Does Air Force Fly More Than Navy?

[JWL]

It seems like after your first flying tour in the navy, one becomes a flight instructor, then a disassociated squadron tour, where one serves on a ship, but does not fly.

How many other flying opportunities are there in the navy after such a tour?

Does anyone know if Air Force flies more, or do they also rotate much between operational and desk jobs?

 

[cfam]

Dude, someone asked a version of this question within the last week. Please search before creating a thread for every question you have. I know for a fact that the Growler Golden Path thread has the answer to this question, because I wrote it.

 

[zippy]

It seems like after your first flying tour in the navy, one becomes a flight instructor, then a disassociated squadron tour, where one serves on a ship, but does not fly.

How many other flying opportunities are there in the navy after such a tour?

Does anyone know if Air Force flies more, or do they also rotate much between operational and desk jobs?

Yes, they do regularly fly more and do more flying tours. Flying is their bread and butter and it is common for someone to fly 18 years out of a 20 year career in the Air Force, and in some cases the full 20 years.

In the Navy there are three flying milestone tours the detailers are obligated to provide- JO tour, Department Head tour, Commanding Officer tour. If one steps off the path to be a commanding officer, the obligation ends.

Any flying tour beyond those milestone tours are a bonus and, depending on community, opportunities to fly manned aircraft for those tours are becoming harder to get. If a community has UAV/UAS programs tours operating those airframes count towards the total required flying tours and it becomes very hard to go back to flying manned aircraft operationally once you’ve got drone “stink” on you.

 

[JWL]

Dude, someone asked a version of this question within the last week. Please search before creating a thread for every question you have. I know for a fact that the Growler Golden Path thread has the answer to this question, because I wrote it.

Thank you.

 

[JWL]

Yes, they do regularly fly more and do more flying tours. Flying is their bread and butter and it is common for someone to fly 18 years out of a 20 year career in the Air Force, and in some cases the full 20 years.

In the Navy there are three flying milestone tours the detailers are obligated to provide- JO tour, Department Head tour, Commanding Officer tour. If one steps off the path to be a commanding officer, the obligation ends.

Any flying tour beyond those milestone tours are a bonus and, depending on community, opportunities to fly manned aircraft for those tours are becoming harder to get. If a community has UAV/UAS programs tours operating those airframes count towards the total required flying tours and it becomes very hard to go back to flying manned aircraft operationally once you’ve got drone “stink” on you.

Thank you, Zippy. I appreciate that well-informed response