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Pros/Cons of having a PPL before Primary

Long-time lurker, first time poster,
I'm aware that this question has been asked before, but I've heard a lot of conflicting advice about whether or not to get a PPL before primary, and saw very little in-depth discussion in the previous posts about this. I'm fortunate enough to have earned a full-ride scholarship to my current school, on top of my NROTC scholarship, which will almost completely cover the cost for me to get a PPL and an instrument rating, however I am very leery of developing bad habits prior to primary. I've heard a lot of horror stories about guys with lots of flight hours being kicked out of primary for habits they couldn't unlearn. Is it better to develop basic stick and rudder skills, and a solid scan(hopefully) before you go to Primary, or would that time be better spent focusing on getting a 4.0 GPA and maxing out the PRT? If I do start working on my PPL, are there any things I should focus on doing to set myself up for an easy transition to Navy-style flying?
For further reference, the first responses to this reddit post
(https://www.reddit.com/r/navy/comments/3cmluv/i_want_to_become_a_navy_pilot_advice/)
do a good job of summing up the two different types of advice I've received on this.
Thanks in advance for your patience,
WannabeActual
 

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Recovering LSO

Suck Less
pilot
Contributor
While many of those linked conversations are years old, I think you'll find the underlying message(s) still valid.
 

webmaster

The Grass is Greener!
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
You can always reply to one of those threads and resurrect it if the thread didn't answer your question.

Welcome to the site and best of luck.

John
 

Python

Well-Known Member
pilot
Contributor
Long-time lurker, first time poster,
I'm aware that this question has been asked before, but I've heard a lot of conflicting advice about whether or not to get a PPL before primary, and saw very little in-depth discussion in the previous posts about this. I'm fortunate enough to have earned a full-ride scholarship to my current school, on top of my NROTC scholarship, which will almost completely cover the cost for me to get a PPL and an instrument rating, however I am very leery of developing bad habits prior to primary. I've heard a lot of horror stories about guys with lots of flight hours being kicked out of primary for habits they couldn't unlearn. Is it better to develop basic stick and rudder skills, and a solid scan(hopefully) before you go to Primary, or would that time be better spent focusing on getting a 4.0 GPA and maxing out the PRT? If I do start working on my PPL, are there any things I should focus on doing to set myself up for an easy transition to Navy-style flying?
For further reference, the first responses to this reddit post
(https://www.reddit.com/r/navy/comments/3cmluv/i_want_to_become_a_navy_pilot_advice/)
do a good job of summing up the two different types of advice I've received on this.
Thanks in advance for your patience,
WannabeActual

Short answer: it won't help

Long answer: it WILL help if you have an instrument rating, commercial, etc.

I know the long answer wasn't very long.
 

zippy

Freedom!
pilot
Contributor
Students with an instrument rating and a few hundred hours or so tend to do better earlier in blocks, which makes them have higher NSS's by the end. Much beyond 400 and there is no marked improvement in performance NSS wise in the end.

That being said, the #1 and 2 best students I ever flew with had 0 hours outside of IFS and primary.
 

Recovering LSO

Suck Less
pilot
Contributor
That being said, the #1 and 2 best students I ever flew with had 0 hours outside of IFS and primary.
Not to take anything away from Zippy's gouge, but believe it might also help you (@WannabeActual ) to know that for a long long time there wasn't such thing as IFS, and guys did fine then too :)

To further summarize the links provided above: Reading an approach plate, flying while talking on the radio - that kind of basic stuff will come quicker to a guy with an appreciable amount of time, but once you get to formation flying, low-levels, weps, ACM/BFM, and CQ the field is pretty even.
 

exNavyOffRec

Well-Known Member
So far of the guys I have followed up with of the ones that went aviation the only ones to have failed out were those who had more than just a few familiarization flights, while this is just part of my little world I find it interesting that I haven't heard of any of the people I put in with zero flight experience failing out.
 

zippy

Freedom!
pilot
Contributor
Up to 20% of the flight students that attend primary end up as attrition (lower with the T-34 historically than the first few years of the T-6. Time will tell if the average drops back down.) Some of those are because of grades, legal, or medical reasons.

People with zero flight experience fail out all the time. Much of that attrition takes place before students even get to primary.

The guys with prior flight experience tend to fail out more because of attitude in primary than anything else from what I've seen, but the % of guys who have prior flight time and attrite tends to be smaller.
 

zippy

Freedom!
pilot
Contributor
I think this needs a qaulifier/caveat: it depends on the pipeline (helos, martime, jet).

I was speaking from the primary prospective. I know prior flight time guys who attrited in jet advanced, but none in maritime or helos. I don't know enough about who pulls into jet advanced with prior flight time vs helos ratio wise to comment. It'd be interesting to see if the ratio to prior flight time attrited is higher in jet advanced because the pipeline gets more guys with prior flight experience compared to the others. I wouldn't be surprised if someone in cnatra has run the numbers to track that but I never heard them.
 

Recovering LSO

Suck Less
pilot
Contributor
Good catch, OP is asking about Primary; my bad.

One several year old data point does not make a for a complete answer, but my experience was startling. I went through API with a bunch of dudes who had LOTs of prior flight time. The rest of us were spooked. We got to Whiting and by chance and shitty policy all the single dudes end being forced to live in the BOQ. Four of us in a quad; I was the only one to make it through Primay, the three other dudes (CFIs, CFIIs, ME, etc) all went on to do other things (intel, NFO, Gen Av - when that was a thing). As I walked around in circles practicing pattern comms and chair flying I heard over and over "this is stupid. why are we being forced to do it this way." Living in the BOQ had it's advantages, we were next door to the sim building. Knowing that I didn't know anything, I spent A LOT of free time over in the sim buliding. My neighbors and classmates - no so much.

Will prior flight time help you in primary? It can - to a point. What's more important is your attitude.
 

MGoBrew11

Well-Known Member
pilot
More anecdotal evidence:

Most of the guys I knew with significant prior flight time crushed it in primary and selected tail hook. However, a much smaller percentage of them selected strike as the playing field had evened out at that point like RLSO suggested.

For those of us who had no flying experience; well we went down all different pipelines and I knew several students with no prior flight experience that attrited. That goes for both primary and advanced.

Overall, significant flight time definitely helps in primary and maybe advanced helos/maritime. But as has been pointed out above, attitude and study habits are the most important aspect.

And 20% sounds about right...they always tell people 5-10% at check in and that made me feel good. After I was done with flight school I thought, "no way!"
 

Uncle Fester

Robot Pimp
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
I saw a stud fail out of API (API!) whose last job before the Navy was FO at a regional.

Experience and hours are good...attitude matters a lot more.

If you can get some hours and it won't break the bank, great. Not at the expense of, as you asked, good grades, staying in shape, and a social life of some kind. It definitely doesn't come close to guaranteeing success.
 
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