Possible Future In Military Aviation

[slaquer5]

Hey, this is Slaquer5's 16 year old daughter, Ashley. I'm planning on applying to the United States Naval Academy next year and from there flight school to hopefully be a Navy Pilot. I was wondering if anyone had any tips, suggestions, warnings, ect. I'm basically looking for any information I can possibly get.
Any help would be extremely appreciated. Thanks

 

[C-17 Driver]

Get accepted into the Academy first and then the rest should take care of itself.

 

[slaquer5]

Get accepted into the Academy first and then the rest should take care of itself.

what is the best way for me to do that?

PS thanks.

 

[Col Reb]

My advice is to apply for multiple options (AF Academy, NROTC etc.). If nothing has changed in the past 15 years, the AF does not offer many pilot slots to AFROTC-they just get the remnants from the Academy. The Navy used to split the pilot slots evenly between the Naval Academy and ROTC.

Also, don't forget about the Air Natl Guard. From what I have seen, that's the best deal out there. You would have to ask some of the Guard guys what's involved in getting selected for a pilot position.

Last bit of advice...Study very hard in college. Your grades are the main factor in being selected for a pilot slot in any service.

Good luck!

 

[Mud Eagle]

There are a couple good online resources for people who want to get into academies and the like. A good Google will do you a lot more good than FlightInfo will.

Start there...getting an appointment to an academy is a big enough hurdle in and of itself to be worrying about anything that happens after that, like simply finishing and getting your commission or getting winged.

 

[Jafo73]

The downside to the Academies is the way the military has too many pilots, then too few. If you graduate when they don't have enough.. welcome to pilot training, if they have to many though... It happened to the AF Academy class of '95, no UPT slots (practically). At least my pilot training class was ROTC (again, depends on the hiring). I'm in the reserves, I didn't get hired until I was 26 because of the mid 90's cut backs. Benefits of the reserve/guard is you get hired for pilot training and don't have to worry about get stuck in some other job, but it can be hard to get hired (a lot of who you know). And you can't beat the cost of tuition at an Academy! But if things don't work out, keep your options open!

 

[HooverPilot]

A good online resource is www.airwarriors.com

 

[puck_11]

From a current student naval aviator, good luck! Like everyone has said, make sure you look at all your options, Academy, ROTC, OCS. If for some reason you don't make it into the Academy, go to a regular college and get into a program called BDCP. Thats what I did, you get paid as an E-3 with BAH and BAS, which amounts to like $500-600 a week for doing nothing and it counts towards your time in service. Do OCS after you graduate and hit flight school! Its better than getting a $250,000 education shoved up your ass a nickel at a time

And get onto airwarriors and do some searches before you ask questions, there are a lot of guys on there that don't like the same questions asked over and over.

Fly Navy!

 

[USMCAirWinger]

If nothing has changed in the past 15 years, the AF does not offer many pilot slots to AFROTC-they just get the remnants from the Academy. Things have changed.

Also, don't forget about the Air Natl Guard. From what I have seen, that's the best deal out there. You would have to ask some of the Guard guys what's involved in getting selected for a pilot position. Go to baseops.net and do a search

Good luck!

I would also recommend that you get involved in aviation as soon as possible. Get your dad to get you a private ticket.

If you want to fly, I recommed the Air Force/ANG

 

[BeeVee]

Apply to the Naval Academy and Air Force Academy. Also apply for Navy and Air Force 4-year ROTC scholarships. Study hard for the SAT/ACT test. Take it multiple times if you need to.
If you are already a Junior in High School and haven't gotten this process started, you are behind the power curve.
Best of luck to you!