I stand corrected, of the 15 type aircraft of the Corps, 14 might get FAC tours, but all might get ANGLICO or MARSOC tours.
My bad.
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Pilot slot availability between USN vs USMC?
- Thread starter Pringle
- Start date
My bad.
Isn’t that pretty terrible advice for a college student with no prior flight time? Aren’t you competing against all the former active duty pilots?
Not necessarily. Plenty of units hire off the street college grads and prior enlisted from within without any prior flight experience at all. Being able to go straight to a unit in a location you love, while maintaining the flexibility of the guard/reserve on day 1 is a massive benefit for QoL.
All units are different, many simply look for people they could spend 20+ years with. Vastly different culture from Navy hardware units and SAUs.
No. We treat off the street candidates completely differently than already qualified military pilots.
We need both. They don't compete against each other, they complete against their peers.
Gotcha, was an honest question since I thought it was "spot opens up, free for all frenzy of applicants, and usually its the guys they don't have to invest in that they would pick 99% of the time."
But I'm a dirty NFO anyway and I've never heard of an NFO to CSO transition.
But I'm a dirty NFO anyway and I've never heard of an NFO to CSO transition.
I bet an F/A-18 NFO could swing a transition to F-15E CSO without too much trouble.
There are fewer and fewer flying CSO slots in the USAFR and ANG, and no F-15E's last time I checked. One of the very few 'new' opportunities for ANG CSO's is the OA-1K that the OK ANG is supposed to get soon-ish. Not sure if that will last or not, those special or unusual aircraft often times just go away when they lose their champion/s.
A big challenge with ANG units is that they sometimes go away or transition to something entirely different. The GA ANG lost their B-1's not too long after getting them and they transitioned to E-8 JSTARS. Others have gone from F-16's to C-130's, and more recently others have gone from manned aircraft to unmanned. Maryland is losing its A-10's and getting nothing to replace them, they were supposed to get DC's entire F-16 wing (based out of Andrews, which is in...Maryland) as part of DC's football team getting a new stadium in DC (yes, you read that right) but that was just nixed.
I once got to observe the State Adjutants General meeting where they shuffle units. Of course TAG is (mostly) an appointed position so they do what the governor asks. I learned a great deal, the first being that most governors don’t want “cool” Guard units, they want units they can use in an emergency. Of course all of this has to fit within the broader needs of the armed forces and their manpower and mobilization plans.
On the AIr Guard side nearly every governor wanted C-130’s. They were happy with army helicopter units, but larger states often bartered for heavy lift (-47) units. @Flash has a point about SO aircraft. Interestingly enough Oklahoma once had a SOAR MH-47 unit that was a popular spot for guys leaving the regiment - but that went away when Big Army bungled the Desert Storm mobilization. Massachusetts lost one of the best F-15 wings in the country (and had them replaced with an intelligence wing that does something with unmanned aircraft) all because the governor’s big donors on the Cape were tired of hearing jets all the time. My visit was before the AF had V-22’s but I don’t think there are any V-22’s in the Air Guard, but I think they would be popular with the governors.
On the ground side military police and engineers are by far the most popular, armor and artillery the least popular. Larger states get division sized elements, but even those often have elements in neighboring states (the 29th Infantry Division is a good example). I remember both Texas and California working hard to keep their divisions while other states couldn’t wait to dump their armor units. When they came out, Maneuver Enhancement Brigades were quite popular. On the army air side, every state gets helicopters (I believe at least a battalion) who are scattered elements of larger Combat Aviation Brigades.
They also want units with more people and more potential for federal funding and money flowing to your state. A C-130 unit has a lot more people than an F-16 unit.
Otis lost their F-15s and gained a full-time DSG/intel analyst wing. That one hurt. Maryland losing their flying mission also sucks- especially now that they'll be the only state without a flying mission. They can't even get an RPA squadron.
One thing governors seem to forget is that the airplanes aren't owned by their state. They're owned by the federal government. When you try to mobilize an airplane for a state mission a lot of things have to happen. If you're hoping for an immediate timeline you'll be disappointed. I've got a lot of experience in this realm- the Governor of Michigan wants MQ-9s to help do SAR over the Great Lakes. We've done it once, and while we were successful in the execution of that mission (unfortunately, it turned into a recovery mission), one of the big obstacles we're running into is that the federal government doesn't want to give assets to Michigan to dedicate to that mission- and Michigan sees the price tag of operating an MQ-9 and balks quickly. The wildfires in CA were declared a federal emergency so the MQ-9 sorties, as well as the people supporting them, were paid for with federal dollars.
All of this to say the ANG is a great place, but it's fate is tied to the whims, and the strength, of the senators and congressmen of the state.
Being in charge of managing and balancing federal vs state funding of flight hours sounds like my own personal version of hell.
Spot on! It’s funny you call it (correctly) Otis AFB because those of us on the Army side called it Edwards Army Airfield and the Coasties call it CGAS Cape Cod.
Isn't the correct name actually Joint Base Cape Cod?
Locals still call it Otis, however.