Navy or Corporate?

[HeyJoe]

Do you want to be living and then telling "There I was stories" like this:

I spent this morning with a JO bud raging at 550 knots through the mountains on a good deal low level for an hour "just because."

or "There I was in my nice corporate uniform easing that yoke back ever so gently to avoid spilling the drinks in the back and keeping it that way until flaring ever so gently to avoid spilling those drinks in the back".

So, do you want to fly or really fly? like others have said, you have to take Navy option now and the other one remains an option for decades.

 

[White_Male]

OK, this seems like a really dumb question because I know it really depends on your individual situation, but here it goes...

Hypothetically, if you were a 23 year old college grad with 1100 hours and the chance to get a commission and fly for the Navy OR accept an offer from an extremely stable corporate operation who would send you to FlightSafety (45k) to type you in a Falcon 2000EX EASy and start you off at ~45k/year to fly right seat with a substantial pay increase starting your second year........ what would you do?

It's a stupid dilemma, but I really am having a hard time figuring out what to do... hopefully one or the other will end up not working out and my decision will be an easy one. Any advice would be much appreciated though, thanks in advance for your input.

-Mike

I am kind of in the same situation as you -600 hours and 2 years. When it comes time for me to try to become a Naval Aviator, I will have similar choices. I say, you might as well try to do the Navy thing. The fact that you are questioning taking the corporate job seems to imply that you really want to fly the with the Navy. I was talking to an old Navy A4 pilot the other day, and he said that if I didn't at least try the Navy, then I will always be looking back over my shoulder and wondering what could have been. And he was right. You can do the civilian stuff anytime.

Just my 2c

 

[Single Seat]

I am kind of in the same situation as you -600 hours and 2 years. When it comes time for me to try to become a Naval Aviator, I will have similar choices. I say, you might as well try to do the Navy thing. The fact that you are questioning taking the corporate job seems to imply that you really want to fly the with the Navy. I was talking to an old Navy A4 pilot the other day, and he said that if I didn't at least try the Navy, then I will always be looking back over my shoulder and wondering what could have been. And he was right. You can do the civilian stuff anytime.

Just my 2c

The choices available to you are going to be instructing, or some minimum wage job for a shitty regional. Don't kid yourself.

 

[puck_11]

When I was still a college student, I talked to an alum from my aviation college, UND, who was currently a rag IP in the super hornet. Anyways, from what he told me, after about 5 years in the civilian world, all of his classmates were jealous and disappointed that they didn't go his route. They were burnt out flying the same route day after day, getting screwed over by management, making peanuts compared to what a LT makes. He said only 50% of his classmates were even still in the flyinig business. He didn't even have to go into detail all of the cool shit he was doing. Seeing as you already made your decision, this will only affirm what you want to hear.

 

[FLY_USMC]

I flew civilian prior to joining the military, have a C-525 type rating, and all I can say is, everybody in the civilian world WOULD KILL for a military flying job, hence the reason I left. You can always go back to civilian, the other way around is only available while you're young.

 

[HAL Pilot]

I flew civilian prior to joining the military, have a C-525 type rating, and all I can say is, everybody in the civilian world WOULD KILL for a military flying job, hence the reason I left.

While I personally believe military flying is a great thing....I'd say your generalization is way off base. Most purely civilian pilots I know had/have no desire to fly military.

 

[A4sForever]

While I personally believe military flying is a great thing....I'd say your generalization is way off base. Most purely civilian pilots I know had/have no desire to fly military.

In the 747, I sometimes referred to my "civilian" trained pilots as "pretty-boy draft dodgers .... "

One of them even offered that he didn't serve as "there was no draft when I was learning how to fly ... "

I love it.

 

[FLY_USMC]

While I personally believe military flying is a great thing....I'd say your generalization is way off base. Most purely civilian pilots I know had/have no desire to fly military.

That's interesting, I think that our opinion base is proabably a bit skewed though. I come/came from a flock of young civilian pilots, majority less than 25 years old, majority with less than 2K flight hours. I willing to bet that most pilots at HAL don't want to fly in the military either BTW, I caveat that with, want to fly fast movers or gunships.

 

[HAL Pilot]

That's interesting, I think that our opinion base is proabably a bit skewed though. I come/came from a flock of young civilian pilots, majority less than 25 years old, majority with less than 2K flight hours. I willing to bet that most pilots at HAL don't want to fly in the military either BTW, I caveat that with, want to fly fast movers or gunships.

I've been furloughed from Hawaiian for over three years. In that time, I've flown Grand Canyon tours, fractional and corporate. Most of the pilots I fly with are early-20s to mid-30s. Most of my FOs have been in the 20s with less than 2000 hours. Most of them had no desire to fly for the military.

On this website, we're all pro-military flying. That is the audience this site attracts and hopes to keep. As distasteful as we might find it, the truth of the matter is the majority of Americans want nothing to do with the military. While I agree that the civilian pilot is likely to want an affiliation with the military more than the non-pilot, I feel the majority of civilian pilots never had the desire to fly military. Just like everyone involved in aviation, they see a fighter or the Blue Angles and go "damn, I'd love to fly that...." but they do not want to serve in the military. Just my opinion.

 

[FLY_USMC]

Yeah, I see what you mean. Maybe I should've separated the words MILITARY and FLY THAT like you did. I agree, they all want to fly Hornets, but either don't want to be in the military, or aren't willing to put out the effort.