The pipeline for AW is dependant on your platform. As a rescue swimmer you will get 4 weeks of aircrew training and 5 weeks of rescue swimmer school. After this you will go to A school and again depending on your specific platform you can have anywhere from 7 weeks to 5 months of classes. From here you will go to your training squadron which will be about 6 months. These times do not include hold times and roll backs which also include training. All in all you are looking at about 2 years of training before you head to the fleet.
Like previously stated as an AW, rescue swimmer is a secondary/collateral duty. That said AWs are very very qualification heavy. As an AWR2 my qualifications include level 300 tactical crewman, aviation life support system tech worker, collateral duty inspector, collateral duty quality assurance representative, rescue swimmer, maritime direct deployment certified, crew chief certified, cpr qualified, nvg crewman, night systems flight instructor, ordnance certified, ordnance load team member, ordnance load team safety observer, quality assurance superviser for ordnance, M240 door gunner, GAU 16 door gunner, enlisted air warfare specialist, naval aircrew warfare specialist, pci-imat instructor, advanced accoustic intelligence gathering, on top of this I also have my ground job of Operations leading petty officer.
In the aircraft I have to work various weapons systems including, FLIR, Hellfire, Torpedoes, Acoustics and sonobuoys, radar, electronic support measures, and countermeasures. Missions will include, Anti-submarine and anti surface warfare, vertrep, sar, csar, logistics, counter narcotics, maritime strike and amphibious assault, comrelay, intelligence gathering, HVBSS, SPECWAR support, disaster relief, and Command, control, and communication.
Bottom line you are a warfighter and constantly in training. You will always be studying for the next sim, flight, sar or natops eval, qualification or rating exam.
It is a very different life from the USCG whose sole mission is SAR.
