USN Should I go Naval Aircrewman or a Submariner?

[hlg6016]

So back to the OP, I notice you are still in high school. My final advice for you while trying to digest all this information is to stay out of trouble.

 

[RHINOWSO]

So back to the OP, I notice you are still in high school. My final advice for you while trying to digest all this information is to stay out of trouble.

Yup. I have a cousin who was a HS football star. Was gonna play college ball. Was goofing off with his friends and rolled an ATV (high maybe) and broke his arm right before his senior year. So no college was gonna take him not seeing him play.

Did half a semester at community college while banging his HS girlfriend. Dropped out and wanted to join the Marines like his daddy and Grandpa. Girlfriend he was always fighting with said no, please don't go. Fast forward 4 months and she's pregnant. They move in together, have the baby while he's making minimum wage and she's finishing high school. Then they break up.

He's 20, has a 6 month old, no skills, no decent job, living at home and now they wonder if the kid is his.

It's been shitty for him but a great example for my son of "what not to do".

 

[Gatordev]

If the OP does enlist, good advice is to not go on liberty with the red head. She's a liberty risk waiting to happen.

 

[exNavyOffRec]

Yeah, if you don't want to study, consider a different career path. Believe it or not, aviation is a lot more than just stick and rudder skills.

Between the 3 sources, you have to choose what you are looking for.

OCS may offer some guarantee, but then again OCS classes can ebb and flow with the needs of the Navy. Sure, SNA spots are likely to increase over the coming years, but that isnt' always the case. But you pay for your college.

ROTC is kinda the best of both worlds, free college for those on scholarship, more options.

USNA is a great place to be from, but not a great college exp. I enjoyed it and wont say I wouldn't do it again, but I might look at ROTC a little harder if I had a do over. But at the time I went to USNA, you could guarantee yourself an aviation spot by being PQ and being high enough in the class to select it. Times have changed but if you can't get a SNA/SNFO spot out of USNA, you aren't going to be much of a contender anyway IMO.

I'd never rec someone enlist if they know they want to get a commission and fly. Can it happen? Sure. Do lots of people get derailed? Absolutely. Unsupportive command, bad timing, start a family, screw it up as an E? That happens too. Probably the only commmunity I'd rec someone to enlist if they want to be a "doer" their whole career is NSW.

OCS is a lot less ebbs and flows than most people think, especially with aviation, it is also the most forgiving if you have a high ASTB, of course it is also fairly strict when it comes to medical.

In most cases I would also not recommend a person enlist if they want to be an officer, but there are some cases where a persons circumstances kind of direct them that way, a guy with a decent GPA and college degree just apply for officer, the 19 year old kid who had a 2.0 HS GPA and isn't sure what he wants to do in life but thinks he may want fly planes, maybe enlisting would do him some good.

I have run into many who wanted to enlist because they were told it would be better that way to go officer, I told them absolutely not as a former enlisted recruiter that would spin me up all the time.

In one circumstance I had a young man with a low 3 GPA in ME who wanted to join the USN, I talked to him about all the different options he had (which were many) but that isn't what he wanted, he wanted to be the guy working on aircraft engines turning wrenches. I couldn't help him and he ended up enlisting, but that is what he wanted and as long as he is happy that is all that matters.

 

[Jim123]

OCS is a lot less ebbs and flows than most people think, especially with aviation...

True for the past ten years or so, but I'm thinking way back to the 1990s during the T-notch years, when AOCS merged with the rest of OCS. There were some lean years of pilots and NFOs getting commissioned through OCS, only for it to turn around in the late 90s with classes sometimes every week and almost half of them going to aviation. Crazy times (right around then there was the infamous flight school RIF lottery "if you have a sticky note under your chair then you're going home, if there is no sticky then congratulations"). Between things like the T-45 trainwreck, the way the TH-57s have been falling apart (this one is the dark horse in the race), and this "tactical hard deck" fleet flight hour funding, the next few years are going to be quite "interesting."

 

[exNavyOffRec]

True for the past ten years or so, but I'm thinking way back to the 1990s during the T-notch years, when AOCS merged with the rest of OCS. There were some lean years of pilots and NFOs getting commissioned through OCS, only for it to turn around in the late 90s with classes sometimes every week and almost half of them going to aviation. Crazy times (right around then there was the infamous flight school RIF lottery "if you have a sticky note under your chair then you're going home, if there is no sticky then congratulations"). Between things like the T-45 trainwreck, the way the TH-57s have been falling apart (this one is the dark horse in the race), and this "tactical hard deck" fleet flight hour funding, the next few years are going to be quite "interesting."

I think the USN has become a bit better at the process for accession for all 3 areas, including medical, and that is better for everyone, so hopefully the process continues with the minimal ebbs and flows.

 

[nittany03]

Crazy times (right around then there was the infamous flight school RIF lottery "if you have a sticky note under your chair then you're going home, if there is no sticky then congratulations").

I've always heard that this happened back in the Peace Dividend day, but never when or how many people actually got canned.

 

[RHINOWSO]

Oh, I'm not saying enlisting isn't a good or meaningful thing to do, I just don't see it as a primary method of obtaining a commission. I knew plenty of smart Es who were engines / avionics / etc and loved it. That is certainly their choice and we need hard, motivated workers like that.

Most of the prior Es I know who became officers actually left active duty and did reserves before getting a degree and applying for OCS that way.

 

[Ken_gone_flying]

I'd bet that in your case that your prior-e experience may have counted for a lot more than your GPA did.

I never said I had a low GPA

 

[Huffs09]

Either (1) not physically qualified or (2) not motivated enough to get their act together to get a pilot slot.

USNA has it's fair share of dirtbags and all the "I got screwed out of XYZ billet" holds zero water in my book, aside from the highly competitive process to get a NSW Officer slot.

I can attest that there are quite a few mouth-breathers that manage to get aviation out of USNA. It's hard to get into USNA, but once you're there, if your PQ then it really isn't that difficult to get a pilot slot. All you need to do is get the minimums on the ASTB and generally be in the 800's or higher (out of ~1000) as far as order of merit goes. I've seen people get aviation from the Academy that I wouldn't trust with my own car let alone an airplane. There will even be a pilot draft for the class of 2018, if you can believe that.

several were SWO-N with engineering degrees who said they were nuke drafted, but how accurate that actually is I don't know.

The Nuke draft is alive and well. They reassigned 40 people last year.

 

[hdr777]

There will even be a pilot draft for the class of 2018, if you can believe that.

So that might be good news for the upcoming pilot board then (hopefully!)

 

[Ken_gone_flying]

He's 20, has a 6 month old, no skills, no decent job, living at home and now they wonder if the kid is his.

 

[RHINOWSO]

I can attest that there are quite a few mouth-breathers that manage to get aviation out of USNA. It's hard to get into USNA, but once you're there, if your PQ then it really isn't that difficult to get a pilot slot. All you need to do is get the minimums on the ASTB and generally be in the 800's or higher (out of ~1000) as far as order of merit goes. I've seen people get aviation from the Academy that I wouldn't trust with my own car let alone an airplane.

Someone has to fly the cargo planes full of rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong.

 

[hscs]

I can attest that there are quite a few mouth-breathers that manage to get aviation out of USNA. It's hard to get into USNA, but once you're there, if your PQ then it really isn't that difficult to get a pilot slot. All you need to do is get the minimums on the ASTB and generally be in the 800's or higher (out of ~1000) as far as order of merit goes. I've seen people get aviation from the Academy that I wouldn't trust with my own car let alone an airplane. There will even be a pilot draft for the class of 2018, if you can believe that.



The Nuke draft is alive and well. They reassigned 40 people last year.

I'll take some risk and throw the bs flag. Just spent a year in SC and never once heard the word 'draft'.

And if there was a pilot draft- why are there still a multitude of 'what are my chances ' threads on this forum.

 

[azguy]

I'll take some risk and throw the bs flag. Just spent a year in SC and never once heard the word 'draft'.

And if there was a pilot draft- why are there still a multitude of 'what are my chances ' threads on this forum.

I can't verify it's the case this year, but yes, there have been pilot drafts at USNA in recent years. Without rocking your sense of self worth too violently; simply think of it from the perspective of a 22 yr old Mid being able to pay off his mortgage in half the time by selecting SWO, Sub, SEAL, EOD, or RL, versus pilot.