Aviators/NFO here, why did you choose the Navy over the Air Force?

[heynowlookout]

Not in either of my two Navy squadrons. One was overseas and utilized a "CD IGS", and my current one just.... doesn't.

So your vast experience is an overseas squadron where it would be logistically very difficult to send you to IGS and a VR squadron. A VR squadron has 5 maybe 10 FTS pilots and many aren't located at a base with a large Navy presence, so you'd like to hold an IGS class just for you. Most of the rest of us do this shit on a daily basis in the Show and have plenty of practice and annual training, in addition to the week a year we all spend in refresher class and sims. If you're interested in advanced IGS why haven't you gone? It isn't as though there's a lot for you to do with all the planes down. My command has been begging guys to attend schools, and not just since the red stripe. If you haven't received sufficient training it's your own fault, another way we differ from the boys in blue.

 

[jRiot504]

There will be douchebags everywhere, although those seem to be fighter guys more often than not, but that's not a blanket statement.

As a former air traffic controller, fighter pilots are the worse.

During my time at Balad AB, Iraq.

F16 is 60 miles out.
Me: F16 (I forget the callsign), you're number 4 to follow C-130 10 mile final.
F16: Approach we're going to be number 1.
Me: F-16 you're 50 miles from the airport, continue heading 280 you're behind a C-130 10 mile final.
F16: Approach were going to be number 1, switching to tower now.
Me: C130 turn right heading 090 to follow-up F-16 50 miles out, I will give traffic once closer.
C130: Yes.

Or they buzz British Airways flying 300 feet under them while en-route to a refueling track at FL250. Why? Just because they want to mess with aircraft while their overflying Iraq during the height of the war.

 

[BACONATOR]

So your vast experience is an overseas squadron where it would be logistically very difficult to send you to IGS and a VR squadron. A VR squadron has 5 maybe 10 FTS pilots and many aren't located at a base with a large Navy presence, so you'd like to hold an IGS class just for you. Most of the rest of us do this shit on a daily basis in the Show and have plenty of practice and annual training, in addition to the week a year we all spend in refresher class and sims. If you're interested in advanced IGS why haven't you gone? It isn't as though there's a lot for you to do with all the planes down. My command has been begging guys to attend schools, and not just since the red stripe. If you haven't received sufficient training it's your own fault, another way we differ from the boys in blue.

Us FTS don't do this all the time like the airline SELRES with the fleet down. And I plan on going to AIS, but I've worked out ASO first, and even that has to fit around me going on det, so one step at a time.

There are plenty of organizations that hold or can hold regular IGSes, like in Pensacola or any major fleet concentration center. You don't need to hold an IGS just in your squadron, particularly in VR. That's not how the Air Force does it, so why would I expect the Navy to do it? But if you have one class which has 5-10 squadrons sending dudes, you can put together a pretty robust program that will actually teach and refresh people instead of marking a check in the box.

 

[Trench]

I'm choosing Navy over Air Force because of Top Gun...

Honestly though, the Navy seems to have better management and less I'm-a-major-cuz-I-have-friends-in-high-places types. The 1994 B-52 crash showed that weak and corrupt management can kill, but the C-17 crash 16 years later (under very similar circumstances) proved that Chair Force higher-ups don't learn from their mistakes. At least when the Navy pilots crash, it doesn't seem to be from overconfidence or psychopathy.

 

[zippy]

I'm pretty new to this forum. On my first post, someone referred me to the search bar. So I tried finding all the info I can on this topic.

I wanted to be a pilot in the Navy, but the more I research, the more it seems that life in the Air Force is far better. I'm hearing stuff like the Air Force has better buildings and better locations (my family lives on Okinawa, Japan). Also, I heard that flying in the Navy would result in landing on an aircraft carrier, which means life underway. The only con I can find on the Air Force, is that promotion is harder.

I just want to make sure that I made the right decision before committing 10 years of my life.


--------------------------------------------------------------
I'm currently half-way through my third year of college majoring in electrical engineering with a GPA of about 3.3. I want to go to OCS/OTS right after graduating.

Promotion rates are cyclical.

Not every Navy pilot lands on a boat and not every Air Force pilot flies fixed wing aircraft.

The Air Force is definitely a better funded flying organization.

Apply to any and every service that has an aviation program. You can worry about making “the right decision” when you’ve got options and decisions to make. Prior to getting accepted to any commissioning programs your just going to engage in mental masterbation.

Also, don’t discount applying to the Air Guard/ Reserves. In this airline hiring environment I’d recommend those options first over an AD service commitment.

 

[Swanee]

I'm choosing Navy over Air Force because of Top Gun...

Honestly though, the Navy seems to have better management and less I'm-a-major-cuz-I-have-friends-in-high-places types. The 1994 B-52 crash showed that weak and corrupt management can kill, but the C-17 crash 16 years later (under very similar circumstances) proved that Chair Force higher-ups don't learn from their mistakes. At least when the Navy pilots crash, it doesn't seem to be from overconfidence or psychopathy.

Please realize that you have an outside view into communities that purposefully do not share mishap info to the public. Everyone has skeletons in their closets... Rightfully so, we don't share that info outside of those who need to know.

 

[jugg34naut]

If you wanted to compare us like churches, we are the liquored up Catholic kids out back with cherry bombs blowing shit up in the crappy Philadelphia diocese; while they are the really nice, somewhat awkward, Mormon kids peddling (see what I did there?) their wares on the really nice Schwinn 21 speeds while hosted by the rich families from Stepford Wives...

Pickle

That's a pretty good case you make for Mormonism... What you did there, with the Wives, I seen't it. Randomly I have a wife in as many countries as you have fingers. They almost perfectly align with Navy Det sites.

Who you calling awkward kid? You're the one who plays D&D

Now, now Dungeons and Dragons isn't meant to be taken in vain.

 

[RobLyman]

=


I'm definitely considering Army too, just to the extent the thread was another "Navy vs. Air Force" one, I threw my thought process out there.

And I'm still a jewelry whore.

Thanks for the advice though, I appreciate it.

You can always collect more than one, then you can put them both under your avatar.

 

[Judge Q]

You can always collect more than one, then you can put them both under your avatar.

I don't know that I'll ever be that awesome.

 

[Rockriver]

Also, I heard that flying in the Navy would result in landing on an aircraft carrier....

Yes. That is why I went Navy. I wanted to land on an aircraft carrier. That experience may be commonplace in this forum, but to the rest of the world, it's a fairly big deal.

 

[Austin-Powers]

@SynixMan

It's a bit silly but what also convinces me to fly helos is whenever I see Synix's profile pic and flying the Raptor from BSG.

 

[Pags]

@SynixMan

It's a bit silly but what also convinces me to fly helos is whenever I see Synix's profile pic and flying the Raptor from BSG.

Ugh

 

[Griz882]

What if you have trouble conceptualizing life in a Missile Silo?

OK, imagine being locked in your HS locker, with a smelly dude, for seven days. Got it?

 

[SynixMan]

@SynixMan

It's a bit silly but what also convinces me to fly helos is whenever I see Synix's profile pic and flying the Raptor from BSG.

lol thanks. Ironically I deployed on CVN-75.

 

[Flash]

I'll disagree with you, although your sentiment is a very common one with Navy guys. And it's a sentiment I wore with pride as a Naval Aviator until I worked for the USAF. I will agree with @sevenhelmet in that doing an exchange tour doesn't make you a resident expert in their service culture, but it gives me a far better perspective than most ignorance being peddled around ready-rooms about scarves, lack of autonomy and pedantry....And finally, to dispel the myth I perpetuated myself about how a USAF O-5 has equal authority to a Navy O-3... not so. Specifically, the USN O-3 may DO THE WORK for the tasker that an O-5 in the USAF would do, but the authority still lies up the chain....

I worked and have flown with the USAF throughout my career, mainly operational and not just in TRACOM or AETC, and while you are correct that much of the worst that we make fun of the USAF isn't true like many myths there is in fact quite a bit of truth behind them. There are many exceptions to the rule but as a service you usually have far more autonomy in the Navy at a much more junior rank in the USAF flying-wise, I saw that in both of my communities and their USAF equivalents. I think the top-down culture in the USAF comes from their Army roots, where you can't take a shit without a FRAGO and a procedure written out in 3rd grade English. I keed....sort of...

There also seems to be a lot more angst among USAF aviators. That isn't a new thing either, the first iteration of their famous 'Dear Boss' letter was written in the late 70's. I think there is a lot of truth in the USAF's fixation in certain 'leader qualities' that are horribly misplaced and that have had a deleterious effect on morale to a degree we haven't seen in the Navy.

USAF aviators are great folks and like Naval Aviators the vast majority of them are true professionals, but I have enjoyed the culture far more in the Navy where in my experience you are given far more room to be independent on the ground and in the air. Doubly so as an NFO where I am treated as an equal, not so much the USAF.