DesertRooster
The King of Nothing
I'm wondering how people are assigned what type of aircraft you fly and how it is decided in primary flight training
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Are you assigned any Type of Aircraft in Primary Flight Training?
- Thread starter DesertRooster
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- flight training usmc
Everyone flies the same aircraft in Primary (T-6B Texan II). Toward the end of Primary, you fill out a "Dream Sheet" with your top three choices. When I selected last year, Navy chose between Rotary, Jets, Maritime or E-6. At this point, I think Jets may have been divided into Strike and E-2/C-2, but I don't know firsthand.
Anyway, what you actually get selected for is based on the needs of the Navy/Marines, your cumulative grade (NSS) at the time of selection and, last and most definitely least, your Dream Sheet.
Anyway, what you actually get selected for is based on the needs of the Navy/Marines, your cumulative grade (NSS) at the time of selection and, last and most definitely least, your Dream Sheet.
DesertRooster
The King of Nothing
What did you get? And thanks
I fly the MH-60R, so...jets
DesertRooster
The King of Nothing
What were on your Dream sheet? Also did you see any one clearly upset with what they got assigned?
I put Rotary, Maritime then Jets. So I got what I wanted. It's worth noting that Rotary is statistically the easiest thing to get right now (always?), so if that's what you want to do, then all the better. But I would've been happy with anything, I just had a hunch that flying helos would be really fucking awesome (hunch confirmed).
I've seen plenty of people get upset about their assignments. There are all kinds of selections in the military...platform you'll fly, where you'll fly it, what job you'll do next and where you'll perform it, promotion boards...It's just selection after selection until you're done with this job. And that's not even the irritating thing, sometimes. It's more that you almost have zero idea what they ("they"...) are even looking at when decisions are made. You might have the best/averagest/worst grades or performance evals and get a choice that nobody else understands. It's just how it is
I'm only a couple years into my career and I feel like every week is some sort of selection (exaggeration, kind of). My strategy has been to try and be happy with whatever I get and approach every opportunity with an open mind. The people who ended up the most disappointed were the ones whose dream outcomes were so incredibly narrow that the odds of achieving them were ill at best. For example, for my last selection, I wanted to fly any helicopter (preferably the Romeo, preferably in Japan) as long as it wasn't in Norfolk. That left like a 10% chance that I'd be disappointed. And if I got Norfolk? Well, I've got some buddies there and I wanted to see new places anyway. Others wanted to specifically fly the Sierra and specifically fly it in San Diego, and so on.
DesertRooster
The King of Nothing
What do you think the rise of drones will have on selection? There are lot more fixed wing than helo drones(understandably as you've learned first hand) And did you NROTC or academy,
I commissioned out of OCS. I have absolutely zero knowledge in regard to drones, particularly as it pertains to Navy operators. Try running a search on "Drones" in the search bar at the top (searching ahead of time will get you far on this forum, by the way). I know there are some topics about drones in regard to the Navy and Air Force, if I remember correctly.
Just to expand on some points:
Usually if you have the highest NSS in your Primary class at selection time, you get your first choice. This is usually, but not always, the case. But it still gives you the best odds of getting what you want, so work hard early on, when you can get the most influence over your NSS while the standards are still low.what you actually get selected for is based on the needs of the Navy/Marines, your cumulative grade (NSS) at the time of selection and, last and most definitely least, your Dream Sheet.
Yeah, some people get salty about not getting what they want, but the ones I've seen have been adults about it, i.e. they bitched about it a bit and then moved on. Play the hand you're dealt, knowing that other than your own performance, it's mostly out of your hands.
I believe this is the case, but I am similarly not 100% sure. Also, if you don't have good enough grades to qualify for jets ("jet grades"), you can't put it on your dream sheet.
I've heard nothing about drones WRT Primary selection. I'm in maritime, and they've told us that flying Tritons may be an option for our shore tour. I don't know about any pipeline that would have flight students flying drones exclusively, ergo it shouldn't be an issue when it comes to Primary students. Drones are the devil and they will take your job, just like that automatic bowling ball cleaner that replaced Arthur Spooner on that one episode of The King of Queens.
DesertRooster
The King of Nothing
Did you NROTC or go through the Academy?
OCS, a few weeks after AllYourBass.
Right you are! E-2/C-2 is its own pipeline now, so 5 total options. Still waiting for them to open up the blimp pipeline to fly the Navy's single airship....a guy can dream.
But there is almost zero talk here in Corpus about any drone stuff, only a few rumors about drones maybe popping up in Maritime/Romeo communities.
The Navy doesn't have that big of a UAS 'community' to warrant taking Cat 1s. Current plan is to make VUP (Tritons) a disassoc sea tour for VP. Fire Scout's future remains to be seen, and I have no idea what the current plan is (I've seen about 10-15 versions).
