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P-3 Life

mal357

mal357

mal357
I've heard that P-3 life is easier on a family than jets...can anybody expand on that one way or another? Are there opportunities to bring a spouse with you to the bases you're assigned to when flying P-3's?
 
Curious. You're a junior in college. How could this possibly even be an issue?
 
You can certainly bring your spouse with you to whatever base your squadron is assigned to while on homecycle. You cannot bring your spouse on deployment.

Here's the a few good threads on Maritime:
http://www.airwarriors.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7111

http://www.airwarriors.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1928

http://www.airwarriors.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7367

http://www.airwarriors.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7133

http://www.airwarriors.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11500

read those and if you have more questions, post them.
 
Does he keep doing stupid things and not learning from it? If so, maybe.
 
zab1001 said:
You can certainly bring your spouse with you to whatever base your squadron is assigned to while on homecycle. You cannot bring your spouse on deployment.

Here's the a few good threads on Maritime:
http://www.airwarriors.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7111

http://www.airwarriors.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1928

http://www.airwarriors.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7367

http://www.airwarriors.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7133

http://www.airwarriors.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11500

read those and if you have more questions, post them.
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But, you can fly your spouse into a certain place that you may be for awhile (few days, weeks, etc). This is no different than guys on ships flying their spouses out to their port visits. Can you guys (P3 bubbas) not do this too?
 
There is no way I'd spend big bucks to ship my wife anywhere in a scenario depending on our ever-changing ops/crew manifests/aircraft status. It would suck to have to call the wife and tell her you can't make it, but have fun with the guys going instead of you.

Keep in mind when we do det someplace, it's to fly, we don't just park the plane and walk away for a week.
 
I flew my wife out for three weeks, to Souda Bay, while I was on cruise my last cruise with VRC-40. It can be done but check into flight insurance because things can change quickly. It turned out that my wife arrived a day before I did and we had a wonderful time together overseas. There are many perks to the Navy if you know how to utilize them.
 
I too have heard the jet life is a lot harder on the family. I've read a lot about the P-3 side, but I'm not as informed about the jet side. These surge cycles I hear of, do all the communities do these? For the airgroup, is their surge tied in to the ships, or is there a difference?

I've also been told by helo pilots that in the Navy, HC comes in second to P3s for lifestyle. Any comment on this from a P3 or helo perspective?
 
My wife has MAC/Space-A-ed it while I was out via boat and squadron. Yea, I never can be sure of my schedule but I trust her, take some safety precautions, and we've always been able to see each other even if was just for a short time. Mal357, if what you are asking is what are the best aircraft to fly when you have a family at home... I don't know. I think that depends on the dynamics of your particular family; different strokes for different folks. My brother went helos for the sole reason that he thought the schedule would be easier on his family. Have yet to determine how that works out.
 
Mal, I don't know if this is even what you meant by your question, but from a P-3 perspective, shipping the wife out is a bad idea. IF you are ASSURED you will be somewhere for a SET period of time, knock yourself out. I've had Skippers expressly forbid it.

I don't have a clue how other communities work, but the nature of VP deployment ops is "fluid" to put it nicely. Crews, planes, and sites change hourly. I wouldn't even consider doing anything like this until I was fully qualified as a Plane Commander or TACCO. I had a buddy try to pull it off undercover, and get caught. Nothing official happened to him, but he was marked from then on and was never given a real shot at anything big (depsite being a good pilot and one of the hardest working people I've ever seen). In the eyes of the front office it was too late.

Regardless, this is not something you should base your decision on when selection time comes.

This is all speculative in your case, considering you have yet to finish school, but maybe some other people will get something out of the discussion.
 
zab1001 said:
I've had Skippers expressly forbid it.
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Ditto... P3 operations have changed alot in the last decade, with an emphasis away from the pure ASW, until we have become the "jack of all trades". Now, instead of just the CSG wanting our services, you also have the Marines and Army asking for assistance. Now, this get back to why CO's are forbidding wives to come out and visit. The traditional single or dual det site scenario has changed, and now you have dets all over the place (yes, I know VP has done that in the past too). The other half of it, we (along with the rest of the Navy), are on an operational/war footing when we head off onto deployment. The last thing the CO wants, is for dependents trying to come out during deployment and disrupting his crews.

Maybe there are some old VP bubbas on here that can expound on the golden days, but those are GONE. We don't have the hours on the aircraft anymore, so good bye log runs back to Hawaii (insert home station) so a crew could get training in the sims and see family, and of course pick up parts. Gone are the dets to airshows (still happens, but looked at alot more closely, and not nearly as frequently).

Everything is now on the focus: what is the mission priority? can the crews achieve any readiness/quals/training from those flight houts? is this mission/det supporting Tier 1 commander's tasking?

Back to the original question. I do not believe any deployment is easy on the spouse or family back home. I would say that being in the VP community has one possible advantage that makes it a little easier: Connectivity. The ability to call home on the phone, or be called, throughout deployment. For the majority of the det sites (yes, there ARE exceptions), you will have excellent connectivity, either with your own room, or dedicated areas in the squadron for everyone to use internet/phone 24/7. This is not to say that there have been great strides in recent years in the surface community with the expansion of unclassified internet connectivity and phones at sea. But depending on location at sea, status of the ship, weather, and if the CO decides to turn it off, you may not have the same degree of connectivity.

Concur with Zab's statement. I was a qualified PPC sitting 2P, and we had a brand new 3P. We landed at location XXXX, there was a VP reserve squadron waiting for us with a huge cooler of beer, and wouldn't you know it, we needed to do maintenance turns on the plane. Well, said 3P doesn't drink, never went out with us, and in this case, surprise, his girlfriend flew out unbenknownst to anyone and was at the hotel already waiting. He ran down to the cooler and popped open a beer and started drinking, just to get out of the maintenance turns.... Yeah, he won alot of friends that day, and left a lasting impression.

Yes, depending on location, and what the CO's policy is, you MIGHT have the window of opportunity to fly the spouse out. But, you are gambling, someone could get sick, your ready day could get launched and you could be somewhere else on the globe when your spouse arrives. Also the question on where to stay, some just use the BOQ room (in many cases against the CO's orders), others pay for another room at a hotel. Some ppl pull it off, or don't get caught. Others get busted, and the front office loses faith in them, with consequences that Zab mentioned.

On my last deployment, as PPC, I flew my wife out. I KNEW the schedule, had enough seniority in the squadron, to pull it off. My wife still ended up waiting for my crew to arrive for 3 days at the hotel (I have the credit card bill from the shopping to prove it). But, it was a great det location, and I was fortunate for the week we were there to have banker's hours flying.

Hope that info helps. But, I think you should be deciding what platform you want to fly on other factors, such as the mission it is involved in and the aircraft characteristics/crew dynamics.

John
 
webmaster said:
I was a qualified PPC sitting 2P, and we had a brand new 3P. We landed at location XXXX, there was a VP reserve squadron waiting for us with a huge cooler of beer, and wouldn't you know it, we needed to do maintenance turns on the plane. Well, said 3P doesn't drink, never went out with us, and in this case, surprise, his girlfriend flew out unbenknownst to anyone and was at the hotel already waiting. He ran down to the cooler and popped open a beer and started drinking, just to get out of the maintenance turns.... Yeah, he won alot of friends that day, and left a lasting impression.
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:icon_rage
 
How many guys are selecting P3s these days? All I ever here from them is how bleak their future looks.
 
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