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Deciding between USNA and USAFA

MGoBrew11

Well-Known Member
pilot
What does the track look like for rotary aircraft? My brother was telling me everyone who selects aviation goes to some general flight training for two years, and then everyone gets their airframe including rotary people, who then split off. Is that wrong or is there anything else I should know? I ask because I mentioned originally my goal is to fly, specifically fighters, but helicopters are a pretty exciting option to me as well assuming I would get that far. Also, do you know at all how this contrasts to the track someone might take to fly helicopters from usafa?
There are plenty of threads on this site about the layout for flight school, when you select etc. Take the time to browse and search the site and you’ll find specific answers to your questions. Suffice it to say, your brother has the basics down correctly.

I know next to nothing about odds on the AF side. But if you’re interested in helos if jets don’t work out, Navy is a great way to go. LOTS of helos in the Navy. I think I remember seeing somewhere roughly 40% of naval aviators are helos and that number could increase.

The helo mission in the Navy is very different from the helo mission in the AF though.
 
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exNavyOffRec

Well-Known Member
Supposedly the percentage of pilot slots out of USNA is higher than USAFA. I’m trying to actually verify if that’s true.

Having seen both sides the airframe choices after flight school vary widely. What you fly after flight school is a crap shoot. Don’t base your choice on that.

I will say that on a whole, I prefer the culture of the Navy over the AF, but that can also be very squadron dependent. However, the AF does give you more opportunity to fly later in your career even if you don’t screen for command. For example, I’m a non-squadron command O-5 and I fly ~30 hours a month and I’ll finish my career flying.

Bottom line, flying in either service is awesome, consider the non-flying aspects to help guide your decision.
Not sure about USAFA stats but I looked at USNA stats for several years a few months ago, in general nearly 800 are commissioned USN each year and nearly 300 are aviation with SNA making up low to mid 200's, so a decent percentage get aviation.
 

Flash

SEVAL/ECMO
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Have you visited the schools? That was a deciding factor in me choosing the school I went to over two other similar ones.
 

zipmartin

Never been better
pilot
Contributor
Can’t describe it much better than Bob Norris:

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: 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 girl in the bar wants to meet the Naval Aviator. 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 suit

Can’t describe it much better than Bob Norris:

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: 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 girl in the bar wants to meet the Naval Aviator. 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.
Read this years ago. Loved it then, still love it today!
 

taxi1

Well-Known Member
pilot
In my wanderings, I've met a surprising number of Navy SEALs that went to the USAFA and transitioned right out of school to the Navy. So even that is an option.

Navy wings are better looking.
 

ea6bflyr

Working Class Bum
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
In my wanderings, I've met a surprising number of Navy SEALs that went to the USAFA and transitioned right out of school to the Navy. So even that is an option.

Navy wings are better looking.
One of my Navy squadron pilots was a AF Academy grad. Yes, they cross-commission all the time.
 

Squirrel Girl

Well-Known Member
I am a DCO Intel person married to a USAFA graduate and fighter pilot currently instructing new students in the T-38. Below is his perspective.

There's a lot of factors that go into choosing one academy over another, some are more critical and important than others. The best advice I could give is to visit both schools, determine what you would want to major in, and choose the one that you feel resonates with you more - in terms of school, opportunity, and career. I went in and wanted to become a fighter pilot like many of my classmates. Some made it, others didn't. Plenty wanted other opportunities, and many more changed career paths after some time. Having a goal is important, strive for the excellence that will get you there, but don't put all your eggs in one basket. While there are plenty of opportunities, there are also letdowns. Have contingencies for if you fall short in an area.

I never did an exchange semester at USNA (I wish I had) - so I can't talk to their way of life, culture, or numbers.
What to expect at USAFA

Doolie year - After BCT and Acceptance Day (A-Day), you're in the Cadet wing, taking classes, and participating in training events. Your days start with morning chores, minutes (If they still do those), and breakfast. You go to your classes, participate and noon meal formation, and have more classes. At the end of your academic day you're in your room studying, doing homework, or preparing for any training event your squadron may have going on. If so, you take about an hour or two for that training event, shower, have dinner, and then after Academic Call to Quarters (ACQ) you're left alone until TAPS. In this phase of training you aren't allowed civilian clothes and you have more restrictions than other years.

Your upper three years, you don't have those doolie responsibilities, but in turn you gain other responsibilities, taking up staff roles in the squadron, group, or wing while continuing in your academics.

Over the summers, you have a lot of opportunities from Airmanship programs and study abroad, you'll go through some training programs, you'll be able to be cadre for basic training and more.

As far as job selection, you'll be racked and stacked against your peers. If you want a pilot slot, typically, as long as you meet the medical requirements, you'll get it. In my year, we had about 900+ pilot slots and in the 1000+ class size, even people in the 1000s were getting pilot slots. Even if you're at USAFA and decide you want to commission in to the Navy, that's possible. There are plenty of folks that cross commissioned, you just need to tell someone, go through the process and as long as there's someone at that academy that wants to go Air Force, it's easy enough to do. This almost always happens.

After graduation and your 60-day leave period, you'll report to your UPT base (Del Rio, TX, Enid, OK, Columbus, MS, or Witchita-Falls, TX (ENJJPT) - There's also UPT 2.5 at Randolph AFB, TX) expect to be on casual status and doing some job around the base while you wait for your UPT start date. You'll go through Phase I academics for a few months, then hit the flightline in the T-6A for about 6 months. Based on your performance and ranking you'll be tracked to T-38C (Fighter/Bomber), T-1A (Cargo/Tanker), or TH-1 (Helos). About 25% of the class goes T-38s, 1 or 2 go helos, and the rest go to the T-1. For example, in my class we had about 25 people, 6 of us went T-38s, we had 2 helos, and the rest went T-1s. If you go 38s, you rank every aircraft in the Inventory. Based on your performance in UPT as a whole, you're ranked against ALL UPT bases and what is available for your assignment. This means that there are plenty of T-38 students that don't get fighters. On occasion someone out of a UPT class may even go to RPAs, but that's rare and may not be happening anymore, I'm not sure the current state.

All of this to say, There's a lot of unknowns, and plenty that's out of your control. Have your goal, strive for the goal, but know that there's very rarely any guarantees. You could do everything right, be the perfect student and still may not get your airframe of choice - it sucks and sometimes it happens. I'm not as intimately familiar with Navy pilot training but know that there are still similar letdowns. So that's why I want to impress on you that you should have backups and not solely base your life on a specific airframe. Because if it doesn't happen, you'll be absolutely crushed. But if you have your goal, strive for it but get your second or third choice, you'll probably be in a better mindset. I got my 7th choice airframe out of Pilot training and I couldn't have been happier. To be fair, it was a much better fit for me than what I ranked above it. But there were some classmates that didn't go 38s or didn't get the airframe they wanted and completely shut down, had a bad attitude, and it never served them well.

With respect to Active Duty pilot life, and choosing which airframe you want. Base it on family and mission. Every MDS has their small subset of bases they're at. So find one that fits your family needs. Find a mission that you're passionate about. If you want to be the next Maverick and fly OCA/DCA CAPs in an air-to-air war, go that route. If you want to work with the Army in a Joint/Coalition environment, dropping bombs go that route. The military and the Air Force is always undergoing changes. Even now there's always talks about the next conflict, what is and isn't going to play a role in it. But you can't live your life based on "what if?".

Fly your plane, be the expert in what you can, be personable and nice to your crew chiefs, life equipment, SARM, and Intel. These people bust their asses to make sure you're ready to fly. Don't play "I have a secret" - If you have lessons learned or knowledge, share it. Even in pilot training when you're "competing" against others, if a base has a higher ranking class, they tend to get more fighters so overall chances are higher.

Hopefully this gives some insight to the Air Force side of the house.

P.S. - Jet health sucks everywhere, and I will laugh at you if you iron your flight suit.
 

exNavyOffRec

Well-Known Member
Supposedly the percentage of pilot slots out of USNA is higher than USAFA. I’m trying to actually verify if that’s true.

Having seen both sides the airframe choices after flight school vary widely. What you fly after flight school is a crap shoot. Don’t base your choice on that.

I will say that on a whole, I prefer the culture of the Navy over the AF, but that can also be very squadron dependent. However, the AF does give you more opportunity to fly later in your career even if you don’t screen for command. For example, I’m a non-squadron command O-5 and I fly ~30 hours a month and I’ll finish my career flying.

Bottom line, flying in either service is awesome, consider the non-flying aspects to help guide your decision.
I googled and found press releases from the USAF going several years back and here is what I have found the USAFA graduates about 900-1000 each year, recently they have been commissioning cadets into the space force so that has resulted in right about 850-900 or so each year commissioning into the USAF and of those it is right about 50% that get pilot spots, what is unknown is how many of the remaining were qualified for pilot spots and how many of those will end up as drone pilots as I remember a post somewhere that was a thing.

Given the data I was able to find I would say the odds of getting a pilot spot are better at the USAFA, however I would have guessed that anyway given how they give out pilot spots.

Now the odds of getting a pilot spot in the USAF if you don't go the USAFA diminishes as you go from USAFA to AFROTC and then to OTS.

While the odds of getting a pilot spot from the USNA are lower, it would be better at NROTC than AFROTC and USN OCS then AF OTS.

The other interesting thing I found is attrition at USAFA from those who enter to those who graduate is about 20%, I don't have stats for USNA on that.
 

Squirrel Girl

Well-Known Member
I googled and found press releases from the USAF going several years back and here is what I have found the USAFA graduates about 900-1000 each year, recently they have been commissioning cadets into the space force so that has resulted in right about 850-900 or so each year commissioning into the USAF and of those it is right about 50% that get pilot spots, what is unknown is how many of the remaining were qualified for pilot spots and how many of those will end up as drone pilots as I remember a post somewhere that was a thing.

Given the data I was able to find I would say the odds of getting a pilot spot are better at the USAFA, however I would have guessed that anyway given how they give out pilot spots.

Now the odds of getting a pilot spot in the USAF if you don't go the USAFA diminishes as you go from USAFA to AFROTC and then to OTS.

While the odds of getting a pilot spot from the USNA are lower, it would be better at NROTC than AFROTC and USN OCS then AF OTS.

The other interesting thing I found is attrition at USAFA from those who enter to those who graduate is about 20%, I don't have stats for USNA on that.
From my husband:

From my experience. About 50% of pilot slots per year go to USAFA, then from there it's split between ROTC/OTS.
My class started with 1294, graduated 997 so that's about spot on with the 20% attrition rate.
445 cadets went to pilot training (45%) - but there's a trend of a growing percentage of cadets that go to the Academy without the intention to fly and instead want other non-rated careers (comm, medical, legal, services, finance, intel, maintenance, missiles, etc...)

I promise you, however, that everyone that was medically qualified and applied for a pilot slot, received a pilot slot.
 

exNavyOffRec

Well-Known Member
From my husband:

From my experience. About 50% of pilot slots per year go to USAFA, then from there it's split between ROTC/OTS.
My class started with 1294, graduated 997 so that's about spot on with the 20% attrition rate.
445 cadets went to pilot training (45%) - but there's a trend of a growing percentage of cadets that go to the Academy without the intention to fly and instead want other non-rated careers (comm, medical, legal, services, finance, intel, maintenance, missiles, etc...)

I promise you, however, that everyone that was medically qualified and applied for a pilot slot, received a pilot slot.
Good confirmation.

The AF Officer recruiters almost never had spots for pilots, they always said what was left over from the USAFA was sucked up by AFROTC, but then again OTS like OCS is a pool that can get smaller or larger as needed.
 
I dreamed of being a ranger tabbed green beret and end ended up a navy nuke. I didn‘t love the nuke or surface Navy stuff, but it’s still the best thing that ever happened to me.

No matter what you choose, you have two great options and you‘ll thrive in either. Keep asking questions, but don’t worry about making the “wrong” decision.
 

red_ryder

Well-Known Member
None
I know there is a lot of information out there to help people make similar, if not the exact same decisions as this one. However, I would like to ask some slightly more specific questions to clear some things up for me. I was given appointments to both academies, and my goal would be to fly. I know there is good opportunity for that at both academies, but if my ultimate goal is to fly fighters, would it be dumb to base my decision partially off of which academy might give me a better shot at that? My older brother is at USNA and is about to graduate with a pilot slot and was telling me it is so unpredictable in terms of what each branch needs that it might not be smart to base my decision on that at all.

Also, for those of you who may have originally wanted to fly fighters and ended up with something bigger, what are your thoughts? It would be nice to get an idea on what that might be like. Thanks in advance. I really appreciate any information you can give me to help make a good decision, though I know ultimately, I can't go wrong with either.
download.jpg
 

HSMPBR

Not a misfit toy
pilot
9AA7E8A1-9A3D-4C51-9BFE-F64518574DDA.png
That’s a quote, said with pride, from an AF fighter pilot colonel.

Maybe I’m just jealous because I know I’ll never be a yellow-thcarved Rocketeer. I just fly helicopters to pass the time between PI and Singapore.

 
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sevenhelmet

Low calorie attack from the Heartland
pilot
The kinds of things some O-6s think matter... :D

(Colonel yellow scarf is probably just excited to be in the jet- most O-6s don't fly that much.)
 
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