Who's the COD guy??
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What to fly... Advice?
- Thread starter Rg9
- Start date
Who's the COD guy??
From 40, big Drew......kind of looks like me, big, bald, very ugly.
Yeah, probably the same guy I'm talking about. He was the one telling me about the "draft" of FAGs to the VT(p)s.
I was out making Xs all weekend and haven’t been on line, so excuse the lateness.
I agree wholeheartedly with Pags. There are good and bad people in every community.
Pitfalls of P-3s (and to some degree E-6s):
Caveat: These are purely opinions and observations, but I am trying to take personality clashes and other issues out of the equation.
In P-3s vice CV-based world: Expect another 18-24 months of training once you hit the fleet. There will be an upgrade process to 3P, 2P, then PPC (EWAC in EP-3). Jet bubbas sign for the plane as soon as they get through a couple of flights in the RAG.
Flight time in the P-3 is split three ways, sometimes more, depending on how many pilots are on board.
Flight hours are decreasing in each tour as planes are falling apart, and more training is shifted to the simulator. Although the 737 is coming, it will take a while to get to the fleet, and they are expecting a lot of the upgrade process to be in the sim.
Paperwork and other headaches in a P-3/EP-3 squadron are more prevalent than in CV-world. Much of the work that is done, as far as logistics and support, are done internally, where the boat and CAG staff do a lot of that work on the ship.
When deployed, P-3 squadrons have assets strewn across a theater, and even the globe. EP-3s are always deployed. This equates to more responsibilities and more non-flying paperwork per person. Boat guys eat ‘til they’re sleepy, sleep ‘til they fly, fly ‘til they’re hungry, etc.
Crypto: YUK. Low man on the totem pole (3P) deals with all the crypto for the radios, plus guarding/lugging around classified info with the NFOs. The ship and maintainers pretty much deal with that crap on the boat. More to get you in trouble.
When you’re home in P-3 world, you’re not necessarily home. The upgrade syllabus takes a lot of extra time (PQS signoffs out the yang). 2P boards can last upwards of 6-8 hours (and I’ll discuss NATOPS minutia later), there’s study for PPC (EWAC) boards (also 6-8 hours) (which is all classified, so plan on going into the squadron at night), there are high power turns (done in CV world by maintainers towing the plane out to the high power spot (P-3s have a taxi-pilot)), FCFs on weekends, and numerous other activities to take up time on base.
In jet-world there are mission commander and section lead/divison lead quals to get, but the upgrade syllabus for these is much lighter. I can’t speak for helo or E-2 world, but I would guess they aren’t nearly as painful as the P-3 syllabus.
If you are in a detachment type squadron (EP-3, E-6), when you come home from deployment, most everyone is gone on det, so plan on being the department head or assistant when you get back (lots to do – we used to dread coming home from deployment due to workload).
NATOPS minutia:
P-3 world loves to dissect the inner workings of their airplane. The electrical system and prop system of a P-3 are ancient Rube-Goldberg machines that require a lot of extra study time. Plus, the community likes for you to know every circuit breaker for every switch and gage on the airplane (and they are all dual powered by two separate busses).
Every quarter expect to do a 4-hour quarterly NATOPS exam – full open and closed book. The closed book question bank had over 770 questions to it (last time I did it). This is in addition to the annual unit NATOPS eval and your annual individual exams.
In EA-6Bs, quarterly NATOPS training was a 15 minute asterisk item and limit quiz, (often done during the first round of beer at the club before the AOM).
Oh yeah, there are fewer asterisk item EPs in the P-3. Don’t worry, they took care of that: you pretty much have to know the whole manual verbatim anyway.
Career:
Let’s count the squadrons vs. JOs. 2 each VQ squadrons with 40-50 JOs. Maybe a dozen or so VP squadrons with 40-50 JOs. This means a lot fewer people making CO/XO than jet/helo world, where there are dozens of squadrons with about 20 JOs per squadron.
Flying opportunities:
P-3 world: JO tour followed by TRACOM or RAG, then you MUST do a disassociated non-flying Sea tour or you have committed career suicide.
In CV-based world, it’s not a big deal to do a super-JO tour in an operational squadron. And, here’s a real good deal: CAG LSO. A couple of guys per Air Wing get to fly (often in two different types of aircraft) and be in charge of the LSO teams supplied by the squadrons. And, this counts as their disassociated tour.
What about post-DH tour? VP-VQ: expect to get your khakis/cammies ready. You will most likely spend the rest of your career wearing them. And, the non-screen guys that didn’t make CO or XO are killing each other to get a good deal flying job at a Trawing or C-12 outfit nearest you. For VP-VQ, this pretty much means Corpus. I have seen a lot more non-screen jet guys fly their butts off in Kingsville and Meridian compared to the T-34/T-44/TC-12 non-screen guys.
FTS: I have seen much more luck with helo and jet folks picking up VR/VT FTS slots than P-3 folks, but I could be mistaken.
Anyway, there are just a few of the list of pitfalls. Sorry for the long rant.
By the way, I prefer voluptuous women over the supermodels, too. I’d take someone that looks like "Dog, the Bounty Hunter’s" wife over some bulimic catwalk woman whose ribs are showing any day. (But, Rosie O’Donnell is way out of the question).
Is that what used to be called a DNG ???? I.e., Distinguished Naval Graduate ... ??? Thanks.
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?
Very thoughtful post ... good job. I don't know too much about what's "current" as far as flying/lifestyle goes in today's communities ... but if your info is all correct .... it's the best advertisement I've seen recently for going tailhook-tactical ... a.k.a. carrier Navy.
But I always thought that anyway .....
MasterBates
Well-Known Member
To tack on to what Bluto said, HSL is about 1/2 way between VP and CV.
Det concept, lots of duplicated jobs, self sufficient. Very large cut down to CO.
But they land on Boats
Det concept, lots of duplicated jobs, self sufficient. Very large cut down to CO.
But they land on Boats
But they land on Boats
I forgot, do you hook the boat, or does the boat hook you?
MasterBates
Well-Known Member
The guy on the left is the hook up man.
They hook the messenger cable with the grounding hook, ground you out, hookup the messenger cable to the hauldown cable, you winch that up, and then the LSO winches you down..
They hook the messenger cable with the grounding hook, ground you out, hookup the messenger cable to the hauldown cable, you winch that up, and then the LSO winches you down..
In this world gone mad, we won't spank the monkey- the monkey will spank us.
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.
Yeah, I think he forgot to mention he was pushing his glasses up his nose in a Simpson-esque nerdy manner. It's kind of a mutual hookup. You know, like friends with benefits.
