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Navy vs CG

CoastieFlyer said:
Very true, in fact currently the CG is assigning flight school students to fly fixed wing that want helos which was the opposite from when I went through 9 years ago. Our fixed wing fleet is ramping up big time with our new MPA coming online and it's requiring a larger than normal fleet of fixed wing pilots.
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They are talking about taking the first few nuggets for the CASA out of my flight school group.

motorhead said:
Thanks for all the info!
...
Once you have been assigned fixed or rotary wing is it written in stone that you will fly that for the rest of your career?
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You can transition- It's a highly sought after swap to make from helos to fixed wings to get some time in the C-130 to retire and fly commercially. It's a fairly popular thing to try...so I wouldn't PLAN on it as a career path.
 
Brunes said:
They are talking about taking the first few nuggets for the CASA out of my flight school group.



You can transition- It's a highly sought after swap to make from helos to fixed wings to get some time in the C-130 to retire and fly commercially. It's a fairly popular thing to try...so I wouldn't PLAN on it as a career path.
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Alright, since you are a nugget, I will cut you some slack. If you were someone with Coastie flyer's experience, I would cut your....whatever Falcon pilots have... off. If they could be found for saying such blasphemy.

Fixed wing transitions are not highly sought by helicopter pilots. There is a board every once in a while and maybe 20 apply for it with 5 or six getting picked up. I say every once in a while because it is sporadic. There hadn;t been one for three years at one point and I haven't seen a solicitation since the board two years ago. Considering there are about 600-700 helicopter pilots that could apply, that is a pretty small amount of helicopters pilots who decided manhood was something they no longer wanted.

Most of the fixed wing pilots are pulled from flight school or from fixed wing Direct Commissed pilots. Many are pulled from the rotary community because they are engineers and are transitioned to fill fixed wing engineer billet gaps whether they wanted to transition or not.

Either way, getting an aircraft transition once you are in any aiframe is very rare unless you are an engineer or taking a command position OPS, XO, CO and they happen to need you to go to a different airframe.

For the original poster, you can see that flight time varies but again a CG pliot can expect to fly an average of 300 hours a year and that is for at minimum the first 8 years of their careers. After that it will be up to you. I know many Commanders who have yet to do anything but be operational pilots. So they have averaged that flight time for 16-20 years. Ask a Navy pilot if he can do the same.
 
sardaddy said:
Alright, since you are a nugget, I will cut you some slack. If you were someone with Coastie flyer's experience, I would cut your....whatever Falcon pilots have... off. If they could be found for saying such blasphemy.

Fixed wing transitions are not highly sought by helicopter pilots. There is a board every once in a while and maybe 20 apply for it with 5 or six getting picked up. I say every once in a while because it is sporadic. There hadn;t been one for three years at one point and I haven't seen a solicitation since the board two years ago. Considering there are about 600-700 helicopter pilots that could apply, that is a pretty small amount of helicopters pilots who decided manhood was something they no longer wanted.

Most of the fixed wing pilots are pulled from flight school or from fixed wing Direct Commissed pilots. Many are pulled from the rotary community because they are engineers and are transitioned to fill fixed wing engineer billet gaps whether they wanted to transition or not.

Either way, getting an aircraft transition once you are in any aiframe is very rare unless you are an engineer or taking a command position OPS, XO, CO and they happen to need you to go to a different airframe.

For the original poster, you can see that flight time varies but again a CG pliot can expect to fly an average of 300 hours a year and that is for at minimum the first 8 years of their careers. After that it will be up to you. I know many Commanders who have yet to do anything but be operational pilots. So they have averaged that flight time for 16-20 years. Ask a Navy pilot if he can do the same.
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Ehh- Everyone gets fed bad gouge-Live and Learn. Anytime "they" talk about the transition boards all you ever hear is "Helos going fixed wing" blah blah blah...Hard numbers are better- so you post makes sense.

And there will be no Falcons for me (hopefully)...I haven't selectold what I'll be flying yet- but should know by Feb. We'll see what happens.
 
Brunes said:
They are talking about taking the first few nuggets for the CASA out of my flight school group.



You can transition- It's a highly sought after swap to make from helos to fixed wings to get some time in the C-130 to retire and fly commercially. It's a fairly popular thing to try...so I wouldn't PLAN on it as a career path.
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You are very wise, young man and will go far. Highly sought after...couldn't have said it better myself. Only a few elite fixed-wingers in the Guard, but if you do poorly and get relegated to rotary wing you can always try to get a transition. Hope it works out for you.:icon_wink

Fixed wing transitions are not highly sought by helicopter pilots. There is a board every once in a while and maybe 20 apply for it with 5 or six getting picked up. I say every once in a while because it is sporadic. There hadn;t been one for three years at one point and I haven't seen a solicitation since the board two years ago. Considering there are about 600-700 helicopter pilots that could apply, that is a pretty small amount of helicopters pilots who decided manhood was something they no longer wanted.
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You sure you got your numbers right? How many helo pilots are in the Guard?
 
Hercdriver,

Good response. Obviously trying to compensate for something but good none the less. My numbers may be a bit off but I was basing that on my experience at the H-65 branch. From that I know we have about 400-500 H-65 pilots depending on when you take the numbers and about half that many H-60 pilots. That is what I based my number on. If I am wrong it is on the low side. Do you have a better guess?


Brunes,

Good luck in whatever you fly. It is a great gig either way, but being a helicopter pilot is better.
 
sardaddy said:
Most of the fixed wing pilots are pulled from flight school or from fixed wing Direct Commissed pilots. Many are pulled from the rotary community because they are engineers and are transitioned to fill fixed wing engineer billet gaps whether they wanted to transition or not.
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That's the first time I've looked at my engineering degree as a negative.
 
sardaddy said:
Hercdriver,

Good response. Obviously trying to compensate for something but good none the less. My numbers may be a bit off but I was basing that on my experience at the H-65 branch. From that I know we have about 400-500 H-65 pilots depending on when you take the numbers and about half that many H-60 pilots. That is what I based my number on. If I am wrong it is on the low side. Do you have a better guess?
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Just trying to compensate for no opportunity to land on the back of a big white needle of death... I have to salve my feelings of inadequacy with trips to So. and Central America.

And extra box lunches.:D

No I don't have better numbers, however...
Your original post made it sound like every single helo pilot would be eligible to apply; I don't believe this is the case. I doubt the guy or gal in their first year of flying the Tupperwolf would be eligible, nor would the crusty O-5. I'm way too lazy to research the prior solicitation message, though and my Google-fu is weak.
 
S.O.B. said:
Does the CG have disassociated tours and IAs?
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Sorry, I will have to throw out my ignorance flag, I know I have heard the term before but I don't recall what an IA is.

As for disassociated tours, I don't think we do in the same sense you would be used to, at least not as many. There are many tours that are non-flying tours such as a gig at headquarters but they are designated for an aviator to fill. We also have some liaisions in different countries that aviators can also apply for but, you are not required to do one during your career.

It does look better for you once you are looking at O-6 or higher but as I wrote in an earlier post, I know many O-5's who have done nothing but stand duty as a line pilot for about 16 years and I know some O-6's who have never been anywhere but an air station their entire career. They went from being a line pilot to being the OPSO, to XO, to CO at various stations.

As I said though, having an HQ tour at some point does improve your chances of promotion at the higher echelons but because we seem to be eternally short on aviators we seem to let people stay in the cockpit a lot longer.
 
sardaddy said:
I know many O-5's who have done nothing but stand duty as a line pilot for about 16 years and I know some O-6's who have never been anywhere but an air station their entire career. They went from being a line pilot to being the OPSO, to XO, to CO at various stations.
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Dear Coasties,
I think I might like to fly for you in about 10 years. C-130's would be sweet, or whatever you'll let me. Hell, even dolphins look cool. Plus, I like your planes' paint jobs.
Regards,
Scoolbubba
 
sardaddy said:
Sorry, I will have to throw out my ignorance flag, I know I have heard the term before but I don't recall what an IA is.

As for disassociated tours, I don't think we do in the same sense you would be used to, at least not as many. There are many tours that are non-flying tours such as a gig at headquarters but they are designated for an aviator to fill. We also have some liaisions in different countries that aviators can also apply for but, you are not required to do one during your career.

It does look better for you once you are looking at O-6 or higher but as I wrote in an earlier post, I know many O-5's who have done nothing but stand duty as a line pilot for about 16 years and I know some O-6's who have never been anywhere but an air station their entire career. They went from being a line pilot to being the OPSO, to XO, to CO at various stations.

As I said though, having an HQ tour at some point does improve your chances of promotion at the higher echelons but because we seem to be eternally short on aviators we seem to let people stay in the cockpit a lot longer.
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IA = Individual Augmentation. There are a lot of threads on them but basically it's a 6 month to a year tour in the dessert that doesn't involve flying.

The Navy's been good to me but if I were to do it again I would have gone Coast Guard, too much B.S in the Nav these days.
 
Thanks for the memory jog. I have read about IA in the Navy times. We do not have IA in any specialty, especially aviation, that I know of. We do have many Coasties deployed to the region but all are doing CG missions including flying.

But six months of dessert does sound like a good deal.
 
So, what happened to the preservation of pay act that was supposed to be in the budget this year? You know, the one that says if you transition between branches and have a reduction in rank because of it, you will remain at your previous pay scale? My google-fu in weak but we've discussed it on here before.
 
HooverPilot said:
So, what happened to the preservation of pay act that was supposed to be in the budget this year? You know, the one that says if you transition between branches and have a reduction in rank because of it, you will remain at your previous pay scale? My google-fu in weak but we've discussed it on here before.
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Someone mentioned a couple of weeks ago. Something about how it was in a House bill, but not in any form that was on its way to the Prez and no guarantee that it would make it there. Don't know the validity of that statement, just what someone here said.
 
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