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Kingsville or Meridian
- Thread starter Strobes
- Start date
Went to K-Rock. If given the decision again, I think I would choose Meridian. If you were a Corpus primary guy, K-rock might be better because more of your primary buddies would be closer. But being a Vance guy, that might not be an issue for you.
I had some great friends and did ok in K-rock so I don't want to totally bash it, but in the end the town/area sucks and I just didn't feel like the program was executed that well. I'm sure there are positives and negatives of both places, and guys from Merididan will say the same thing. I'll just sum it up by saying: there are no taxicabs in Kingsville, not a single one.
Plus, I flew the 45 alphas and, after jumping into the 18's pushbutton nightmare, I think the Charlie guys are a little more prepared for the RAG initially (I had to rely on my Meridian classmates for a lot of the gucci button stuff for the first few weeks). Might be that K-rock is starting classes in the Charlies now, not sure.
In the end, in all honesty, I would probably try to go where you have the most buddies. You'll make good friends either place so even this isn't a huge factor. I guess it comes down to choosing between the lesser of 2 evils, and realizing that you're gonna fly a kickass jet and do some crazy sh!t wherever you go. From my perspective, I just didn't enjoy K-rock or south Texas that much and would opt to try something different the next time around, if given the opportunity.
Either way, you'll get good training and embark on a challenging career. My 2 cents.
I had some great friends and did ok in K-rock so I don't want to totally bash it, but in the end the town/area sucks and I just didn't feel like the program was executed that well. I'm sure there are positives and negatives of both places, and guys from Merididan will say the same thing. I'll just sum it up by saying: there are no taxicabs in Kingsville, not a single one.
Plus, I flew the 45 alphas and, after jumping into the 18's pushbutton nightmare, I think the Charlie guys are a little more prepared for the RAG initially (I had to rely on my Meridian classmates for a lot of the gucci button stuff for the first few weeks). Might be that K-rock is starting classes in the Charlies now, not sure.
In the end, in all honesty, I would probably try to go where you have the most buddies. You'll make good friends either place so even this isn't a huge factor. I guess it comes down to choosing between the lesser of 2 evils, and realizing that you're gonna fly a kickass jet and do some crazy sh!t wherever you go. From my perspective, I just didn't enjoy K-rock or south Texas that much and would opt to try something different the next time around, if given the opportunity.
Either way, you'll get good training and embark on a challenging career. My 2 cents.
Meridian - glass cockpit, useful HUD, modern avionics and navigation suite. A very good chance you'll end up in a Hornet vice a Prowler.
Both towns suck... Krock has CC about 1 hour or so from it... Meridian has Birmingham and Pensacola about 2.5 hours from it. Pick your poison.
Both towns suck... Krock has CC about 1 hour or so from it... Meridian has Birmingham and Pensacola about 2.5 hours from it. Pick your poison.
I love it ... how things change. Meridian was an armpit. But it was "basic" Jet .... so everyone-jet went there.
Back-in-the-day .... the advanced Jet c"hoice" (assuming you got one) was Kingsville or Beeville ... usually described as "which do you prefer ??? ... Sh!t or P!ss in the face ???"
Back-in-the-day .... the advanced Jet c"hoice" (assuming you got one) was Kingsville or Beeville ... usually described as "which do you prefer ??? ... Sh!t or P!ss in the face ???"
The attrition rate brings up an interesting question...
If your at Jet Advanced and attrite, where do you end up? Are you out of aviation all together or do you get to move to another platform?
...I'm not thinking about attriting.....not even classed up for API yet....
If your at Jet Advanced and attrite, where do you end up? Are you out of aviation all together or do you get to move to another platform?
...I'm not thinking about attriting.....not even classed up for API yet....
It depends how far into the program you are, why you attrited, etc. Someone that attrites at the boat or in Phase II has a decent chance of switching pipelines.
I know, I know ... who cares what they "used" to do ??? ...... BUT .... back-in-the-day ... when someone attrited OR DOR'ed from advanced Jet ... late '60's time frame ... they ended up:
NAVY:
1. Black shoe -- big grey boat.
2. Riverine Force (yes, black shoe ... but a little more "intensive" ... yes???)
3. Supply Corps
And the Marines??? They got sent to Helos so they could kill 30 men at once instead of just one ....
I kid you not ....
Don't know if it is still the case, but when we went to Kingsville it took my husband almost half of the time that it took some of his Meridian buddies to finish advanced. And it seems that OVERALL the Kingsville guys tend to do better at the boat - could be because they are still using the "A" model and need to be more proficient as they don't have the tools to help them that Meridian guys have - but that is all speculation on my part. However, it does seem that the Meridian guys are better prepared for the RAG with the C model.
Jay
Registered User
Yeah, the #'s I got were from the Officer who does selections, so as of last week, they're pretty accurate. You know, in all honesty, I haven't seen hardly any attrites in Meridian? I agree about the sim's, when I first got here, I lived in that building, now it's just until I get something down, and then I wait till the next hard thing comes along. As for attrition, I mean everbody knows the STUCON guys attrited for some reason or another, but other than them, maybe 1 or 2 since I've been here? Hell, in Primary, I literally saw like 15-20 Navy students attrite, DOR, blah blah blah. The majority of them really didn't know what to think about flying, had always thought it would be fun, and figured they'd give it a try, and didn't like it. I was in awe.
As for Nozeman's question, I was always told if you just can't qual at the boat, they'll send you through another platform, Navy and Marine. Attrite at any other point the entire way through flight school, Navy 50/50 you're out, Marine 95% ground job....typically Adjuctant Okinawa. I say 95% even though command says 100% because of this, during API I met an NFO about to wing who attrited in K-Rock and came back through in an NFO, how? I have no idea. And I say Adjuctant Okinawa, once again, during API, I met like 5 Marine NFO attrites, 4 were going to Okinawa.
The planned length for Meridian is 1 year. Kingsville is slightly shorter, but because of slightly better flying weather and a ridiculous penchant for double-pumping, Kingsville will tend to finish in about 10 months.
Doing better at the boat? No, that's not true. Sometimes Meridian does better, sometimes Kingsville does better. I'll tell you what though, being in the pattern at the boat with Kingsville guys is SCARY. No SA whatsoever when the boat makes a turn. I almost got T-boned by one because he didn't know where the boat was going (it's easier for a Charlie model... got the HSI with the TACAN symbol on there, etc).
Can't speak for Kingsville, but there is not one sports bar in Meridian. Further, there is no place in Meridian that has NFL Sunday Ticket; so if you like watching your team on Sunday, get DirectTV. There are a decent amount of places to eat in Meridian, not even close to Pensacola, but decent. Speaking of Pensacola, it is 3 hours away at the most so seeing friends in the Helo/NFO pipeline is easy.
The Choctaw Indians run two pretty good casinos in Philadelphia, MS which is only 45 minutes away. Makes for a good time on the weekends.
I'd pick Meridian again if I had to.
The Choctaw Indians run two pretty good casinos in Philadelphia, MS which is only 45 minutes away. Makes for a good time on the weekends.
I'd pick Meridian again if I had to.
bolterking
Member
That is not necessarily true.