Nozeman has a good point, but when I was a mid I knew I wanted to fly and did as many aviation related cruises as possible (2/c afloat on a CV, 1/c aviation ashore).....no regrets about this. It could be that I had lots of access to surface and sub tours and events living in the PNW, but I didn't have much other curiosity when it came time to go on my 1/c cruise. I know some guys who did aviation afloat and got basically no flight time, and I know some who stuck to it and got to fly in lots of airwing aircraft. If you go that route, best advice I have is to see everything you can, meet everyone you can, and don't be that guy who just hangs in his rack reading all day. It is a really exciting place, and it will take at least a week or two for you to do everything that you might want to do. When those things are knocked out, try checking out some of the less "cool" stuff, and get around to talk to folks. There are a lot of out of the way shops who will be really excited to show you what they do, and you will likely learn a lot from these places as well. Get out on the flight deck as much as possible, and try and spend some time on the platform if you can get in with paddles.
If you choose ashore, there will be lots of down time. You can probably expect to fly at least a couple times, if not more depending on scheduling. That said, don't smother the SDO/ODO with requests for flights. Hang out, talk to people, and learn to figure out when there may be a flight that could have your name on it. Then respectfully ask the duty officer to see if they could fit you in. Definitely don't give them attitude if they say no. In many cases they will go out of their way to hook you up (like switching an IP into a double bubble jet from a single for example), but do not expect this. Since you will have mostly down time while there, look for things to do in the area. Who knows, it could be a future duty station for you (my 1/c cruise was in what will probably be my first fleet home....Lemoore), or it could be at least a good experience in where you don't want to live. Biggest thing to do here is meet people, talk to them, and get a feel for the community. My 1/c cruise buddy is now an NSAWC instructor, and I ran into him at tailhook this year as well. Another IP I trunked with on middie cruise in the Rhino is now a reserve IP in Meridian, and I flew a couple ACM hops with him before I winged. You can count on seeing a lot of these folks in the coming years, so make a good impression!
