Naval Aviation Club

[MIDNJAC]

anyone out there have a Naval Aviation club at your ROTC units? I'm thinking of trying to start one at my unit and I was wondering if anyone had experience, advice, or information on theirs???

 

[ACurry]

Yeah, my unit at Jacksonville University has one. Its not fully active becuase no one has time for it and other reasons. But I tried to restart it up last year and was atleast succesfull in getting old flight suits for survival swim practice once a week for about an hour at a local university pool. We were also lucky to be in the vicinity of NAS JAX and four of us got to fly on a P-3 for about four or five hours. Its hard to set up if there is no demand or your the only one really gung-ho about aviation and my unit keeps the freshman class busy doing unit stuff while everyone else is usually already in some organization or outside club at that time. Good Luck!

 

[MIDNJAC]

yeah, that will be a big challenge...that and thinking of activities to do on a regular basis, since we're not in the immediate vicinity of any sort of NAS.

 

[zab1001]

Talk with your class advisors, see if they can get some visiting aviation alumni to talk with you guys.

 

[bch]

They should be doing that anyway. It is my understanding that each unit has a sqd and boat that "sponsor" them and is supposed to in some way talk up the community.

That being said, I know that not every unit particpates actively. We had people from all over the navy and Corps come and talk throughout my 4.5 yrs in NROTC

 

[pennst8]

We have one at Penn State and we get pretty good turnout at the meetings. I'm kind of surprised that your unit doesn't have one.

We do a lot of different things during the semester... Some meetings are ASTB prep, some are guest speakers, and once a semester we watch a movie ("anyone who voted for TOP GUN can leave now...").

We also have time reserved at the pool on Sunday mornings for anyone who wants to practice swimming. The lifeguards look at us like we're morons swimming around in flight suits but what the heck do they know?

I'd say the best part though is the guest speakers... we've had a couple guys come back from flight school and talk to us along with a few retired guys who live in the area. Just sitting around and getting to hear what they've done is awesome. (Anyone out there who wants to come talk to us, just let us know!)

If you can find a couple more people who are willing to show up to meetings and put a minimal amount of effort into running the club I'd bet that you can get one started without any problems.

 

[MIDNJAC]

thanks for the advice guys....for those of you that have a club, how often do you guys typically meet? I was thinking like a couple times a month, but then some of our unit clubs meet every week.....so what seems to work the best?

 

[Zoltan04]

We meet about 2 times a month. It does the trick.

 

[Godspeed]

I am a member of the naval aviation club here at Embry-Riddle, Daytona Beach. We have a pretty good time. We usually carpool to airshows and have VIP access and all that jazz.

I would love to get the club in to P-3 or something. How do you go about arranging such events?

 

[ACurry]

I got the P-3 Flight because one of the new STA-O program officers that was getting their degree at Jacksonville University offered for us to go up for a FAM Flight and see what P-3s are all about. It was awsome. I wish I had some contacts still there, but your best bet is to just call the squadron duty desk and ask to speak with Officer on duty to point you in the right direction or public affairs officer, (I'm not realy sure ) but ask around there and you should be able to get something. P-3s were the easiest since you could take several people onboard withour interfearing with the crew working. If your lucky you may get some stick time as well, (about 15 min). GOOD LUCK.

 

[zab1001]

Easiest way to get hooked up with a P-3 fam flight would be to call the duty office, ask to speak with either the Squadron Duty Officer (SDO) or the Assistant Operations Officer (usually a LT, not as busy as the OPSO, who will be an O-4, with his hair on fire from stress). Don't call VP-30, they're the FRS, and won't have much time to spare. When you do get a hold of a squadron, try to find the one just back off deployment, they will be the least busy. Make sure you get and leave good contact names and numbers, and be persistant. 99% of squadrons will hook you up, just be prepared to wait a while, anywhere from weeks to months. I'd also inquire about the possibility of getting a little sim time, since Jax has at least 4 (i dunno, its been a looong time) full motion "pain machines" (painful for us, not you).

When you finally do go up, bring a water bottle and a snack. No number 2's in the onboard head unless you wanna clean it out afterwards.

I'd also bet the 60 guys in Mayport would hook you up as well. S-3s in Jax...no clue...couldn't hurt to ask, I'm not sure what their survival training requirements are for fams...

 

[ACurry]

With my club, we went up with VP-16 out of JAX. They still have several S-3 squadrons at JAX too. About the Survival Training, myself and another person were the only mids who went and the other two were OCs. The other mid an I had just finished Water Survival Training for summer cruise, but I think the Skipper of the Squadron can sign a one-day waiver or something that allows you to go on a FAM Flight without any survival training, but don't qoute me on that. Like Zab said, it may be good to look into a flight with an HSL squadron out of Mayport.