Carolina Cruizer
Prorec Y-SNFO
I'm trying to keep an open mind as the navy has indoctrinated me to the reality that I may not have a choice, but personally I would love to be in jets. I'm curious about the mission sets of an EWO or WSO.
-
Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?
Go here:
Edit Account Details and Profile
VFA or VAQ?
- Thread starter Carolina Cruizer
- Start date
I'm totally biased, but I would definitely recommend either, over everything else. But your mindset is the right one. You can vote a little bit with your flight school grades/NSS, but a lot of it will still be luck and timing. Plenty of folks who wanted tacair and would have probably done well here, that didn't get it. And there are some folks who came here who never should have as well.
If you want to be in control of the mission with your double anchors, highly recommend the P-8. I assume growlers is also EWO centric but the MPRA lifestyle of per diem, no boat, and mission set executed by the NFO and enlisted aircrewmen is a huge win IMHO. There are times I wish I was flying fast and “in the real navy” but coming home to my hotel suite and having a beer after a deployment flight is a big win, especially if you have a family already.
Edit: from afar observations about jet FO training… I’ve been told by a friend that the growler mission set is hard to teach and give exposure to in flight school at VT-86 since all instruction is unclass - most of the curricula favors WSO life.
Unless things have drastically changed (and maybe they have), I’d be skeptical of any TRACOM crossover to any actual TACAIR tactical skills. What gets taught in CNATRA is more designed to weed out people who can’t keep up fast enough to learn the actual stuff when they hit the fleet.
Anthony2000
PRO-REC Y SNA
The one TACRON guy I’ve met was a JTAC and FSO in the teams. F-18 WSO and I believe this is his last stop so I think you’re right about TACRON being a stop pre-retirement.
Aren’t P-8s jets too?Probably easy in P-8s though since they are airliners....
I'll be here all week
Ahem...VAQ-131/132/134/135/138 would like a word.
To be fair, he was comparing VP to the “real navy”
OPNAV N98 has exited the chat
Touché. If the "real navy" includes 10-month deployments, brown lettuce, "port calls" to Duqm, 0/0 night recoveries, and $300/month mess bills, I'll gladly take the alternative.
I agree. Although it appears from an outsider's perspective that VP does an excellent job amping up the "suck factor" to compensate for not living on the Boat.
Carolina Cruizer
Prorec Y-SNFO
Can anyone speak to the differnce in the mission sets of the E6 and P8 nfos?
It’s true. Far too much self-induced ass pain that could be easily done away with.
Search around the site a bit. There are definitely walkthroughs of both mission sets/NFO experiences on here.