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Aircraft selection

Birdbrain

Well-Known Member
pilot
Wanted to restart this thread - any gouge on platform selection trends out of primary? I am sure that COVID has made things interesting.
When I started API I heard "the Navy needs jets". When I started Primary I heard "the Navy needs jets". When I showed up in Meridian, MS for Intermediate Jet training, I heard "the Navy needs jets".

So from my point of view, the Navy needs jets.

Seriously though from a student's perspective over 2.5 years, the basic breakdown for Navy weekly selections was
  • Helos: quickest time to train, there's plenty of helo pilot selections (around half of Naval Aviators I recall)
  • P-8s: quick time to train, less people select P-8's than Helos but it's a regular selection.
  • E6s: like P-8's but you fly a 707 in Oklahoma and it's full of Cold War relics. It is a Cold War relic. Pretty cool IMO.
  • Jets: longest time to train and just few per selection class group from a Wing if that, sometimes not at all.
  • E2/C2: like jets but you fly a sky beast with massive props. C2 pilots likely to transition to Ospreys in the future FYI.
  • Ospreys: handful selected selected per year
 

Griz882

Frightening children with the Griz-O-Copter!
pilot
Contributor
When I started API I heard "the Navy needs jets". When I started Primary I heard "the Navy needs jets". When I showed up in Meridian, MS for Intermediate Jet training, I heard "the Navy needs jets".

So from my point of view, the Navy needs jets.

Seriously though from a student's perspective over 2.5 years, the basic breakdown for Navy weekly selections was
  • Helos: quickest time to train, there's plenty of helo pilot selections (around half of Naval Aviators I recall)
  • P-8s: quick time to train, less people select P-8's than Helos but it's a regular selection.
  • E6s: like P-8's but you fly a 707 in Oklahoma and it's full of Cold War relics. It is a Cold War relic. Pretty cool IMO.
  • Jets: longest time to train and just few per selection class group from a Wing if that, sometimes not at all.
  • E2/C2: like jets but you fly a sky beast with massive props. C2 pilots likely to transition to Ospreys in the future FYI.
  • Ospreys: handful selected selected per year
2.5 years! Just to get to Intermediate Jets? You'll be an O-4 before you get out of FRS.
 

Birdbrain

Well-Known Member
pilot
2.5 years! Just to get to Intermediate Jets? You'll be an O-4 before you get out of FRS.
It still amazes me that George H.W. Bush was shot down by Japanese AAA in his warplane as a 20-year-old Ensign. What a different time we live in, just a short 80 years later.

Let me review my journey real quick for anybody visiting this thread who's interested about how long this may take.
  • Graduate college -> 8 months to arrival at OCS (completed the package during summer and could have been 5 months to OCS, but I made a personal decision to delay training to stay with family a little longer)
  • Check in to OCS -> 4 months to commissioning, then 3 months OHARP
  • Check in to API -> 3 months wait to start IFS which took a month, then straight into API Swim, API, and Physio (about 3 months in total including the Holidays)
  • Check in to Primary Wing -> 3 months to class up, then Primary complete in about 6 months, then a month of waiting after selection before PCSing thanks to Rolls Royce
  • Check in to Intermediate/Advanced Wing -> went on Christmas leave for two weeks and upon return got sent to CFET and SERE. Then Covid happened and everything got put on freeze. Primary complete to beginning Intermediate including the ancillary training was around 8 months.
So of my time in service, so far I've twiddled my thumbs for about half of it. The other half has been hands down the most interesting and exciting times of my life that I wouldn't trade for the world!

I'm expected to complete sometime in late spring/early summer next year so from earning my commission to earning the coveted wings of gold looks like it will take about 3 years.

When I started all this I expected to be winged within two years and FRS complete by three, but life has other plans sometimes. Most of that is not in my control, so all I can do is my part.
 
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Wareal

Well-Known Member
Contributor
2.5 years! Just to get to Intermediate Jets? You'll be an O-4 before you get out of FRS.
The pipeline hasn't changed much. In 2013 it took my son 2 years 3 months (IFS through Primary) to get to Meridian. He winged 16 months after that. He CQ'd in the gray plane a year later, four months before promoting to O3E.
 

FLGUY

“Technique only”
pilot
Contributor
It still amazes me that George H.W. Bush was shot down by Japanese AAA in his warplane as a 20-year-old Ensign. What a different time we live in, just a short 80 years later.

Let me review my journey real quick for anybody visiting this thread who's interested about how long this may take.
  • Graduate college -> 8 months to arrival at OCS (completed the package during summer and could have been 5 months to OCS, but I made a personal decision to delay training to stay with family a little longer)
  • Check in to OCS -> 4 months to commissioning, then 3 months OHARP
  • Check in to API -> 3 months wait to start IFS which took a month, then straight into API Swim, API, and Physio (about 3 months in total including the Holidays)
  • Check in to Primary Wing -> 3 months to class up, then Primary complete in about 6 months, then a month of waiting after selection before PCSing thanks to Rolls Royce
  • Check in to Intermediate/Advanced Wing -> went on Christmas leave for two weeks and upon return got sent to CFET and SERE. Then Covid happened and everything got put on freeze. Primary complete to beginning Intermediate including the ancillary training was around 8 months.
So of my time in service, so far I've twiddled my thumbs for about half of it. The other half has been hands down the most interesting and exciting times of my life that I wouldn't trade for the world!

I'm expected to complete sometime in late spring/early summer next year so from earning my commission to earning the coveted wings of gold looks like it will take about 3 years.

When I started all this I expected to be winged within two years and FRS complete by three, but life has other plans sometimes. Most of that is not in my control, so all I can do is my part.
Enjoy the time as a Stud/Cat 1 FRS stud. You’ll look back on those times as a student when you get to the fleet as being some of the best, despite how stressful it was at the time.
 

Meyerkord

Well-Known Member
pilot
  • Helos: quickest time to train, there's plenty of helo pilot selections (around half of Naval Aviators I recall)
  • P-8s: quick time to train, less people select P-8's than Helos but it's a regular selection.
P-8s seems to have surpassed helos for shortest time to train, at least from what I’ve seen. But other than that I agree with everything you said
 

RandomGoat1248

Well-Known Member
When I started API I heard "the Navy needs jets". When I started Primary I heard "the Navy needs jets". When I showed up in Meridian, MS for Intermediate Jet training, I heard "the Navy needs jets".

So from my point of view, the Navy needs jets.

Seriously though from a student's perspective over 2.5 years, the basic breakdown for Navy weekly selections was
  • Helos: quickest time to train, there's plenty of helo pilot selections (around half of Naval Aviators I recall)
  • P-8s: quick time to train, less people select P-8's than Helos but it's a regular selection.
  • E6s: like P-8's but you fly a 707 in Oklahoma and it's full of Cold War relics. It is a Cold War relic. Pretty cool IMO.
  • Jets: longest time to train and just few per selection class group from a Wing if that, sometimes not at all.
  • E2/C2: like jets but you fly a sky beast with massive props. C2 pilots likely to transition to Ospreys in the future FYI.
  • Ospreys: handful selected selected per year

The Navy says that, but it was only a few months ago when they were turning away people with 65+ NSS's. Selection is always going to be a lot of blind luck, you have some control by how well you do in Primary, but if there are no spots when you are trying to select you are out of luck.

The only advice for selection is try not to worry about it. Do you best, have fun, and hopefully you get what you want.
 
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I have what may come across as a stupid ass question - but I don't care.


Does being married vs single affect what you may select out of primary? I have seen on the selection sheets that it does ask what your legal married/single status is.
 
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croakerfish

Well-Known Member
pilot
I have what may come across as a stupid ass question - but I don't care.


Does being married vs single affect what you may select? I have seen on the selection sheets that it does ask what your legal married/single status is.
It didn't in Advanced when I was doing the selections for wingers. We only cared about COLO for dual-mil, and rarely some exceptional personal circumstances if we could accomodate. I.e. one guy's wife wanted to keep her oncologist as she recovered from cancer so he really wanted Norfolk.
 

Meyerkord

Well-Known Member
pilot
I have what may come across as a stupid ass question - but I don't care.


Does being married vs single affect what you may select out of primary? I have seen on the selection sheets that it does ask what your legal married/single status is.

The only time I've seen marriage have an affect on anything outside of dual-mil COLO is where you go for primary. Married people tend to go to Milton a lot more often than Corpus, but that doesn't really matter when it comes to selecting your airframe later on.
 

SynixMan

HKG Based Artificial Excrement Pilot
pilot
Contributor
I have what may come across as a stupid ass question - but I don't care.


Does being married vs single affect what you may select out of primary? I have seen on the selection sheets that it does ask what your legal married/single status is.

No
 
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