sardaddy said:
I do have to chuckle at the officer first vs pilot first discussion. Not that I disagree, but that some officers seem to get a holier than thou attitude once they are in and have completed flight school.
I agree with str8up that those he wrote about abused the system, and they should be made to serve their contract. However, how many pilots actually went into military service for the sole reason to be an officer? Most wanted to be pilots and becoming an officer was the way to do it. Once they had been in a while they learned what it really was to be an officer and that piloting was secondary. Before that point, most said they wanted to be officers first because that is what had to be said to get into the service.
I don't think this is entirely bad. Aviation is a tough profession and if it was filled with people who didn't have a passion about the job, it would be a lot different community. If you didn't want to fly, who would endure a year of demanding school just to do something you didn't want to do in the first place.
Think about when you went about becoming a pilot in the military. Did you think "I want to be an officer and while I am at it maybe I will fly." or did you think "I want to be a pilot. That would be a great job and I get to be an officer to boot."
Yes, you will need to be an officer first but just because you want to join the military to be a pilot doesn't mean you will be a bad officer.
Good post sardaddy,
What I find funny about the whole officer first, pilot second thing is that for the first, almost 2 years of your AF career as an officer in pilot training, you are not treated like an officer. You're pretty much treated like a turd. While your fellow officers are out of their commissioning source in command of a dozen or so airmen as a 2nd Lt, you're getting your ass beat in UPT doing stand up, EPQ's, formal briefings, 12 hour days, etc... You don't do the duties of an officer. Granted, there will be a class leader and assistant class leader, but for the most part, it's not a realistic leadership environment for an officer. If you're a 90 day wonder like me (OTS), you haven't spent much time exposed to officership. Then all of a sudden you get to your first assignment 2 years after you get commissioned and now it's time to be an officer.
The military is good for hanging pictures of F-16's, F-18's, you name it in your face to get you to join because that's what attracts the young'ns. We've got the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels doing their routine around the world. A very good recruitment tool. Kids see this and dream about being a pilot in the Air Force, Navy and Marines because it looks cool. They don't dream about working a desk, staring at a computer and answering phones all day as a squadron exec officer (what the Air Force calls a secretary or the commander's biatch for a lack of a better term). You will get a job other than flying. They don't just pay you the "big bucks" in the military to burn JP8. In the last two months since I've been home from deployment, I've flown 4 times (about 15 hours of flight time). I consider that pathetic. I used to fly 15 hours in 2-3 days as a CFII. You will do the bare mins to stay current and depending on what airframe you're in, you may get tasked for a stateside mission of some sort in between deployments. Right now, tanker deployments are running an average of 2 months gone, 2 months home. We do, however, fly about 100 hours a month while we're deployed. Of course being a tanker pilot is kinda like being a NASCAR driver. Gotta get used to those left turns.
I went to OTS with over 1,000 hours of flight time after being a CFII for a year and a half. When I started flying at 15 years old, my goal was to be a pilot in the Air Force, but after doing a little more homework on the ROTC program, I actually decided to get my civilian ratings and degree on my own. I spent a few years in limbo trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my career because at the time I really wasn't interested in the airlines. After doing some research on the industry, the airlines were looking better and better. I still wanted to fly in the military, but at that point it was going to either be the Air National Guard, Reserves or OTS for active duty. I decided to go for a regional. That was late summer of 2001. The rest is history and so was any job with an airline for who knows how long. By 2002, my OTS application was submitted and I was selected for UPT slot.
Coming from the commercial side of things before coming into the military, I can say there is a different mindset on flying here. There are a lot of pilots in the military that don't have the love and devotion for flying like I do. There are some that are willing to take a 3 or 4 year staff tour, not flying. There are alot of pilots that couldn't tell a B737 from an MD80 because they didn't grow up with an interest in aviation, but at some point decided they'd like to fly airplanes in the military. I don't get it. At the same time, there are people "flying for food" in the civilian world because flying is their life and they don't have much choice. It's just a very different world of flying here, alot of which I just can't explain.
Choose wisely. This is not a career for a pilot. It's a career for an officer who can have a part time job flying airplanes. Of course, the lifestyle and how much you fly will vary from airframe to airframe and getting the airframe you want can be like getting the planets to align.
Overall, it's definitely not a bad gig, although I go back and forth with the idea of staying in active duty or getting out and getting a guard job so I can get a civilian job to fly more often. Active duty pay is good as an officer, so it makes it hard to leave. I've been in for 3 years and as a 1st Lt, after all the extra combat pays, tax free deployments and benefits, I'm bringing home about $65k a year. By the time you hit your 10 year commitment, it's possible to be making near $100k a year. It'd be tough to leave a $100k a year job only to take a $65k paycut to be an FO on 1 yr probation with a major airline. Keep in mind, the longer you stay in, the less you will fly. Once you hit your 10-12 year mark, you'll probably be given the choice to either separate or stay in for another 5 and do a staff tour of some sort.
Just more food for thought from someone who can compare both worlds. I can't tell you whether I'd still be here today if I knew more about military life before applying, but I didn't. So, do all the research you can do before making the commitment.
