USN Active duty first shore tour

[nascarpilot]

My family and I have decided that the active duty lifestyle is unfortunately not for us, but I would like to continue in the Navy as a SELRES aviator in the VR/VP/VT communities. It's about that time in the first shore tour to start talking orders and we are very interested in C-26s in Italy or Hawaii or C-12s in Japan. I would like to ask any SELRES or FTS guys how doing one of these jobs for my shore tour would affect my chances of getting into SELRES versus going the traditional route (ie VT instructor or FRS).

 

[Uncle Fester]

If you want to be SELRES VT, you should go to the VTs for your shore tour. They tend to pick from the guys they know.

My knowledge about VR is secondhand, but from talking to VR guys, their biggest selection factor seems to be how much time you can give the unit. In other words, they like airline guys because it's not as big a deal for them to take a jet to Spain or Japan for a week, as it would be for, say, a manager at a conventional office job.

If I were in your boots, I'd give FTS a good, long look. It has all the benefits of active duty, without the deployments.

 

[Gatordev]

If I were in your boots, I'd give FTS a good, long look. It has all the benefits of active duty, without the deployments.

My sea counter says otherwise. Perhaps a more accurate way to put it is that it has the benefits of active duty with shorter deployments. For VR, you're gone quite a bit, but again, for shorter periods, so if that's an issue on the homefront, it's something to be aware of.

As UF said, the TRACOM wants its SELRES to have IP experience, so if VTs is something you're interested in, do what you can to get your shore tour at a TRAWING. As an added benefit, it's a rewarding tour with a good quality of life.

 

[zippy]

The VT selres selection boards are run in house and give points for TRACOM and FRS experience as well as where you live and commute time. They also give points for items on your professional record (air medals, nams, EPs etc). Their final category they give points to is your reputation. Ie what they know about you personally.

These points help them determine how big of a risk you'll be for them if they hire you. Not risk as a pilot but risk as a reservist. They want someone who they are confident will do their 60 days a year.

If you don't have instructor experience and don't live local to the VT where you want to find yourself in and you don't have any rep at all with them you're going to have a very tough time getting hired by them.

The jobs you're interested in will likely not hurt you for VR life... As long as you have decent paper (they've even been know to take helo guys so the type of flying isn't really an issue with them as much as the VTs). VP Whidbey is always hurting for people so those jobs won't hurt you as long as your paper is decent and your community reputation isn't horrendous.

Applying form The reserves in Jax work kind of weird now. You apply to the wing and they look at your package for VP-30 SAU, VP-69, the C-40 VR and the C-130 VR. Sometimes they're hurting for pilots, sometimes they aren't. It's pretty VP centric so while your shore tour jobs may not hurt you, having a terrible rep in VP could... Actually all those VR guys hate everything VP ana glad they escaped it, so that might not hurt you after all.

 

[Randy Daytona]

My sea counter says otherwise. Perhaps a more accurate way to put it is that it has the benefits of active duty with shorter deployments. For VR, you're gone quite a bit, but again, for shorter periods, so if that's an issue on the homefront, it's something to be aware of.

As UF said, the TRACOM wants its SELRES to have IP experience, so if VTs is something you're interested in, do what you can to get your shore tour at a TRAWING. As an added benefit, it's a rewarding tour with a good quality of life.

You want to be local as you will be expected to provide 60 production days as a SelRes within CNATRA. One of the other things to note is how many SelRes are in each unit and how long you can expect to stay. For example, North Whiting is structured to have twice as many SelRes as South Whiting although the the active duty manpower and equipment is roughly the same.

 

[Uncle Fester]

My sea counter says otherwise. Perhaps a more accurate way to put it is that it has the benefits of active duty with shorter deployments. For VR, you're gone quite a bit, but again, for shorter periods, so if that's an issue on the homefront, it's something to be aware of.

Fair point; I should have said that's true for some FTS. Ours (VAW/VRC) don't deploy; maybe go on the road to Fallon or whatnot for a week or three. Hardware units are generally different, yes.

 

[Gatordev]

Fair point; I should have said that's true for some FTS. Ours (VAW/VRC) don't deploy; maybe go on the road to Fallon or whatnot for a week or three. Hardware units are generally different, yes.

I hear you. Sadly, that didn't used to be the case, as -77 was out and about regularly. Oh well.

Out of curiosity, does the VAW SAU have VRC guys in it? It would make sense, I guess, but never thought it through.

 

[heynowlookout]

Applying form The reserves in Jax work kind of weird now. You apply to the wing and they look at your package for VP-30 SAU, VP-69, the C-40 VR and the C-130 VR. Sometimes they're hurting for pilots, sometimes they aren't. It's pretty VP centric so while your shore tour jobs may not hurt you, having a terrible rep in VP could... Actually all those VR guys hate everything VP ana glad they escaped it, so that might not hurt you after all.

Interesting, if this is true it's a recent change and I haven't heard about it. Strange because as VR we don't even belong to the same wing as the VP clowns, that part I completely agree with. Either way a VT tour and its associated flight hours will set you up well for VR. I'm sure someone can cite the rare example of someone they know getting picked up for CNATRA without prior tracom experience but it's just that, a rare example. They want guys with experience at the job. As a guy who did that job I highly recommend it. If you want to fly a ton of hours to set yourself up for the airlines and warp the minds of the future of naval aviation there's nothing better.

 

[Uncle Fester]

Out of curiosity, does the VAW SAU have VRC guys in it? It would make sense, I guess, but never thought it through.

Quite a few; it's been a COD Mafia on occasion. Also have a couple of COD NACs.

 

[nascarpilot]

Gentlemen, thanks for all the replies. They're very helpful in guiding our decision. Please feel free to keep them coming.

Also, is there anyone out there who is/was in a C-26/C-12 billet and would like to share about it?