Intro & seeking input

[jf69]

Greetings,
I'm happy to have found this site as there seems to be hundreds of years of experience here.

BLUF: 22 year old aspiring pilot in the intel and/or special operations field. 3.7 GPA non-stem Bachelor's from a top20 school. 4+ years in army intelligence and speak a couple critical need languages. Working on my PPL right now. No disciplinary record or waivers needed.

Ever since hearing about the Army's C12 mission I've been hooked on flying. After talking to more people, it's become apparent that the chances of flying intel aircraft are 10x more available/guaranteed in the Air Force, but I haven't ruled out anywhere since every branch has its ups and downs. I have another year left on my enlisted contract so I'm using this time to get the ball rolling and set myself up for success by taking some tests (AFOQT, TBAS, SIFT) but I'm already feeling a bit behind.

Army side: I love the flexibility that officers have: I'm confident I could pull some strings and end up in a C12, or worst case it seems O's can pretty much drop everything after flight school and go try out for a number of special operations teams if they find out they hate their job/big army. Downsides are a lot less flying for the O's and likely less opportunities to go to high speed flight trainings.

Airforce side: You get a guaranteed shot to compete for fighter pilot spots, or miss and land among a number of cool aircraft. The Air Force does seem to be a lot less flexible career wise, but I could be wrong on that one.

My first question for anyone reading this is what branch/air frame sounds like a good goal to work towards?

 

[Griz882]

Greetings,
I'm happy to have found this site as there seems to be hundreds of years of experience here.

BLUF: 22 year old aspiring pilot in the intel and/or special operations field. 3.7 GPA non-stem Bachelor's from a top20 school. 4+ years in army intelligence and speak a couple critical need languages. Working on my PPL right now. No disciplinary record or waivers needed.

Ever since hearing about the Army's C12 mission I've been hooked on flying. After talking to more people, it's become apparent that the chances of flying intel aircraft are 10x more available/guaranteed in the Air Force, but I haven't ruled out anywhere since every branch has its ups and downs. I have another year left on my enlisted contract so I'm using this time to get the ball rolling and set myself up for success by taking some tests (AFOQT, TBAS, SIFT) but I'm already feeling a bit behind.

Army side: I love the flexibility that officers have: I'm confident I could pull some strings and end up in a C12, or worst case it seems O's can pretty much drop everything after flight school and go try out for a number of special operations teams if they find out they hate their job/big army. Downsides are a lot less flying for the O's and likely less opportunities to go to high speed flight trainings.

Airforce side: You get a guaranteed shot to compete for fighter pilot spots, or miss and land among a number of cool aircraft. The Air Force does seem to be a lot less flexible career wise, but I could be wrong on that one.

My first question for anyone reading this is what branch/air frame sounds like a good goal to work towards?

First of all, good luck in your future endeavors. You should note that you have entered a site about naval aviation but have asked questions about the Army and Air Force. My initial advice, know your audience. After that, apply to every service, something will stick to the wall.

 

[exNavyOffRec]

Airforce side: You get a guaranteed shot to compete for fighter pilot spots, or miss and land among a number of cool aircraft.

Like Griz said know your audience, and you also need to know how each service does things, for instance the USN tends to divide designators by accession sources fairly evenly 1/3 to each source (USNA, NROTC, and OCS), while the USAF tends to give pilot spots in order of priority USAFA, then AFROTC, and if any left AF OTS, the AF Officer Recruiter that I would see at career fairs had no pilot spots for 2 years, might have been longer but I didn't talk to him all the time.

If you have your degree in hand you can apply now, just do the conditional release thing.

 

[jf69]

First of all, good luck in your future endeavors. You should note that you have entered a site about naval aviation but have asked questions about the Army and Air Force. My initial advice, know your audience. After that, apply to every service, something will stick to the wall.

Ha I was directed here by a well meaning but obviously mistaken friend. Do you know of any similar sites for AF folks? Any Navy ISR platforms in the Navy that come to mind?

 

[croakerfish]

Ha I was directed here by a well meaning but obviously mistaken friend. Do you know of any similar sites for AF folks? Any Navy ISR platforms in the Navy that come to mind?

flyingsquadron.com is the closet Air Force equivalent. In the Navy we don’t really have a dedicated ISR community but pretty much any airframe has some degree of capability. The closest thing would probably be the EP-3s.