Noah Werka

Stolen from Bob Norris. Could be Chuck's brother. Bob is a retired Naval Aviator who has written several novels.


12 Feb 04

Young Man,

Congratulations on your selection to both the Naval and Air Force Academies. Your goal of becoming a fighter pilot is impressive and a fine way to serve your country. As you requested, I'd be happy to share some insight into which service would be the best choice. Each service has a distinctly different culture. You need to ask yourself "Which one am I more likely to thrive in?"

USAF Snapshot: The USAF is exceptionally well organized and well run. Their training programs are terrific. All pilots are groomed to meet high standards for knowledge and professionalism. Their aircraft are top-notch and extremely well maintained. Their facilities are excellent. Their enlisted personnel are the brightest and the best trained. The USAF is homogenous and macro. No matter where you go, you'll know what to expect, what is expected of you, and you'll be given the training & tools you need to meet those expectations. You will never be put in a situation over your head. Over a 20-year career, you will be home for most important family events. Your Mom would want you to be an Air Force pilot ... so would your wife. Your Dad would want your sister to marry one.

Navy Snapshot: Naval Aviators are part of the Navy, but so are Black shoes (surface warfare) and bubble heads (submariners). Furthermore, the Navy is split into two distinctly different Fleets (West and East Coast). The Navy is heterogeneous and micro. Your squadron is your home; it may be great, average, or awful. A squadron can go from one extreme to the other before you know it. You will spend months preparing for cruise and months on cruise. The quality of the aircraft varies directly with the availability of parts. Senior Navy enlisted are salt of the earth; you'll be proud if you earn their respect. Junior enlisted vary from terrific to the troubled kid the judge made join the service. You will be given the opportunity to lead these people during your career; you will be humbled and get your hands dirty. The quality of your training will vary and sometimes you will be over your head. You will miss many important family events. There will be long stretches of tedious duty aboard ship. You will fly in very bad weather and/or at night and you will be scared many times. You will fly with legends in the Navy and they will kick your ass until you become a lethal force. And some days - when the scheduling Gods have smiled upon you - your jet will catapult into a glorious morning over a far-away sea and you will be drop-jawed that someone would pay you to do it. The hottest girls in the bar want to meet Naval Aviators. That bar is in Singapore.

Bottom line, son, if you gotta ask ... pack warm & good luck in Colorado.

Banzai

PS Air Force pilots wear scarves and iron their flight suits.

tomgoodman

I used to exchange e-mails with the late Scott Crossfield, and in one of them I tried to tease him with Norris's letter. The former Naval Aviator fired back:

ctd57

Flare to land, squat to pee.

Flying22low

If there are any college students who want to hear about the down and dirty life style of a Navy pilot shoot me an email, or wait. Skip that and hurry on down to the Air Force Recruiting Office.

ToiletDuck

Navy has a better running game.

BDGERJMN

Let me see if I read this correctly. The AF flies better airplanes and trains its maintainers better and they never get in trouble. The Navy has planes held together with duct tape and derelicts fixing them? Are you kidding me Banzai?

The "shapshots" are nice to read but fairly inaccurate. Now, I will admit I am a bit biased as I am a Naval Aviator, however I have fought and flown with plenty of Viper guys and Eagle drivers and have been on DET to more AF bases than I care to have been.

The AF does have nice airplanes and they are even painted as such, but I will tell you this, our sortie completion rates are equal to or better than our AF counterparts. The AF has more spare aircraft ready to fly for each section or division launched than the Navy does. Why? Because they have more maintenance issues(their jets are older-I'm speaking of 15s/16s) than your average Navy squadron. I'm not saying a Navy squadron can't be on its A$$ but every unit or squadrpon faces that.

As for time away from home, I would venture to say that in today's GWOT the time away from home training for deployment or on deployment are about the same. Tedious times on a boat? The boat is just that it's a boat, but you get a good meal and a hot shower and aren't breathing sand.

Now for the real reason to become a Naval Aviator.

You can go to the AF academy and learn how to be an Officer and then a Fighter pilot, but most likely a tanker guy or a cargo guy or an intel guy or a requirements guy or whatever. During that time you will learn how to read in black and white and anything else won't make sense to you. You can learn how not to be flexible and to cancel a sortie when the runway is wet or the weather is 500'. You can learn to divert a pointy nose navy guy off the tanker, because he is 200 lbs gas lower than what some Langley pre-planned coronet kneeboard card says. You can also sit in flight school for 12 hours a day and never have an instructor pull the throttle back on your single engine airplane and say..........."well Son, what are you going to do". You can also learn how to iron your flight suit and tie your scarf, because that's what they do and worry about.

I would rather grab my flight suit out of my laundry bag on the boat, sleep in til noon, get lunch, play some xbox or PS2, brief, fly, trap, get dinner, do it all over again or play poker with some of the best guys you'll ever know. Not to mention you are wrestling a 34K lb airplane onto a pitching hurling deck at night in some of the worst weather you've ever seen. And what do you do when you land, you taxi up around the bow 6" away form another jet thats also moving and being directed by a high school dropout with 2 years in the Navy and 40Knots of wind over the deck and smiling about it. And do you want to know what the best part is? I don't ever recall hearing about a President asking, "where are the F-16s and F-15s?" Why? Becuase it would take the AF 6 months to plan how to get them there. No, the President always asks "Where are the carriers" Why? because if we're not there, we can be in 2-3 days flying combat sorties over the beach. That's what we do and we do it well.


Oh by the way, when the dust storms kicked up in Iraq for three days straight, who do you think was flying? The AF? Not a chance. Team Navy/Marine Corps were the only ones that said, our guys on the ground need us to fly. "Paddles contact, you're on and on" What does that mean you might say? Go fly hornets and you'll figure it out. When you can't see the boat to land, and you're told to turn your taxi light on, and you hear "paddles contact", life is good. You know you'll get aboard safely and you'll be able to saddle up for that Poker tourney after RATS.

I havn't even mentioned the troops. I will say this, you can join the AF and never know the first thing about any of the men/women working on your aircraft or you can join the Navy and lead those men and women and mentor them. That is what being an Officer is all about.

The choice is clearly yours. Do with it what you must, I have a night trap to grab! Can you do that in the AF? Nah, you can have your 12000' well lit runway.

Oh yeah, one more thing, the girls in the bar? He's right, the girls in a Singapore bar do like Naval Aviators, but not nearly as much as the wives in the Kadena AB O'club.

Bdger

Hacker15e

Bdger, choke yourself and stick to talking about things you know about, since you have demonstrated that you know f*ck all about flying fighters in the Air Force.

Spongebob

You were obviously on different ships than me. I've still never figured out how a steam powered ship with 2 nuclear reactors can not have hot water. I always gave the food an "edible" rating; especially after coming back from a couple weeks in "the 'Deid".

BTW, the bar is "Molly Maguire's" on Boat Quay. "Brix" over on Scott Rd is good too. Too many sailors at the "4 floors of Ho's" on Rose for me. Raffles is classic and the old monastery area across the street has some really good restaurants and bars.

Spongebob

BDGERJMN

Touch a nerve did I? Truth hurts I guess.

Spongebob

He must have just gotten out of an 8 hour debrief.