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15 SEP2025 SNA/SNFO BOARD

fighter-cat22 said:
Appreciate the response. I was planning on taking flight lessons next summer, mostly to get used to the feel of smaller aircraft and talking on the radio.

So you’re saying there’s really huge benefit to having flown for years? But having a little experience is significantly better than none?
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I think the main thing is you should at least do an intro flight to see if you really want to be a pilot—many people find out it’s not for them after one or two times; some flight experience or even a PPL will also sleuth out a lot of flight related issues (especially if you get a FAA class one flight physical, nowhere as strict as NAMI but it covers the basics) and you’d also know if you’d throw up in minor turbulence or not 😅
 
fighter-cat22 said:
Appreciate the response. I was planning on taking flight lessons next summer, mostly to get used to the feel of smaller aircraft and talking on the radio.

So you’re saying there’s really huge benefit to having flown for years? But having a little experience is significantly better than none?
Click to expand...
Yeah once again, from secondhand experience but sometimes it hard to break bad habits.

I coach a sport at the local university, and the amount of players that come in with terrible habits from high school is insane. The process of unlearning is harder than learning fresh. A little experience is good because your still fresh enough but you have an understanding that's easy to build upon.

A lot of what those pilots were talking about were radios and cockpit management, which is pretty translational across civilian to military.
 
Yeah that’s why ended up getting my private and just stopping. Didn’t want to create any bad habits, and also wanted to see if I loved it. Good chance I get NFO too, but I’m very happy with that tbh. Just hoping I go to OCS anyway
 
Private.Pilot1 said:
Yeah that’s why ended up getting my private and just stopping. Didn’t want to create any bad habits, and also wanted to see if I loved it. Good chance I get NFO too, but I’m very happy with that tbh. Just hoping I go to OCS anyway
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Good on you. My first flight I ever took I was hooked. My advisor at school told me to stop if I wanted to fly in the Navy.
I am glad she did. I just do safety pilot stuff now with some friends to help them build hours, and as the name suggests make sure they are being safe lol. Getting back in the plane is awesome, especially in the right seat haha.
 
Yeah, just did my private in a Cessna 172 with a g1000, and just got rated in a piper at Cecil field in Jax. Just to stay current. But agreed, absolutely hooked on flying and couldn’t imagine doing anything else
 
fighter-cat22 said:
I’ve been curious, how much of an advantage did you think people in your class who had their PPL or significant flight experience had over those with none.
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It didn’t really help me that much in the academic phase because a lot of it is still new information. Example when getting my ppl we never talked about a jet engines but you will learn about that stuff during the nife. On the flip side I absolutely crushed my flying I only got 4s and 5s. And if you have your ppl they fast track you so you can finish nife and get to primary faster. In my personal opinion it’s not a necessity to get your ppl but it’s definitely nice to have. A lot of my classmates would ask for tips when it came to flying.
 
washedpilot said:
KMAF the international airport in Midland/Odessa then heading to KABI in Abilene before going back to my home field. Hoping we don’t need to stop for fuel but we’ll see.
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Nice I flew to midland on xc before. When we landed there were a bunch of T45 Instructors landing behind us. I flew KDTO-KMAF-KELP
 
23brooks23 said:
It didn’t really help me that much in the academic phase because a lot of it is still new information. Example when getting my ppl we never talked about a jet engines but you will learn about that stuff during the nife. On the flip side I absolutely crushed my flying I only got 4s and 5s. And if you have your ppl they fast track you so you can finish nife and get to primary faster. In my personal opinion it’s not a necessity to get your ppl but it’s definitely nice to have. A lot of my classmates would ask for tips when it came to flying.
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I’ve always done pretty decent in school so I’m not as worried about the academics. I’m mostly concerned with sucking at actually flying the plane 😂

I have a cheap sim set up at my house, but I can’t imagine that’s anything close to the real thing.
 
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