Service transition

[FlyingFortress]

I heard that marine officer's can do a tour with another service, say the Air Force. So if I am a Marine nfo flying F/A-18s, I could put in a application to do a tour with the Air FOrce flying F-15E's? Do lot's of officer's do this or is this a pretty selective program? Just interested and any info would be helpful.

A few months back I thought I read about a Marine maj. training upt cadets at an AFB who was transitioning to Beale to fly U-2's.

 

[zab1001]

Doing a tour with another service is an option later in your career, you basically just have to ask your detailer for options and let it be known that you are interested. Sort of like the International Exchange program. Obviously a competitive billet, not a whole lot of opportunities exist.

The Marine you mentioned was probably an active duty USMC officer who was resigning from the Corps to then transition to the active duty AF to fly U-2s. Up until recently they highly encouraged interservice transfer (i.e. resign from USN or USMC and become an Air Force officer) in the U-2 program. Nowadays, my sources tell me all U-2 recruiting is being done in-house and they are no longer looking to other services.

 

[bch]

Zab how new is your info, 6 mos ago, (last command) we had a marine CAPT do the green to blue thing for U-2's. Said they ran the program as a sort of "try out " system.

 

[zab1001]

'bout 3-4 months ago I was snooping around and asking. Changes happen all the time though, so who knows. I could be completely wrong.

 

[bch]

cool the time line jives though

 

[FlyingFortress]

What do you mean by "not a lot of opportunities exist?" There are not a lot of slots or there are not a lot of mos's that are intertransferable? Obviously pilot is transferable, but what about a wso? My understanding is that you do a tour with the other service for 3 years then you return to your respective service.

 

[Rainman]

A lot of the aircrew exchanges are ongoing and will be there for a while. Here are some that I'm learned about in the last year (all 3 year exchanges). . .There is a hornet to strike eagle exch that is a pretty good deal. There is a harrier to British Tornado exchange. USAF (variety of platforms) to hornet. Well I'm sure there's a long list. Not sure about WSO / Navigator exchanges. Anyone?

 

[thumper]

About a year ago there was a Navy LT at Moody AFB who transferred to fly U2s. She was a 60 pilot. Or so the legends go.

 

[phrogdriver]

I don't know about NFOs, but the exchange tours are pretty limited. Not impossible, mind you, but not certain enough that I'd bank on doing one. There have been a couple of threads on this, but generally each airframe will have one or two exchange slots available each year. In helos there's typically a slot for a 46 pilot with the Royal Navy, a AH-1 slot in Task Force 160, and a 53 slot in AFSOC. I understand they've looked at adding a 46 billet to TF160, as well. I don't know the typical billets on the f/w side, other than I know that AV-8 guys regularly have slots with the Spanish and Royal Navies.

These jobs usually require advanced instructor quals, so hit the ground running if you want to be eligible.

 

[zab1001]

What do you mean by "not a lot of opportunities exist?" There are not a lot of slots or there are not a lot of mos's that are intertransferable? Obviously pilot is transferable, but what about a wso? My understanding is that you do a tour with the other service for 3 years then you return to your respective service.

yes, you do a tour come back. they aren't gonna keep you on the payroll with another service indefintely. they own your a$$ and want it back.