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Type of degree for OCS

Ben Callison

New Member
I don't know whether or not prior flight time will help get you selected because I've never sat in on a board. What I do know is that prior flight time will help you once you start flying in primary. Depending on which certificates you hold, it may put you light years ahead of the competition. If you only have a private pilots license, you'll be better than those who don't have one through about the first 4 flights before the playing field is level again. But if you have an instrument multi-engine rating with a few hundred hours, once you get to BI's and RI's you are going to pull away from the pack. The only guys that came in with a lot of valuable flight time that I ever saw struggle was due to their piss poor attitude. If they were humble and put in the same amount of work as their peers they would have excelled. That being said, I also flew with students that were solid with no prior flight time. Those were the guys crushing the prof-sits every day (simulator practice on their own time). If you only have time in a Cessna, its going to take you some time to catch up to the speed and technology of the T-6. Whatever the case may be, if you get selected, remain humble and work hard.
The reason I'm taking an aviation degree is because my passion is aviation and the only reason I'm in college was so to pursue my dream to become a naval aviator. I start flying twins next semester at liberty in a piper Seminole, but most of my hours are in a c172 and trust me I will always remain humble and am always learning. Thanks for the advice! I appreciate it.
 

Ben Callison

New Member
Okay...how? I mean, if flying and getting a CFI on your own is just your bag, great, by all means, go for it. But your original question was slanted towards whether it was a good path for OCS and Naval aviation. All the Navy really cares about is that you're teachable, and in general would prefer raw material than having to get you to unlearn habits first. I saw a lot of students with prior flight time and a bag full of certs come to grief in the program. I had one student whose last job before the Navy was FO at a regional, and he flunked out of API.
yeah of course. The Navy isn't for everybody, most of those guys probably weren't considering military when getting all of the certs and ratings but just thought they would try it out and maybe some did just flunk out but its not because of having all the certs and ratings, its the person, not because they had these certs and ratings that has nothing to do with why they failed.
 
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xmid

Registered User
pilot
Contributor
Multi won't help you in primary, which decides if you get jets or even continue with the program. While it couldn't hurt, an instrument rating and some real instrument flying will probably help you far more. Getting used to talking on the radio in a controlled environment and maintain basic air work should help your score immensely. Instrument flight will put you light years head of your peers in early stage RI's. But for the love of God, if you go down this route, don't ever let someone hear you bragging about your "experience." It will either show or it won't. What everyone is getting at is you will be starting over at square one with the Navy. Think of having prior flight time like being a good athlete in one sport and trying to learn a new one. Your speed, balance, hand/eye coordination, etc. that you honed in your last sport will help you in your new one, but at the end of the day you are still a basketball player trying to learn to play football. Half of doing well in flight school, and even the fleet, is based on your ability to study and know a lot of material COLD in a short amount of time. A photographic memory would probably be worth more than any amount of flight time you could get...
 

Ben Callison

New Member
Multi won't help you in primary, which decides if you get jets or even continue with the program. While it couldn't hurt, an instrument rating and some real instrument flying will probably help you far more. Getting used to talking on the radio in a controlled environment and maintain basic air work should help your score immensely. Instrument flight will put you light years head of your peers in early stage RI's. But for the love of God, if you go down this route, don't ever let someone hear you bragging about your "experience." It will either show or it won't. What everyone is getting at is you will be starting over at square one with the Navy. Think of having prior flight time like being a good athlete in one sport and trying to learn a new one. Your speed, balance, hand/eye coordination, etc. that you honed in your last sport will help you in your new one, but at the end of the day you are still a basketball player trying to learn to play football. Half of doing well in flight school, and even the fleet, is based on your ability to study and know a lot of material COLD in a short amount of time. A photographic memory would probably be worth more than any amount of flight time you could get...
I totally understand. thanks for the advice! and bragging about my "experience" will never happen, I understand when I'm going in the navy that I'm going to be trained and have to learn a completely new way on how to fly specifically for the navy. Also I'm a very quite person, I'm just trying to do everything I can to succeed and accomplish my goals in the navy. again thanks for the feedback!
 

rotorhead1871

UH-1N.....NAS Agana, Guam....circa 1975
pilot
Okay ,well I'm also doing this so that I can learn as much as I can before if go to navy flight training and hopefully get a head start because I'm going for jets (of course) if I do get selected. Thanks for the advice. I greatly appreciate it.

flying skills will be helpful for sure, good luck!!
 
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