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Pensacola Time

MGoBrew11

Well-Known Member
pilot
If he gets attrited, it won’t be for his sexuality. You said yourself he lied to his family to stage a pretty darn important life milestone. Whether or not he left the house with his “wings”, it went public the minute it went online. That’s life in 2021.

The high school stuff is amusing, but yeah, don’t care. That was a long time ago.

There are some glaring integrity issues here though. Would you want him on your squadron? If the Navy keeps him for the optics, as you’re suggesting they might, I hope it doesn’t come back to bite them.
 

DanMa1156

Is it baseball season yet?
pilot
Contributor
There's a non-zero probability of the following happening which would extend your time in Pcola greatly:
  • You go med down
  • You get helos
  • You wait between primary and advanced
  • You attrite and sit around for resdesignation
Might as well bring her to Pcola IMO, because you don't want to wait to find out if she and military life are incompatible. If you do go jets, you're gonna move again a few times across 3 years, so may be worth getting used to it.

Even as a helo guy, I moved a ton:
Pensacola for IFS and API Nov-Mar
Primary in Corpus: April to October
Advanced at Whiting: November to August
FRS in San Diego: August onward.

The Navy has PCS'd me at literally every opportunity they have had. In fairness, we don't mind PCSing usually, so we haven't actively avoided them.
 
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Pags

N/A
pilot
Even as a helo guy, I moved a ton:
Pensacola for IFS and API Nov-Mar
Primary in Corpus: April to October
Advanced at Whiting: November to August
FRS in San Diego: August onward.

The Navy has PCS'd me at literally every opportunity they have had. In fairness, we don't mind PCSing usually, so we haven't actively avoided them.
Flight school was the only time USN didn't PCS me. However, they certainly tried to but I had non-standard orders due to stint at NPS before flight school. Some guys manage to homestead once they get to a fleet concentration area but that takes a fair amount of either luck, timing, hard work, ass kissing, etc.
 

MIDNJAC

is clara ship
pilot
This was a while ago now, but as a data point, I spent only 5 weeks in pensacola before moving to Corpus for primary. I pinned JG a month or so prior to winging. In my case, I waited to have the GF (later wife) move in until I was done with the VTs and headed to the FRS. I did not do IFS and I was a march commission (didn't have a big backup in A-pool/API at the time) so my timeline was probably on the quicker end for a VFA bound guy.

On the PCS note, yeah, it happens, get ready for it. I moved Pcola-Corpus-Meridian-Miramar-Oceana-Fallon-Oceana between 2008-2017, so 7 PCS moves by my count.....then one more HOR move in 2020 when I got off active duty. Don't buy fancy stuff you don't want broken :)
 
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RobLyman

- hawk Pilot
pilot
None
Commissioning on a Saturday...Pensacola on Monday...API two weeks later.
Corpus for Primary and intermediate
Whiting for advanced helos
Winged 13 months from graduation/commissioning to wings
Mayport for the FRS
Sea tour HSL-44
FRS instructor HSL-40
COMCRUDESGRU 5 Helo Ops San Diego
HSL-41 San Diego for a short stint before I got out.
Moved home to J'ville
Cecil Field for 12 years FLARNG

Not PCSing is GREAT! After I left the Navy I was able to buy a lot and build a house across the street from the St. Johns River with a view from my front yard.
 

Ventus

Weather Guesser
pilot
There's one guy here that bought a sailboat boat for 3000 bucks and lives in it, parked at the Marina for 7 bucks per foot, per month. Fixed it up for about 2000 bucks out of pocket. Pretty nice deal. If he gets sent to the west coast he can just sell it. If he stays east he can just sail to wherever he gets stationed.
 

0621 Hertz

Well-Known Member
giphy.gif


That is one hell of a PCS
 

Pags

N/A
pilot
This guy had a one hell of a 3-week PCS from WA to HI on a sailboat: https://www.navytimes.com/off-duty/...ailors-pcs-across-the-pacific-in-a-36-footer/

Sadly he passed away about a year later from a diving incident ☹
When I lived in Monterey I dated a girl who had spent several years as a teen sailing around the pacific with her family. Lots of crazy stories of sailing a similar sized boat around the shipping lanes and almost getting run down by tankers in the middle of the night.
 

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
When I lived in Monterey I dated a girl who had spent several years as a teen sailing around the pacific with her family. Lots of crazy stories of sailing a similar sized boat around the shipping lanes and almost getting run down by tankers in the middle of the night.

There can be a lot of great learning and growing up experiences, too. I grew up living on a boat off and on and eventually cruised the Caribbean for a year with my parents. They went back to that life after I commissioned, eventually crossing the Atlantic twice, cruising the Med, and finally going from Florida all the way to Australia. At one point they were only about 2 weeks ahead of me when I was on my last deployment. We could never quite catch up with them, but I did hear my dad at one point on the HF when we were trying to connect.

Anyway, I'll always value the experiences I had while cruising. I wanted to get back to the States and have real friends again (cruising with other families comes and goes), but standing a watch all by myself at night was a great life confidence booster.

I remember one night sailing back across the Gulfstream finally coming back to Florida. The autopilot started not really working anymore because the battery bank was dead, which led to me swapping the battery bank and then starting the engine, but now the running lights needed to be changed to the correct configuration, and I had to go find that switch up in the forward cabin... By that time, my dad came up and asked what was going on. I told him everything I did and he said, "Oh, okay. Well, I relieve you in 2 hours then," and back to sleep he went. That made an impression on a 12 or 13 year-old kid.
 

Pags

N/A
pilot
There can be a lot of great learning and growing up experiences, too. I grew up living on a boat off and on and eventually cruised the Caribbean for a year with my parents. They went back to that life after I commissioned, eventually crossing the Atlantic twice, cruising the Med, and finally going from Florida all the way to Australia. At one point they were only about 2 weeks ahead of me when I was on my last deployment. We could never quite catch up with them, but I did hear my dad at one point on the HF when we were trying to connect.

Anyway, I'll always value the experiences I had while cruising. I wanted to get back to the States and have real friends again (cruising with other families comes and goes), but standing a watch all by myself at night was a great life confidence booster.

I remember one night sailing back across the Gulfstream finally coming back to Florida. The autopilot started not really working anymore because the battery bank was dead, which led to me swapping the battery bank and then starting the engine, but now the running lights needed to be changed to the correct configuration, and I had to go find that switch up in the forward cabin... By that time, my dad came up and asked what was going on. I told him everything I did and he said, "Oh, okay. Well, I relieve you in 2 hours then," and back to sleep he went. That made an impression on a 12 or 13 year-old kid.
Yeah, her stories reflected your points as well. Certainly a unique way to live and one I was admittedly envious of having come from a typical suburban childhood. The amount of the world she had seen and experienced by 23 was amazing.
 
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