How often out of the year are you "stationed" ?
Ok, I'm sure this is somewhere else on this site, but for a navy guy here is a basic flow:
Finish flight school, get wings, report to
FRS (aka "The RAG"). Learn to fly the aircraft you will fly in the Fleet. You are still a student, but a student with wings. Time 10-15 months depending on a/c type, weather, a/c availability (not usually very good at RAGs), CQ schedules, etc. During RAG, you will also go to SERE school, swim/phys training, and other assorted schools.
After RAG, you go to
First Sea Tour. This is usually a 36-42 month tour with a deploying unit. If you are a hooker, you will be assigned to a squadron, which part of a Carrier Air Wing (aka CVW or CAG). In your 3-3 1/2 year sea tour, you will probably make 2 deployments (avg 6 months each) to various parts of the world, prior to the deployments, you will do "Workups" which begin 6-9 months before you deploy and involve 2-3 at sea periods and a 2 week air wing det to Fallon Nevada.
After your First Sea Tour, you will roll to
shore duty this is three years stationed ashore. You will be a RAG or Flight School Instructor, or maybe a recruiter, or an OCS or USNA staff guy, some go to Post Grad school (I wouldn't, don't know anyone who has who has screened for command lately).
After shore duty, there are lots of options (this tour usually 2 years): Back to a squadron (good-flying and getting great leadership opportunities), ships company tour (Asst. Navigator, TAO, Asst. Strike ops or Air ops, Cat&Arresting gear (shooters).
Then, if you have done well, you will screen for Department head. Back to sea in a squadron, usually about 2 years. You will rotate through the squadron's departments as the guy responsible for (listed from least desirable to most IMO) Admin, Training, Safety, Ops, Maintenance.
Then back to shore duty. War college, RAG Department Head, Pentagon (youch!) PG School, etc etc.
If you did well in your DH tour, you might screen for command, you will be CO of a squadron. Most people desire to command squadrons for their type of a/c, but there are also Training Command and special mission squadrons that need COs. You will report as XO, spend about 18-24 months as XO then take command.
Post-command, depending on how you do as a CO you could be a RAG CO, TRAWING Commodore (in charge of all the squadrons at a base), Air Boss, Carrier Ops O, Carrier Strike group Staff guy, etc.
If you are REALLY Shit-hot as a CO, you may screen for "Nuc XO" and go to Nuc school to get checked out on a reactor - this is the path that leads to Carrier CO. The other (less painful) path for really shit hot guys is to screen for CAG.
This is a sample career path - it is very fluid, there is no "Set" path. Not too hard to stay in the cockpit for your fist 2-3 sets of orders.
What about "vacation time" so to speak, does that even exist... if so how much and how does that work?
You will earn 2 1/2 days of vacation per month. You can bank that vacation and take it at a time that is agreed upon by you and the squadron leadership. You can bank up to 60 days, after that (with a few exceptions) it becomes "Use it or lose it". Much easier to take vacation on shore duty than on sea duty.
What's it like when you are deployed to somewhere else, like the Fifth Fleet or something?
Fifth Fleet isn't a place, it is an AOR (Area of Responsibility). When you deploy on a carrier they have a plan for the deployment that includes fly days/port calls/transit days, etc. The morning you leave the pier on the first day of cruise, that plan is useless. You will go places depending on what is going on in the world. Unless we are at war you can expect some pretty good port calls in interesting places in the world. I was an East Coast guy my whole career, but here is a sample of places I had port calls/visited:
Ft. Lauderdale
Palma De Majorca, Spain
Cannes, France (3X)
Nice, France
Naples, IT (3-4 times)
Trieste, IT
Rome IT
Rhodes, Greece
Monaco
Haifa, Israel
Dubai UAE (3X)
Rio De Janeiro
Honolulu
Aruba
Panama
Curacao
El Salvador
Key West (37X):icon_smil
Anchorage
Do you live on a ship then? Or are you buying local apartments or living in port?
When deployed, you live on the ship. When you pull into port, your squadron usually gets an "Admin" at a hotel or a condo. You basically rent a room/suite/house/boat whatever, for the officers to hang out in while on liberty so you don't have to go "Back Sheep" to go to sleep.
THREAD IDEA: GREAT ADMINS AND ADMIN STORIES!
How often are you at sea?
It is usually either way too much or not nearly enough, depending on the situation.
