What to fly... Advice?

[Gatordev]

Touche.

 

[A4sForever]

There's two "lists." One is Commodore's List and then if you make the list twice (at least when I went through) you were some sort of Distinguished Graduate. Don't remember the name exactly because I wasn't one......

Thanks, Gator ... I was ... but I only had to do it "once" .... and "once" was enough, thank you very much .....

 

[FLY_USMC]

Commodore's List is the top 10% of all Primary graduates and the Commodore's List with Distinction is the top 1% of all Primary graduates. Essentially each combined with a mere .50 cents will get you a cup of coffee and the same title that pretty much every graduate here in Meridian....according the back cover of the "Skyline"....already has.

 

[A4sForever]

Commodore's List is the top 10% of all Primary graduates and the Commodore's List with Distinction is the top 1% of all Primary graduates. .....

O.K. .... perhaps not the same. In the old days ... it had nothing to do with Primary. I got a DNG .... but they ONLY came out of Advanced when (and if ) you got your Wings of Gold.

The recipients ... 3-5 every month out of probably 120 finalists (Wing-ees) between Corpus (prop), Beeville (jet), and Kingsville (jet). We got it from the Admiral (or Commodore) in Corpus ... as he "ran" Texas and therefore Advanced ....

I don't know what went down @ HT-8 @ NAS Ellyson ....

 

[Crowbar]

Commodore's List is the top 10% of all Primary graduates and the Commodore's List with Distinction is the top 1% of all Primary graduates.

For us it was 15% and 5% of the previous year's graduates (for each stage), according to what I found. Commodore's List more than once got us Distinguished Graduate.

 

[FLY_USMC]

I'm not really sure what you get out of Advanced. When I was referring to the "Skyline", for those that don't know, it's the little base newspaper that every couple weeks has pictures of all the new wingees, and has a little spiel about each of them. Every once in a while, I'll read something about Distinguished Graduate in there, but then not see it under somebody else's name who did better than they did? Go figure, who knows. Anybody know if DG and .50 will get you cup of coffee, or significantly more?

 

[A4sForever]

I.... Anybody know if DG and .50 will get you cup of coffee, or significantly more?

Yeah ... in the "old days" it would get you a Regular commission if you were USNR ... I guess that's better than ".50 and a cup of coffee" as Starbuck's costs at least $3 today ... .... plus, it got you a head start @ the RAG (at least you came in with a "rep" and 'they' expected more of you .... for better or for worse) ... and it meant you got your choice of seat out of Advanced -- assuming they were available.

Is that enough for you??? I guess that was worth it .... yes???

 

[Gators04]

Distinguished Naval Graduate = top 5% of advanced completers.

 

[kmac]

Interesting discussion now. I had been commodore's list out of Primary, and did well in advanced too. Both my roommate and I made it for our graduating class (we were the 2 that made it) from advanced. Well our third roommate had the grades to get CL but was denied it: he had got trashed the night before flying home comm-air and missed his flight. That was coming from the CQ det. Oops.

What did it get us and not get him? Nothing. My roommate that did make CL went east coast Hawkeyes, and the other roommate who should have gotten it but drank it away is with me here in west coast CODs.

 

[Gatordev]

Distinguished Naval Graduate = top 5% of advanced completers.

Hmm, then maybe I've confused myself. Again, it's dated, but when I went through NASWF, if you made the list in Primary and Advanced, you were some new type of term. Since I only made it in Advanced, I was only one of the two terms.

Eh, whatever. We all wear the same wings.

 

[A4sForever]

....Eh, whatever. We all wear the same wings.

Try telling that to the USMC F-4 and A-6 drivers I waived who got their "Wings of Gold" through the Air Force and who DQ'ed 1/2 of their number @ USS BOAT in the P.I. while attempting their "initial" CQ ....

When rubbed vigorously ... we found that the Tailhook part of the "gold" came off quite easily ...

 

[Gatordev]

Yeah, that's not to say that some have Wings that were more a gift than others, but I know you know what I meant.

 

[Flash]

I guess its a good thing I like to read... I got disqualified from flying anything but P-3/E-6/Helos, and I wanted P-3s. Anyone wanna follow up with the good side to VP/VQ?

Well, I was in VQ-1 at the same time as Bluto/Fester and I guess I had a much better time. I had a really good experence in EP-3's and really enjoyed it, the mission and the people were great. The flying was a bit boring, which is the reason I transitioned to Prowlers, but I never regretted choosing VQ to begin with. Bluto got screwed in the beginning and his perspective is valuable, but I definitely did not have the same experience and walked away happy with my time in the squadron.

I have posted this description of EP-3 life before, I hope it helps you:

Several years ago, before I saw the light and switched to Prowlers, I was an EP-3 NFO. I can tell you that I did not change because I hated flying the [well-hung] Sky Pig, I loved the community. I just wanted something a little faster and cooler.....then I woke up and flew Prowlers .

First off, as others have pointed out, there are only two squadrons that fly the EP-3, VQ-1 and VQ-2. VQ-2 just moved from Rota to Whidbey in 2005 so you only have one place to go to fly EP-3's.

I make fun of it a little but I really enjoyed the mission, when it was interesting. You had a big picture view of what was going on around you, a lot like the E-2 but as a mostly passive player. And you were one of the few guys in town who could provide an invaluable service. For guys going to Iraq, the EP-3 and the Air Force equivalent were go/no-go birds that were requred for guys to be in the box. It is also a very intelligence oriented mission, so you got to get in the know about a lot of that stuff while still being an 'operational' type.

There were a couple of other key differences other than the mission between P-3's and EP-3's.

-Deployment schedule- You went on the road for 2 months at a time, and generally stayed home for 3 or 4 months before going out again. You went on the road as an individual crew, not with the squadron. About half the squadron was away from home at any given time so the squadron was never together in one place, which sucked a little bit. I did not even meet my mentor in the squadron until I had been in for 8 months, we were on opposite det cycles for a while. Expect to deploy 6 to 8 times (12-18 motnhs out of your tour, add 2-4 months for misc. TAD's and training). I deployed only 6 times because I left early due to my transition. You will deploy to the bigger det sites where P-3's go (Japan and the Middle East) though usually not the more exotic ones (India, Hong Kong etc.) because of the nature of our mission. There are a few times guys get to go to somewhere exotic, though that is relatively rare. There is a certain Carribean island that P-3's are not at but there is a usually an EP-3 there though.......

-Crew composition- The crew is twice as large as a P-3 crew, 24 guys, and is made up of several different specialties. There are 7 officers on board; 3 pilots, 3 NFO's and 1 other and there are a myriad of enlisted types. It was a challenge and a reward to lead the crew and get the job done. There were some....ummmmm....interesting personalities that you had to deal with for one of the mission areas (Zab should know who I am talking about ) and you had to learn to deal with them to accomplish your mission. That being said, some of them were scary smart. I learned more about a certain country's air force from an E-5 than I did reading all my study material.

Oh, yeah, the VP types might hate this but almost every deployed crew was all JO's. Out of my 6 crews I had only one that was had an O-4 and he was on a super JO tour and was not a DH. All of our DH's did half a det to get qualified and then did their DH time at home. It was heaven for a JO. I would say 90% of the MC's that took a crew on the road for a whole det were JO's, including me. It is quite the ego booster when you a 3-month LT who is the Mission Commander for the only EP-3 in theater, and you are covering combat missions. That is one of the things that makes Naval Aviation.

The flight hours are really good too. I walked out of the squadron with 1500 hours and that was considered pretty short for a JO NFO (I left 6 months early), most guys got around 2000. Pilots, generally got around 1600-2000 hours. And with the amount of flying they have done in OIF and OEF, those numbers have gone up a bit. A lot better than a VP-1 pilot in my office who walked out with 950, and he was a little high compared to his buddies.

I hope I have answered your questions, and then some . Bottom line, I don't think you can go wrong with EP-3's, especially if you are intereseted in intelligence at all. The community is small but pretty tight knit and a decent one to be in. The flying is a little boring, you burn whole in the sky at FL 250, but the mission can sometimes be really exciting in between all the boredom.

Please let me know if you have any more questions.

 

[Jr KLR]

Adding to the good sides of the P3 community, here's some of the main points I recently learned about from an unclassified breif given by the P3 rag guys:

-Most rag instructors came out of their sea tour with 1100 to 1200 hours, and landed in 50 different countries.

-A primary mission of the P3 right now is flying over Iraq/Afganistan, finding bad guys, and watching the bad guys get taken out by ground forces.
They also said that of the last 6 carriers in the Mediterainian/gulf, not one jet dropped a bomb. (This really surprised me, maybe some one can chime in on this if I'm mistaken.)

-All P3 missions are now going through a much higher power

-The P3 community just got a TON of $ dumped into it

-The 737 is on time, on budget, the test pilots scheduled to get one in '09, and the rag in '11. And it's f-ing awesome.

I don't really know enough yet to elaborate on all of this, but I'm sure P3 guys on the forum can tell you more if they want. I think most of it is actually talked about already somewhere on here.

Every community is going to spend time with paperwork, getting quals, putting on khakis, and systems knowledge, don't think your getting out of it just for going carrier.

 

[A4sForever]

.... Every community is going to spend time with paperwork, getting quals, putting on khakis, and systems knowledge, don't think your getting out of it just for going carrier.

I don't think ANYONE "goes carrier" to "get out of it"(?) ... if you know what I mean and I think you do ...???

Now ... if you want to "get out" of paperwork, getting quals, putting on khakis, and systems knowledge(s) ..... try "going LSO" .... now, that's a different animal.