Hello, I'm currently down in Pensacola for NFO Flight school. I'm wondering what it's like to be in each of the different aircraft communities, so I can try to decide which to pursue. What are the people like?
One quick caution...While there are common threads throughout each community, in VP you can take it down to each SQUADRON having its own distinct personality (I would assume it's the same in other communities, but have no first-hand knowledge). So what you're told by one guy might be completely true--and completely different from what you would eventually experience. My advice is to talk to the instructors, but not overthink it. In other words, don't worry yourself sick over "the decision" or DOR if you don't get P-3s. Make the best of it wherever you end up and you'll have a good time and learn alot.
(Disclaimer: the above is very good advice that I, of course, did NOT follow while I was going through flight school...)
^^ Coming out of -30, is there any thought of who would fit better in each squadron, or is it a crapshoot?
Regarding the aircraft carrier NFO platforms (F/A 18 Super Hornet, E/A 18 Grower, & E2 Hawkeye) is an NFO paired up with a specific pilot for an entire deployment or does an NFO end up flying with multiple different pilots??
I found a thread from 2004 that said NFO's fly with many different pilots over the course of a deployment, but being that the thread was 13 years old I was looking for a more up to date answer!
Thanks!!
Regarding the aircraft carrier NFO platforms (F/A 18 Super Hornet, E/A 18 Grower, & E2 Hawkeye) is an NFO paired up with a specific pilot for an entire deployment or does an NFO end up flying with multiple different pilots??
Jan: Thanks for the memories. As a classmate of yours, my experience...if not my memories of the individual instructors...mirrors your own. I just recall that A-6s was where the action was, and that's where I wanted to go. I hope you and I can agree that getting slotted for RIO training was a fortuitous outcome. After that, our "toughest decision point" was between orders to Miramar or Oceana. Again...winner, winner...chicken dinner.My own personal experience in VT-10 in the early '70s was that some instructors were very good at talking up their communities... and some took it to the other extreme. The lead guy in the E-1/E-2 department was a very disgruntled and bitter LCDR-for-life and NO ONE wanted to be that guy. The A-6 guys were very, very cool and, with the exception of the NESEPs that came out of the P-3 community and wanted to go back, most of the guys who wanted jets wanted into that community... the cool guys flew cool airplanes. As counter-intuitive as it seems, the F-4 community had a bad name, mostly because of the main two F-4 instructors were goof-balls.