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Trying for AD pilot through OCS/OTS. USAF/USN AD pilot pros and cons?

AllAmerican75

AllAmerican75

FUBIJAR
None
Contributor
Resurrecting this thread to show the MPRA bubbas some love:

Young DJ Baker wrote to the US Navy:

"My name is DJ Baker and I would appreciate it if you could tell me what it takes to be an F18 fighter pilot for the Navy. What classes should I take in high school to help the career I want to pursue later in my life? What could I do to get in the Naval Academy?"

Sincerely,

DJ Baker

***

A worldly and jaded P-3 Pilot, LCDR Jay Beasley, rose to the task by responding to DJ's letter...

Dear DJ,

Obviously, through no fault of your own, your young, impressionable brain has been poisoned by the superfluous, hyped-up, "Top Gun" media portrayal of fighter pilots. Unfortunately, this portrayal could not be further from the truth. In my experience, I've found most fighter pilots pompous, back-stabbing, momma's boys with inferiority complexes, as well as being extremely overrated aeronautically.

However, rather than dash your budding dreams of becoming a USN pilot, I offer the following alternative: What you REALLY want to aspire to is the exciting, challenging, and rewarding world of Maritime Patrol. And this, young DJ, means one thing....the venerable workhorse, the P-3 Orion!

I can guarantee no fighter pilot can brag that he has flown a mining run at 300 ft above the water, at 300 knots, while trying to calculate a means of justifying an emergency divert to Pattaya Beach, Thailand, avoiding shipping, and yelling at the TACCO, all while eating a box lunch, with the engineer in the back taking a piss and the navigator puking in his trash can!

I tell you, DJ, Maritime Patrol is where it's at! Where else is it legal to throw hazardous material out of the aircraft, and not even give a crap what Greenpeace and the other tree huggers think! No where else can you crawl in the back of the aircraft and take a nap because you are so hung over that focusing your eyes takes too much effort!

And talk about exotic travel? When P-3's go somewhere, they GO somewhere (usually for 6 months, unfortunately). This gives you the opportunity to immerse yourself in the local culture enough to give any natives a bad taste in their mouths for the USN and Americans in general, not something those jet jocks can do from their staterooms on a ship!

As far as recommendations for your course of study, I offer these: Take a lot of math courses. You will need all the advanced math skills you can muster to enable you to calculate per diem rates around the world, and when trying to split up the crew's bar tab so that the copilot really believes he owes 85% of the whole thing and the NAV believing he owes the other 20%.

Health sciences are important, too. You will need a thorough knowledge of biology to make those educated guesses of how much longer you can drink beer before the tremendous case of the shits catches up to you from that meal you ate at that place that had the belly dancers in some Godforsaken foreign country whose name you can't even pronounce!

Social studies are also beneficial. It is important for a good Patrol Plane Commander (PPC) to have the cultural knowledge to be able to ascertain the exact location of the nearest titty bar in any country in the world. Then be able to persuade the local authorities to release the RADAR operator, after he offends every sensibility of the local religion and culture.

A foreign language is helpful, but not required. You will never be able to pronounce the names of the NAVAIDs in Italy, and it's much easier to ignore them and go where you want to anyway. As a rule of thumb: Waiters and bellhops in France are always called "Pierre", in Spain it's "Hey, Pedro", in Puerto Rico it's "Juan", and in Italy, of course, it's "Mario." These terms of address also serve in other countries interchangeably.

A study of geography is also paramount. You will need to know the basic location of all the places you've been when you get back from your deployment and are ready to stick those little pins in that huge world map you've taped to your living room wall, right next to that gigantic wooden giraffe statue and beer stein collection.

Well, DJ, I hope this little note inspires you. And by the way, forget about that Naval Academy thing. All P-3 guys know that there are waaay too few women and too little alcohol there to provide a well-balanced education. A nice, big state college would be a much better choice.

Jay Beasley, LCDR, USN
Click to expand...
 
Austin-Powers

Austin-Powers

Powers By Name, Powers By Reputation
I know USN and USAF are the most common questions of which service to go, but what about the USCG? I understand most are Academy guys or DCOs from the Army ranks.
I am looking at the CSPI program as a means to fly for the Coast Guard under the Wilkes Flight Initiative. Is there any real reason most people gloss over the USCG?
 
Griz882

Griz882

Frightening children with the Griz-O-Copter!
pilot
Contributor
Austin-Powers said:
I know USN and USAF are the most common questions of which service to go, but what about the USCG? I understand most are Academy guys or DCOs from the Army ranks.
I am looking at the CSPI program as a means to fly for the Coast Guard under the Wilkes Flight Initiative. Is there any real reason most people gloss over the USCG?
Click to expand...
I have a few friends who shippoed over to the USCG and you are right as two of them were army guys. In their case, they loved flying but were pretty much done with getting shot at. One was a direct drop to Hawaii (I still hate his guts!) to fly Dolphins and the other asked for and was sent to Cape Cod. The one Navy guy I know who wen to the CG simply wanted the lifestyle but not the deployments. I'm not sure where he went. When I was at Camp Edwards I knew a lot of the CG pilots there and they loved it. No boat duty (HH-60's), plenty of flying, and no deployments. In the end I imagine it is really a matter of size. There are no more than 800 pilots in the CG and they don't have too much to do with the Navy. Others here might know for sure, but I don't even know if CG pilots get to instruct at either the HTs or VTs.
 
Griz882

Griz882

Frightening children with the Griz-O-Copter!
pilot
Contributor
It's good work if you can get it. All the navy guys will call you a "puddle pirate" but you can take it. When do you apply?
 
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