What squadron were you in?
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What squadron were you in?
27. You?
Thoughts from a dirty Reserve hinge on the backside of 30 who was once where you are ('you' plural, not necessarily the OP): whatever you want to get, whatever you end up with, expect that you'll need to keep up that level of effort, or something like it, up until at least the end of your first fleet tour. Calibrate yourself accordingly. If you have no life and get jets, good luck; the difficulty only increases in Advanced. If you have no life in jets, and get your platform of choice after winging, good luck; the difficulty only increases at the RAG. If you have no life in the RAG, well, not only will that reputation follow you to your fleet squadron (and not in a good way), but you'll choke when you have to keep studying for your ACTC quals and be an officer at the same time.
At some point, the Law of Diminishing Returns comes into play. You can only study so much and have it be useful. After that, you're just jumping on the burnout train before you've even seen the ball-crusher that is the Fleet. Don't get me wrong, bust your ass. But pace yourself and don't obsess. You only get one shot at this, but there's more to life than getting your first choice every time. Fight for it, but don't sell your soul for it. Navy Air is a fucking incredible job. But if you don't take time to stop, smell the roses, and humble yourself, you'll end up as either a bitter civilian, a bitter terminal O-4, or the smug, arrogant asshole golden child no JO wants as their boss or their Training Officer.
And for the OP: welcome to the club. Don't fuck it up.
I think the exact opposite is true. The closer you get to the fleet, and the longer you're in it, the easier it becomes for the vast majority of people. You will have a life in the RAG, and the pace is nothing like VTs. You will also have a life in the fleet. Dont get me wrong, you will work your ass off in both places, but it's not a constant firehose. The fleet is nothing like the VTs. That is absolutely the wrong way to look at it.
@nittany03, PSM for remedial training.
2... should select in 2 weeks... no desire for jets
After reading your advice, and been through this place... Here's my .02.
-Primary absolutely favors prior flight time guys. Of the guys I know to select jets over half had over 100+ hours civilian. Notably 2 were 1500+ CFIs. They just know what to expect and they are leaps and bounds sexier on the comms. I spent a good majority of contacts practicing comm brevity. What to say, how to say it, when to say it is huge and can be a huge SA suck if you have no idea what to expect. I was stumbling all over myself in the beginning sims.
- Single with no kids, living with guys who are in the same squadron. You have a permanent study partner. I was married with a toddler. Shit was difficult at times. Not impossible, but difficult. Therefore, stay single and find good friends in the pipeline.
- There is luck involved. I had the same SIM instructor in contact sims 6 times. Unbeknownst to me, he was part of the "four horsemen", one of the four sim instructors here who are notoriously a pain in the ass or hard graders. I never bought to much into the rumors and spent my time worrying about the event not the instructor. The instructor was nice I thought, but notoriously a MIFfer, hence his title. I never thought the guy was a problem and I always felt ready, but my grades were ok... I think. I would finish contacts with a 1.16 stage score. I was below mif once (for comms 4300 block) and never unsatted or failed a thing. I know people who failed a check ride and their stage score is a 1.20. Luck. I'm sure someone will be triggered by this but hey...
Congrats boss.
cookie_monster
Active Member
Congrats on getting selected for jets man. Hope to be in your spot in a year or 2, about to ship off for OCS on Feb 4. Glad to hear that primary favors prior flight time guys. Would you say they had trouble breaking their civilian flight habits? Im a 500 hour CFI currently
No idea about habits man but truth be told... you’re flying civilian, in civilian airspace. The approaches, the comma switching, the brevities... shit is all the same. The differences are nuanced. For example auto switching departure freq after takeoff. That’s all i can think of. I’m sure someone will chime in here saying it’s “leaps and bounds” different but... no... the only thing different is you’ve now enrolled in the Harvard of flight training programs.
Yes, many do. Generally it's a smaller percentage that refuse to break their habits. Most get it soon enough and then move along at whatever capability they have (or don't have).
It's also a fairly well-known thing in jet pilot advanced for high time civilian pilots, who got good grades in primary, to be surprised by the steep learning curve (their prior experience having masked the learning curve in primary). There are also just as many with prior flight time who do great in advanced, so it comes down to the individual and what he or she makes of it. Extensive civilian experience and ratings do help with primary more than they hurt, just don't be under the illusion that they make all of flight school easier.
Take this with several grains of salt. What @nittany03 does not include here is that you're getting better, smarter, and more capable at each step along the way. You're learning how to be a professional aviator, you're learning how to learn, and your'e learning how to manage your time. Or at least hopefully you are....
Didn’t mean the above to imply that this wasn’t the case.
This is a true statement and I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. Maybe I didn’t phrase what I was thinking the way I thought I did. My point is that until you get whatever qual deems a successful JO tour, you’re not done being evaluated. So if I could have given 23-year-old me advice, it would have been to pace yourself, don’t slack but still recharge, and let the chips fall where they may. Obsess over doing the process well, but if you obsess over the end result being what you want, you’ll burn out.
Edit: I think the single sentence I was trying to get at was “know yourself, and find the level of effort you can sustain, because it’s a long haul.”
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Thanks for adding this man. These are definitely hard truths. Luck is major factor - the draw with sim instructors and that you'll fly up to 14 flights with your on-wing, which can be a gift or a curse.
I second living with buddies with minimal distractions. A good method is to find dudes in your API class that are heading to the same place. I had two roommates which meant we always had someone for practice sims and studying.
From what I saw, prior flight time can a huge boost. It can also bite people in the ass. Being good at comms, instruments, and landing the airplane early on are game changers. However, the majority of dudes that I saw DOR were prior-time guys. They either weren't having fun or were overwhelmed with the challenge of primary. The highest NSSs I saw were also from guys with only IFS experience. These guys were committed to the practice sims and internalizing the knowledge. For the most part though, prior guys all wound up doing well. If you can combine manic work ethic with a solid foundation of flight time, then the sky is the limit.
I’ve found jets to be less stressful than Primary simply because there isn’t an invisible line you are worried about (read: “jet grades”). I show up, do as well as I can, ask questions if something wasn’t making sense and try to internalize that flights lesson.
In Primary, I spent so much time stressing out about “I got a 5 on this, but a 3 on this while my buddy got 4s on both.....” that I didn’t enjoy it at all. Every flight was me trying to beat MIF by more than my peers, and it added a lot of undue (self imposed) stress to each flight.
So far through jets, I’m just trying to beat myself. I know what I did on last flight, and try to improve flight to flight, irregardless of what the grade sheet says. It’s a subtle difference, but it has made flying a lot more enjoyable for me.
In Primary, I spent so much time stressing out about “I got a 5 on this, but a 3 on this while my buddy got 4s on both.....” that I didn’t enjoy it at all. Every flight was me trying to beat MIF by more than my peers, and it added a lot of undue (self imposed) stress to each flight.
So far through jets, I’m just trying to beat myself. I know what I did on last flight, and try to improve flight to flight, irregardless of what the grade sheet says. It’s a subtle difference, but it has made flying a lot more enjoyable for me.
Not trying to discredit your experience in primary but mine was quite the contrary. Every DOR I knew were overwhelmingly OCS with no prior flight time. OCS has a way of pulling people off the streets with no real test of dedication. When these kids showed up to primary/api they DORed. Leaving was just as easy as joining for them. They had no strings attached. No scholarships to pay back. No 4 years of grinding at the academy/rotc to test their dedication to staying in the Navy.
Prior flight time guys were established in the aviation desire. 100+ hours requires dedication. That dedication only goes up with flight hours. You wouldn’t spend 1000s of dollars on a career you weren’t dedicated too. Every DOR I knew, had no prior flight time other than IFS, and they were overwhelmingly OCS grads. No repercussion for leaving. The only Academy/rotc Guys I knew to DOR either had some ridiculous “gf” situation or they were deathly airsick. I guess being pent up around dudes in the academy for 4 years shifts your priorities regarding love interest. No offense dudes.
As I said earlier the prior flight guys just did better. Not a single one I knew had a difficult time adapting to the training. We got one kid here now who was flying the regionals at like 23. This guy is notorious among the instructors. Not saying IFS only dudes don’t crush, but as I said earlier... of the Jet selects I’ve known a majority had 100+ hours flight time.