• Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?

    Go here:

    Edit Account Details and Profile

P-3 Fleet Squadrons

virtu050

virtu050

P-8 Bubba
pilot
varies by det site. obviously you'll be flying less during home cycle unless you're in that surge window. But to give you an idea... You have to make PPC by 24 months. And you need a minimum of 700 total pilot time. Take into consideration you have about 220 or so hours by the time you leave the FRS. That means you need 480 hours from the day you check into the squadron until 24 months later. That averages to 20 hours a month you'll need in order to qualify on time. Most people don't have a problem with qualifying. Something to consider is timing of arrival at a squadron. If you check in right before they leave on deployment you'll be pretty much guaranteed 2 deployments. If you check in right after they get back from deployment you'll be more or less guaranteed 1 deployment. It's these people in the second group that struggle to qualify by 24 months. They have waivers available provided it's just an hours issue.
 
FlyingBeagle

FlyingBeagle

Registered User
pilot
I have heard all the stories about few hours, difficulty making rank/retirement, IA, etc. . .

What I want to know is, are they working on a way to make things better down the road when people currently in primary show up (more funding, less selectors from primary, whatever it may be), or are things going to continue to get even worse until the MMA shows up in 7 years and saves the day?
 
PropStop

PropStop

Kool-Aid free since 2001.
pilot
Contributor
Things have been implemented to make things better with regards to hours. It is harder to make O-4, which is good. For several years if you could fog a mirror you WOULD make O-4 (this directly from an O-4 who made it that way). Because of this we've got some really crappy O-4's. Recently it became competitive again, very competitive. Our most recent O-4 check in's are awesome and clearly more capable than most of our previous ones.

As for exactly how things are running to improve hours and whatnot, lets not discuss that on here. It's certainly not classified but there's no need for that kind of operational info to be put out here.

I'd say things are improving, especially with better O-4's. Though you now have to compete to make O-4, that's not a bad thing. Nothing sucks worse than having a huge crop of terrible O-4's.
 
R

rugbychi

P3 junkie
I am on my way to VP-30 and was reading the threads about doing away with K-bay. Not sure if or when that might happen, but a search revealed an article in a Hawaiin newspaper that the rumor was that the P-3's might relocate to Japan (search yahoo for p3 hawaii). You know what they say about rumors, but it would make more sense than having 200 P-3's in Whidbey in my opinion, plus on my submarine deployments Japan was always a good time.
 
Brett327

Brett327

Well-Known Member
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
rugbychi said:
I am on my way to VP-30 and was reading the threads about doing away with K-bay. Not sure if or when that might happen, but a search revealed an article in a Hawaiin newspaper that the rumor was that the P-3's might relocate to Japan (search yahoo for p3 hawaii). You know what they say about rumors, but it would make more sense than having 200 P-3's in Whidbey in my opinion, plus on my submarine deployments Japan was always a good time.
Click to expand...
That will be the day.

Brett
 
I

ip568

Registered User
None
What are the chances of retiring as a commander without command?

Pretty good. In the Reserves there is one VP command billet for every twelve or so O-5s. Most CDRs do not get command -- you get to spend 4-6 years eating donuts in a Vegetable Training Unit slowly going insane in order to make your 20 (sad but true). Your career for 20 years active duty may differ.
 
I

ip568

Registered User
None
it would make more sense than having 200 P-3's in Whidbey in my opinion, plus on my submarine deployments Japan was always a good time.

That would be a good trick. There are approximately 153 flyable P-3Cs left in the US Navy. Last check, 54 of these were gard down for reqinging or serious maintenance.
 
T

The Stinkster

Now who do I blame?
pilot
Just had one of the Commodores of a P-3 wing down here and he gave us a brief on the "State of the Community". His job prior to his current was in the Pentagon working on the MMA project, so he had a lot of accurate and up to date info. The minimum required buy for the MMA is 100 aircraft, which is what is currently already funded. That will be in keeping with replacing what are essentially the 100 "mission" aircraft that the P-3 fleet currently has. The simulator will be up to civilian specs, so a lot of training will go on there. His feeling from working on the project was that a lot more would be bought, due to demand, but we will see. It also looks like the EP community will be getting on board with the same airframe. He was the Brunswick wing CO, and in his view the 2009-2011 time frame looked pretty solid. The proposed plan, which will change about 100 times I am sure, is for them to move the squadrons to Jax as they transition to the MMA, so go on deployment with your P-3, end deployment in Jax and start transition. Whether they will cut some squadrons or bases is unclear, but they were currently not talking about cutting anything other than Brunswick. Depending on base resources there was some talk about moving the K-bay squadrons back to Barbers, but otherwise no talk about moving out of Hawaii. Like I said, I am sure that all of this will change 100 times before it actually happens.
 
jg5343

jg5343

FLY NAVY...Divers need the work
pilot
When will I find out what squadron I will be in? I know we select VP/VQ out of here so VQ is easy, but how far into the FRS will I find out if I get to stay in JAX or not?
 
makana

makana

I wake up in the morning & I piss excellence.
pilot
jg5343 said:
When will I find out what squadron I will be in? I know we select VP/VQ out of here so VQ is easy, but how far into the FRS will I find out if I get to stay in JAX or not?
Click to expand...
It all depends...could be anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months till you get verbals. You probably won't get written orders until your last month or so there.
 
mdubs

mdubs

Active Member
pilot
Yeah, Good luck finding out where you are going any time soon. Probably one of the most frustrating things in my short Navy career being told every day "by the end of the week" for 4 months by STUCON at VP-30. At least almost everyone in my class got 1st or 2nd choice but the wait was very frustrating. 5 of us got JAX but that seems high compared to other classes. It's all chicken bones and tea leaves, just do well in Advanced and hope for the best.
 
jg5343

jg5343

FLY NAVY...Divers need the work
pilot
mdubs said:
Yeah, Good luck finding out where you are going any time soon. Probably one of the most frustrating things in my short Navy career being told every day "by the end of the week" for 4 months by STUCON at VP-30. At least almost everyone in my class got 1st or 2nd choice but the wait was very frustrating. 5 of us got JAX but that seems high compared to other classes. It's all chicken bones and tea leaves, just do well in Advanced and hope for the best.
Click to expand...


4 months after you finished? Or once you got there?

Thanks for the info. My wife is just hoping for one less move, and I could really care less where I end up. 10 years of this **** and she is pretty tired of the destruction of personal goods by under-paid labor. I guess I get to roll the dice one more time in pilot training....
 
makana

makana

I wake up in the morning & I piss excellence.
pilot
mdubs said:
just do well in Advanced and hope for the best.
Click to expand...
Just don't do too well or you will find out first hand the meaning of "quality spread".
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top