between being a pilot or "the other guy. Would you rather learn to speak Mandarin or Latin?

 

Actually that is quite funny in my opinion

If CSO means the same thing as NFO (big term) or WSO (specific type of NFO) in the USN/USMC then the decision is as easy to answer as can one can be for a PILOT. Do you want to FLY OR RIDE?

Each job can be critical to a mission, but it really boils down to that simple question.

USMCFLYR

 

This is true, I'm also interested in more of the "big picture" type of insight. Not so much the exact job at hand, but long term 20 year career pros and cons. I know little about the CSO lifestyle or QOL. I can't imagine it being much different than an aviator, they work together afterall.

In my brief search over at AW I've seen some comments like, "There's plenty of NFO's trying to find a pilot seat, but little to none vice versa." In the past, I've also read good things about being a Nav. "All the fun with half the work..." Which of course, there is probably little truth to that. They seem to enjoy their jobs just as much though.

The answer seems clear, All I've ever wanted was to fly... and here it is staring me in the face. I just thought I would, at minimum, get some gouge on an NFO/CSO career.

Edit: Not to mention knowing a bit about the NFO career would be good "backup" knowledge for me, since I am already 20/40 uncorrected and have yet to get a flight physical. I've already seen some DQ'ed guys that were picked up for SNA.

 

A CSO is trained as a combined Navigtor and Electronic Warfare Officer. B-1 Weapon System Officers (WSO's) have long been trained as WSO's. They sit in the back and do the mission of dropping bombs and jamming the enemy. However, in this area of downsizing the Air Force I will also tell you that I know several B-1 WSO's who were kicked out of the Air Force involuntarily at the 15-year point with no benefits, but no B-1 pilots have been cut to my knowledge.

There are boards in the Air Force and Navy that determine who goes to pilot training. CSO's apply to pilot training boards. There are also boards for CSO training. Pilots have never applied to those boards.

 

Congratulations of having multiple offers, that's a good place to be!

You might find some helpful info here:

Military Careers - Baseops Forums

 

Nick Jones likes this.

 

Without question take the pilot offer. Worst case is you don't make it through the pilot program and then they probably offer you a NFO/Nav flying job in the Navy. If you go the AF route as a nav, you can go the pilot route, many have done it but you are competing against nearly every other nav wanting to do the same thing. Just my .02 but go the pilot route.

 

I read the first post in the first thread I saw, and from that alone I've decided pilot is my choice... far and away. It seems like all of the things that I don't like about flying is taken care of by the Nav. I don't mean that in a condescending way. An extra set of eyes to calculate fuel loads, route planning, diversions, handling inop nav equipment... it would be difficult to do all of that and fly the plane. I'm going to have to get in good with the NFO's because they seem like a pilot's best friend.

 

Well now you did it!
How did all of those single-seat EVER manage???

Obviously that is only a small token of what a NFO/CSO/Nav or whatever does; but one of the best things I've seen in this thread is the mention of non-pilots competing to be pilots, but no transitions the other way.

USMCFLYR