NFO to PILOT transition

[Intruder Driver]

Man, you guys are making me feel old!

You are all correct in various ways. I know times have changed. I spent a couple days and nights at sea on the JFK a couple years ago when my first cruise roommate was the CO. I think the stateroom I was given was larger than the four man bunkroom he and I shared on Midway.

As JO's, an average first tour was 200+ traps and 1,000 hours. By my second sea tour, the average was down by probably 25-30%. By my third, down again (Gulf War I time excluded in computing average rates). As a training command instructor in Meridian flying A4's in the late '80's, I logged 1700 hours in three years. I don't know what ithe numbers are like today.

In a bit of irony, like most aviators, I spent my entire career avoiding flight surgeons, NAMI and Bethesda. Today I own a software company. BuMed is our biggest client and some of my best friends are flight surgeons.

Between my BuMed connections (all senior officers) and considering that over 30 of my USNA classmates are flag officers, I have the privilege of observing the Navy as an outsider with inside experience and current tentacles to decision makers. My advice is to you is this: Things change. And the more they change, they really do stay the same. Policies today will not be polocies in five years. My two years going through the transition saw an absolute policy of FO-to-pilot transitions staying in their community change to where the needs of the service took precedence and then flip flop twice more over the next ten years.

So, if you want to be a pilot, apply and charge ahead. It's awesome. If you decide to stay the course as an NFO, God bless you there too. One of my friends is a NASA mission specialist who selected the latter option so he could go to TPS, and he's been in space twice now.

I wish all of you the best. You're all great Americans and heroes.

 

[VS FO]

Through the transition process, I was counseled by several higher ups at the squadron and BUPERS level about the adverse affects. Basically the gist was selecting TACAIR as a pilot out of flight school the second time would make it EXTREMELY difficult to make DH or command. Its all about what you want. For me, I decided it was more important to fly. I would rather fly one operational tour with a hornet squadron and be shipped back to the training commands as an IP then have that "almost guaranteed" DH slot as a NFO. I am not totally convinced of it being a career ender either. Some of the other transition NFO's I have met were without doubt the best junior officers I have seen thus far in the navy. I find it hard to believe their future commands will not reward their performance accordingly.

For the original poster: If you have any other questions feel free to PM me. Also I have copies of several successful NFO-pilot applications which may help give you an idea what they are looking for. Common traits seem to be an EP from your first JO tour and a #1 endorsement from your command, CAG and air wing among other things. A flag endorsement is nice to have, but not required.

Its true about the retention bonus as well. To be honest, it never even affected my decision. I only recently found out the exact amount I gave up. For me, $125,000 was a small price to pay for a life long dream.

 

[Pugs]

I am not totally convinced of it being a career ender either. Some of the other transition NFO's I have met were without doubt the best junior officers I have seen thus far in the navy. I find it hard to believe their future commands will not reward their performance accordingly.

For me, $125,000 was a small price to pay for a life long dream.

Never confuse having a career with having a life. Ya done good in my book.

 

[wink]

Man, you guys are making me feel old!

That happens to me with some regularity around here. Welcome to the site.

 

[eddie]

In a bit of Things change. And the more they change, they really do stay the same.

Yes, I do believe that kind of phraseology is reserved for the "Old Guys Cadre."

 

[Intruder Driver]

You made the right choice, VS FO. In my year group (78), only four tacair NFO's were selected for the transition. All previous year group transiitoners received the aviation bonus. When I applied, I was told that it had just "been decided" that NFO-to-pilot transitions would not receive the bonus. I appealed to then SECNAV John Lehman on my behalf and the other three in my year group, and he subsequently approved the appeal. It may be a small consolation, but our bonus was only $36,000. However, a year later the language offering the bonus specifically excluded NFO-to-pilot transitions. I heard later that the impetus behind the language was an NFO (to be unnamed) who was turned down for the transition and wound up in a department at the Bureau charged with writing the language. His justification? NFO's would give up the bonus for the chance to be a pilot.

 

[Intruder Driver]

Yes, I do believe that kind of phraseology is reserved for the "Old Guys Cadre."

You know you're old when all the jets you flew are on pedestals!

 

[Brett327]

You made the right choice, VS FO. In my year group (78), only four tacair NFO's were selected for the transition. All previous year group transiitoners received the aviation bonus. When I applied, I was told that it had just "been decided" that NFO-to-pilot transitions would not receive the bonus. I appealed to then SECNAV John Lehman on my behalf and the other three in my year group, and he subsequently approved the appeal. It may be a small consolation, but our bonus was only $36,000. However, a year later the language offering the bonus specifically excluded NFO-to-pilot transitions. I heard later that the impetus behind the language was an NFO (to be unnamed) who was turned down for the transition and wound up in a department at the Bureau charged with writing the language. His justification? NFO's would give up the bonus for the chance to be a pilot.

In all fairness, it doesn't make much sense to give the bonus to transition guys when they're already going to reset their service obligation for another 8 years upon rewinging.

Brett

 

[Brett327]

I do agree with you...but it still sucks...why not give a bonus upon selection? Hey you got selected for NFO-Pilot...AND you get 150K! Congratulations! Now THAT would be one competetive board!

Why don't you submit a point paper.

Brett

 

[KBayDog]

Why don't you submit a point paper.

Brett

Speaking of "papers," get off AW and get back to the books, "finals" guy.

 

[Brett327]

Speaking of "papers," get off AW and get back to the books, "finals" guy.

If I wanted someone to nag at me, I would have gotten married.

Brett

 

[A4sForever]

....Hey you got selected for NFO-Pilot...AND you get 150K! Congratulations! ....

We already did that ... ask Wink and HAL .... it's called the airlines. :icon_lol:

 

[Intruder Driver]

I do agree with you...but it still sucks...why not give a bonus upon selection? Hey you got selected for NFO-Pilot...AND you get 150K! Congratulations! Now THAT would be one competetive board!

In case someone decides to submit a point paper, the logic used to support our appeal was fairly simple. Other non-fleet tours are either 'good deals' or incur renewed obligations, so the NFO-to-pilot transition is no different to those. The examples we used were post-grad school, test pilot school (pathway to NASA or AEDO), Blue Angels, foreign exchange tours (flying F-18's in Australia seems like a good deal to me), etc. When you add it up, it actually becomes a pretty long list, and there were many more extended or renewed obligations than I realized until the list was together. We were able to show that the only real difference was that someone put forward the idea that NFO's would still make the pilot transition even if they didn't get the bonus. Our counter was that every perceived good deal should require that question, including the Blue Angels or TPS.

We also used medical and dentist bonuses as an argument. Docs were allowed to collect bonuses even as they attended years of specialty training at civilian universities while those years counted toward their obligation and such training would reap millions in the civilian world (my brother-in-law was such a lucky bastard).

 

[Brett327]

Well one argument I have is that you could just look at the retention rates of pilots vs NFOs...even with the bonus...more pilots than NFOs leave the Navy...so while, yes, the transition is a good deal for NFOs...the Navy does benefit as well by having a few Dept Head level pilots that they might not otherwise have. I know in my community a few years back there were hardly any pilots that stayed in when compared to NFOs...the only 2 reasons we are having DH screens now is because the late 90s to early 00s Year groups are larger because they commissioned more officers than the RIF/post RIF years and because no pilots could get a job right after 9-11.
Well that is my theory at least, with no solid evidence to prove any of the above.

I would imagine that the "ready-made for the airlines" nature of your community would explain a good deal of that.

Brett

 

[Intruder Driver]

It will be interesting to see how the next several years shake out. I was part of a study group in the early 90's to propose ways to keep pilots from heading out to the airlines. One thought was to increase the bonus to a level that rivaled airline pay (we proposed about $40K per year).

However, now that the airlines pay scales have been slashed, and top earners at the majors are barely hitting $150k, and many are in the low $100's, a little increase in the pilot bonus might actually work.

I got my ATP prior to exiting the Navy, but opted not to go the airline route becasue two former 'pilots of mine,' from my days as a B/N, suggested, in 1993, that the heady days of airline pay, retirement benefits and job security were numbered and I shouldn't rule out other options. Boy were they on the money. One of them has seen his pay go from $190K in 1993 to $105K today, and his retirement benefits virtually wiped out.

Many of my fellow civilian business executives don't understand why we don't offer larger bonuses to all our officers and enlisted.