Air Force vs. Coast Guard

[Vinman]

To add a little bit more info to the original posters question. I am AF, but just finished training at a Navy base (Whiting Field near Pensacola), and one of my classmates was CG. Currently, no matter what service (except Army because I don't know about them), you always start out in a fixed-wing aircraft; T-34C for Navy, Marine, or CG, and T-37 or T-6A Texan II for AF (I was in FL because of a joint training program). Those that want to (or forced to in USN, USMC, or USCG) go to helicopter after the primary (fixed-wing) phase. What this means is that your 100 hrs of Cessna time won't matter much.

CG...Currently the CG was trying out having new Ens go straight to flight training instead of the ship. Any other CG people can clarify or back me up on this. I just know that my buddy was an LTJG and there were new Ens walking around right before I left. He had said something to me about this going on. He knew, though, when he started that he was getting helos which trains at Whiting Field (Milton, FL) as well.

 

[HueyPilot]

I'd say that either choice would be a good one. The CG does alot of "good" missions, and especially if you fly the helos, you'll see immediate results of your work (ie, rescuing people). But as mentioned before, your chances of flying FW are much lower.

I certainly won't ding helo folks...I flew helicopters for nearly 4 years, and loved every minute of it. In fact I tried to get into the CG through the DCA program, but I wasn't competitive with my measley 350 hours of helo time. Now I'm flying -130s in the Air Force and I love this job too.

All in all, I think you'll enjoy either service. I wouldn't recommend the Navy to anyone unless they just fell in love with the idea of carrier aviation. In my view, USN facilities are the pits and their aircraft aren't kept up like USAF aircraft (I flew C-21s to USN bases all over, and I saw it with my own eyes...just my observations, not intended to say USN pilots aren't the professionals they are). And to fly for the USMC, I'd say you need to be very motivated to be a Marine first.

But between the USCG and the USAF, I'd say both are services with good aircraft, good missions, and good facilities (it's easy to keep USCG facilities nice since they are typically small facilities). And home life is probably best with both of those services.

As for doing a non-flying tour prior to flight training, don't sweat it. Look at it as an opportunity to understand the other missions within the service. That way when you're out there flying your HH-65 on a mission, you have some idea what's going on down there aboard that cutter. As it was said before, it's usually not that hard to get into flight training, you just might not get there right away. Has more to do with training slot quotas than anything else.

As for the whole notion that someone who enters the military with the idea of one day flying for the airlines is somehow "selfish", go shutup and color. Hell, we all can't serve for 40+ years...gotta feed momma and the kids somehow. The airlines provide many ex-military airplane drivers with a good career post-military service. I won't deny that my goal is to fly for an airline at some point. And if anyone wants to denigrate my 13+ years of service I have at this point in my life because I'm "selfish" in seeing myself wearing an airline uniform at some point...well, they can honestly go f*** themselves.

The fact that this young man wants to give 8+ years of his life to serving his country and earning flying training along the way is much more than the average college kid would ever dream of doing in his lifetime. Kudos to you, and if you want to one day fly for an airline, then that's fine. Just remember that when you wear the uniform of either the USAF or the USCG, wear it proudly and serve our nation well, as I'm sure you will.

Just one last tidbit...if you seriously want an airline career post-military, then go USAF, simply because 90% of what they have are FW aircraft. You CAN get to the airlines flying even helos with the USCG, but that route is harder, and you'd have to find some FW ME time somewhere (probably at your expense). Some regionals will allow some or all of your RW time to count towards total time requirements, but the multi-engine FW requirements (between 100-250 hours of ME time) are standard at just about every airline. You gotta have those. And as for Majors...I don't know of any that will allow any RW time to count towards hiring minimums. So you'd have to go to a regional or corporate job to get the FW turbine PIC time. Just my .02 cents on that issue.

 

[CCDiscoB]

Duty Officer?

sitting at the duty desk as we speak for the next god knows how long. Now if you guys up there at CBM could stop disturbing me in the middle of my DVD with all your ONAV route requests I'd be set!

I don't think any Air Force student pilot has ever had to pull whatever duty you're doing. Weekend duty officer, SDO whatever...But I'm sure it's good training for when your out to sea. You'll need all that down time to catch up on all of your additional duties.

 

[TonyC]

I wish we (the AF) weren't so hung up on a strict time line.

I'm convinced we push the student time line (trip turns and weekend flys) to accomodate family members and guest speakers for graduation.

Ahhhh.... trip(le) turns


You haven't really trip-turned until you've trip-turned in the same simulator - (9-3).

(Yeah, I taught before we used hired help to teach the simulators. )




OH, and I think the follow-on training puts more scheduling pressures on than the graduation speaker.



.

 

[Falconjet]

Vinman: The CG has always had Ensigns in flight school, as OCS grads are often sent directly to flight school after graduation. So, as far as I know or have heard, there is nothing going on different now than when I was in. The ACADEMY grads still have to do at least 1 year on a ship before applying to flight training. Depending on how adept you are at that process you could manage to enter flight school before pinning on JG even if you were an Academy grad. I almost made it, but was a JG when I got there, having spent almost 2 years on my ship.

There never seems to be a shortage of Academy grads for the shipboard billets each year, so many OCS grads often couldn't get a ship billet (even when they wanted one) out of OCS. Many CG officers argued that you could get 2 more years of flying out of an aviator (and thus have 2 more years to recoup flight training costs) if you allowed Academy grads to go straight to flight school. The CG leadership never bought off on that line of reasoning. I doubt they ever will, due to tradition and the long held notion that going to sea for that first tour makes you a better, more rounded officer. As many have mentioned, that is in keeping with the needs of the service, not necessarily the desires of the individuals.

One reason for the differentiation between Academy and OCS officers is because the CG uses the Academy as their primary source of officers, with OCS being more of a surge valve. DOD services get a much greater percentage of their officers each year from non-academy sources than the CG does, primarily due to the CG's small size and the need to keep the Academy at a minimum outut year in year out for economies of scale (the cost of running a small New England college on the banks of the beautiful Thames river).

Typically the CG only gets about 10-15% of its officers from OCS and other sources, the other 85-90% from the Academy. (I wouldn't swear to those numbers, and the aviation numbers are certainly more toward about 40% Academy, 35% OCS and 25% DCA). Again, I am guessing on these percentages, but from my experience I would guess they are in the ballpark. The point simply being that the CG treats the Academy as the main source and uses the other programs as necessary (often shutting down OCS for months at a time) to maintain the required number of officers.

I contacted a buddy mine who is still in a couple of weeks ago for an answer on the age waiver deal for the DCA program, and the detailer told my buddy that they were pretty fat with applicants right now so the Personnel Command wasn't contemplating waivers for anything. Even with that info if I was interested in the program I would continue to apply because you never know when the numbers will skew the other way and they will be willing to waive just about anything to keep the pipeline fed. Just a function again of the needs of the service.

FJ

 

[psysicx]

When do they plan on changing the Falcons?And how long does it take to upgrade to the left seat?

 

[Steve]

Any idea on what is going to replace the Falcon's? I've heard everything from another business jet type to Shorts. Could more C-130's fill in for the role of the HU-25?

 

[Falconjet]

Well, another buddy of mine is the project officer at ATC Mobile for the replacement of the Falcon, and I don't think even he knows when the replacement for the Falcon will show up. I wonder if he will read this and chime in. The CG decided on the CASA a while back to replace the Falcons. The problem with determining a timeline is that they change the requirements of the replacement and the funding is continually witheld or redirected to other projects. So in short, I can only guess that it will be several more years before the Falcons go away.

The C-130s can do just about everything the Falcon does, only much slower of course, and despite what many helo and Herc drivers will tell you, there are times when that speed is important. That being said, the Hercs are already the most heavily used of the CG's aircraft and routinely fly over their programmed (funded) hours, so they can't really take up the slack of the Falcons. I'm sure that the CG would love to buy more Hercs to cover that slack but then the money issue raises its ugly head, and the cheap (relatively) alternatives like the CASA come into play.

This is good and bad, because as a taxpayer I would like to have the CG do the job with the least expensive asset possible, but as a former operator for the CG I can say that I personally don't think that the CASA is an acceptable replacement of the Falcon (just my opinion). The CG, due to major, historic funding shortfalls will always go the cheap route. Something to consider if you are hoping to fly Falcons for the CG.

Time to the left seat? CG has copilot (CP), first pilot (FP) and aircraft commander (AC) positions, and of course Instructor pilot (IP). After about 6-9 months at an operational unit you might have about 200 hours (30-40 per month is average, depending on unit and mission and funding) and you can go into the left seat syllabus at your unit. After that you can fly either seat at the discretion of the AC, depending on the mission and the weather. After 700 hours total, you can upgrade to FP, either at ATC Mobile or the unit, and then you can sign for the jet with another FP as the CP for certain missions and with several caveats about the weather. At 900 hours total you are eligible to upgrade to AC, which is a local designation that must be renewed at each subsequent unit via a local syllabus. Most guys upgrade to FP at about a year and a half, and then upgrade to AC at about 2 years at the unit. Your mileage may vary and my memory may be off on the exact hour requirements.

Keep in mind that even after making AC you might not actually sign for the jet for many flights because you often fly with another AC and the senior AC is the one designated as the PIC and will sign for the jet. That is the downside to everybody upgrading when eligible instead of keeping a certain number of ACs and CPs. It adds tremendous flexibility to the duty schedulers to have as many ACs as possible, and it doesn't cost the CG any more to have all ACs, so you might wind up flying as the non-PIC AC for quite awhile until you get more senior. It is nice to get some AC time though when relatively new to the job and you are lucky enough to have an FP or CP assigned to your flight. Again, this all depends on the seniority of the folks at your unit and the benevolence of the schedulers.

I personally flew most of my flights my last year from the right seat even though I was usually the PIC, because I wanted to be ready for the right seat at the airlines. What I should have done was sit in the back sideways, since that is what I ended up doing! A little risky (since you don't have nosewheel steering on the right in the Falcon) but I figured it was worth it to keep my monkey skills aligned to the right side to ease my transition into the right seat of an airliner. We'll see if it worked eventually I hope.

FJ

 

[talondriver]

OH, and I think the follow-on training puts more scheduling pressures on than the graduation speaker.

No it doesn't. The average wait for a new pilot starting IFF is "at least" three months, maybe more. Our new pilots on casual status (GAP) is bigger than one of our regular student flights. There are rumors that AETC may open up another IFF squadron to accomodate. Just a rumor. The bomber student wait is slightly shorter.

 

[TonyC]

No it doesn't. The average wait for a new pilot starting IFF is "at least" three months, maybe more. Our new pilots on casual status (GAP) is bigger than one of our regular student flights. There are rumors that AETC may open up another IFF squadron to accomodate. Just a rumor. The bomber student wait is slightly shorter.

Tells ya how much I know. It certainly wasn't that way . . . back in the day. Saying that makes me feel old, and yet it feels like it was just yesterday (or maybe the day before).


Well, if you weren't trip-turnin' on Saturdays, what else could ya do? As I recall, that was the best gig goin' in Enid.