Your advice on becoming a Navy pilot

[phrogdriver]

Definetely goggle flights or night bounce periods I've come home home well after midnight...

Whoop-pi-di-doo. Night flying days are the best, because you CAN'T come in before crew day, and you usually pad that by a half-hour or so, in case you get delays. Sleeping in and coming to work after noon--good deal.

I think the bad thing about military hours, esp in aviation, is not that they're long, but that they're irregular. One day may be 0730-1630, the next 0730-1930, athe next 1500-0100. Plus, you throw in some off-duty studying, which isn't as prevalent in other communities. I don't think the suppo is reading acquisition manuals at home. Top performers in any field, civilian or military, often work long hours. The hours aren't all that bad in naval aviation.

 

[PropStop]

The hours aren't all that bad in naval aviation.

Far better than our SWO daddies or bubbleheads. Bubbleheads especially work ridiculous hours.

Our skipper explained that when the Navy is determining how many billets to assign for a given job that they use a 76-hour work week. That's a standard work week for one person in a deployable unit that's not deployed. Being deployed means you have much longer hours. Shore billets were assigned at 50ish hours a week. I've worked a few 76-hour weeks but I'd say on average i work 55hours a week here in P-3 land. As much as those long days suck, we still have it better than much of the rest of the Navy!

 

[P3 F0]

Also, taking a look at the bigger picture, all of your tours will not be flying-related. You will probably be expected to do time on a boat (shooter, TAO, ANAV, etc), time in the desert not flying, or some other job which the Navy needs you to do. Some will be good and some might blow, but either way you'll be expected to be a good leader and keep morale up. All of this is especially true if you do not screen for department head--then your choice is to get out once your obligation is up, or do other things which interest you, since you probably won't be seeing an aircraft again for the remainder of your career.

And in any of these jobs (at least, that I've heard of and done), there's always the potential of being up at 0-dark thirty after a long day. It's not regular, but it happens. And I'll second what phrogdriver said about irregular hours--especially going from here to Westpac or the desert and flying right away with no set schedule. You never seem to get adjusted.