Chuck,
Here's a question for you or some of the other helo community savy guys.
I was at Balad Air Base the oehtr night and I ran into some Navy reserve (H-60)types from San Diego. I won't mention the unit but they have a sister unit in Norfolk. A few months ago I was looking on baseops.net and saw a posting that mentioned the need for pilots. They welcomed guys from other services.
I was told by a few of there maintainers that the unit was going away. Does anyone know what the unit will become? Will it be active , reserve or a mixture. My wife is intrested in relocating to So Cal and I'm just looking at reserve/ guard options.
I've got just over 3000 hrs tt with about 650 hrs goggles and about 1000 hrs combat/danger time. Would this be competitive ?I would appreciate any advice from those in the know.
Bobby - I agree with "HH" above. My best guess is you could direct commission to either squadron. These are reserve squadrons remember (not unlike Cali ANG) - so there existance has a political spin as well. There may be a master plan for both these squadrons but I bet they are both around for the forseable future. You should serioulsy look into it - and a good deal of personal networking would do some good - by that I mean a professional friendly phone call with the Active Duty component OIC and the Skipper or XO. Tell your storyt, let them get to know you, say what you want to do and how you can contribute and ask them for their help. I'm sure someone here on this board can get you an introduction to the players. But even a cold call and a follow up visit would be totally fine. The informal network in the Navy - and Naval Aviation - is very muchy alive and well.
I flew EMS for a while. As much as I'd love to encourage you to pursue, I could only recommend it as a place to park yourself in between deciding what you really want to do. It's fun, challenging flying but it gets old fast and to a man/woman the industry does not compensate it's pilots well enough. PLus it can be no sh!t dangerous. To this day I can not believe the FAA allows EMS oiperations to be called Part 135. To say the same level of safety and operational controls exist in a Part 135 airline and EMS is pure fiction.
But there is no shortage of available EMS positions right now. Just got an email on a single pilot Bell 412 positionn in VA - mid $50k to start and 7 days on 7 days off. The kind of thing you could link with reserve duty and do well on - but after 5 years you wiull be maxed out on the salary scale and you will want to be doing bigger and better things - contributing at higher levels. It's a tough business. Absolutely fun and rewarding flying though. EMS was the biggest challenge to my piloting skills and judgement as a professional pilot. I learned huge lessons in decision making and weather.
End of rant - probably more opinion than you wanted!
