E2/c2

[thebluto]

FALACY

I saw the beginnings of the last hiring cycle in the mid-90s. There is no correlation between P-3 guys getting airline jobs before carrier guys. The airlines were all looking for pilots with FIXED WING TIME. Personally, the first guys I saw hired were the carrier based guys.

Also, the P-3 world is floundering. The planes are past their fatigue life and they don't have a replacement. Rumor has it that the number of squadrons are going to be cut in half and the reserves may be going away. There will be a number of P-3 pilots scrambling in the near future to find something else to do (not a good time to be job searching in today's economy).

The E-2 is one of the only aircraft in the Navy's inventory that is new, or at least has newer aircraft coming off the line. And, it has a mission, whereas the P-3 has been in an identity crisis since the Soviet Union and it's sub fleet went away.

Things are changing. Let go of the past.

 

[Mentorplt]

Hell if you are going to go to the boat....go in an 18!!!

 

[thebluto]

Go to the boat in an 18, don't I wish?!

Mentorplt:
If I could turn back tayohm...(as "just Jack" would say)
If I could have gone to the boat in an 18, I'd have been WAY happy. Got all my traps in the back and right seats of an EA-6B (and a couple of CODs).

My advice to skywiz was if he had a choice between E-2s and P-3s, I'd take E-2s. I had to make that choice myself, and I believe I chose unwisely in the P-3 route.

Patmack:
Hang in there. I think there are going to be some Navy training slots open soon. I'd recommend the Navy for those just starting out. The training is a lot less painful. Would you rather: study on your own, show up for your briefs and flights when directed, and have a one on one casual flight brief (Navy), or be forced to be in the squadron spaces from 0500 to close of business and have stand-up briefs (at attention), barking out answers to questions all day (Air Force)?

There is a certain amount of "suck" in any route taken, but having been brought up in Carrier Navy Aviation, I'd recommend it highly.

 

[grinch]

I've got 1,000 hours in E-2s and did 2 cruises in an E-2 squadron. I enjoyed it very much...but mainly because of the people (and there are good people in every community). Anyway, I really enjoyed the carrier. Landing on it that is. I didn't enjoy living on it so much but even that part had some good times. Saying the boat can be a fun place is like trying to put lipstick on a pig. The boat sucks. It's hot, loud, crowded, smelly, non-stop work (ever had a 42 day work-week...some guys have not seen ports in more than 100 days...that kind of thing makes people do strange stuff).

As for the E-2...it's an NFO dominated community. Pilots are monkeys and with few exceptions they find it difficult to become highly involved in the mission. About the most you can do is listen to the radios in the back and try to figure out what's going on that way. But the NFO's normally don't need your assistance and listening to multiple radios tends to get painful. Most pilots don't even try to keep up with it. They just notify the NFO's when it's time to go home and that's about it. For pilots the mission is quite boring 98% of the time and many of the guys I flew with always brought reading material.

As for the COD...I spent a week flying with the C-2 bubbas on one of my cruises. That's actually where the good deal is. They fly into a lot of different places and they tend to det from the beach (for east coast boats). West coast C-2's tend to work from the ship so it's not as good of a deal. Anyway, the COD's have a great mission. It's a pilot's mission - i.e. not an NFO dominated community. They don't have to deal with night traps (I don't care much for night traps and anyone who boasts that they do is full of sh** and is probably just trying to sound cool). COD guys make good per diem, stay in very nice hotels, get to drink, get plenty of flight time...trust me, it's a great deal and I regret not being able to fly CODs.

The bad thing about COD's is that their planes are falling apart. I've got lots of those stories. Many COD pilots are pressured into flying planes with questionable safety. They aren't building new ones anytime soon either. Many COD pilots have told me they think the only way they will get much-needed money to their community is when a COD full of VIP's crashes and kills everybody. I bet they are right.

As for choosing communities...you don't want to go to a dying community. It gets ugly when guys are looking for orders. Ask any old A-6 guy. Even the S-3 guys are trying to find jobs right now and that can be a real hard position to be in. The E-2 community is alive and well.

The Navy is currently having 2 types of aircraft built for carriers. E-2s and F/A-18E (*andF's). The bad part for the E-2 pilots is that most of the new money being spent on E-2's is going to back-end upgrades. Pilots will still be using old steam-dial gauges and landing gear indicators from WW-II era aircraft (no, I'm not joking) for years to come.

F-18 squadrons have about 17 officers while E-2 squadrons have about 28 - but they both have almost all of the same crappy ground jobs.

Sorry for rambling too much. I'll be glad to tell you more about it anytime though.
Mike

 

[BobbyB]

The carrier types tend to be single piloted, with the E2/C2 exception. That means you rack up the PIC time from the time you take your NATOPS check in the RAG. After your first tour, you can be getting close to the 1000 PIC hours. You have stick around longer to get that in multipilot aircraft where you have to work up to aircraft commander. (EA-6B, F-18 (All except training birds), F-14, S-3 (with exceptions), have a single set of controls). While the carrier based guys may or may not have more opportunities outside the Navy/Marines, they can still say that they have landed on a boat. Flare to land; squat to pee.

 

[grinch]

Great point. I have about 1500 hours TT and because I flew E-2's only about 400 of it is PIC. That's pretty sad. My S-3 brethren began logging PIC time before ever going to the fleet and many already have the 1000 hr PIC turbine requirement that most airline jobs require before applying. BTW, S-3's fly with NFO's in their right seat so with very few exceptions (NATOPS check flights etc.) all of their flights are logged as PIC time.