Pilots

I'm not the guy above, but I did fly AH-64Ds for 10 years.

Military pilots make decent money when they get out, but I wouldn't say they make bank. I got out and started my own business because I was tired of all the military bullshit.

Flying in a combat zone isn't that scary. Like most things in life, you just kinda fall into a rhythm. Combat zones didn’t kill the fun of flying. Constant APARTs, no-notice check rides, deployments, CTC rotations, and army bullshit killed the fun of flying. The army could suck the fun out of a blowjob.

It's an extremly physically and mentally demanding job, here in (west) germany till quite recently fighter pilots were retired with full benefits upon reaching the age of 41.

looking to get my ppl and eventually get a job with it, what kinda jobs can i do? i would like to do cool shit and go places but ive also heard airline pilots are pretty much dead inside 24/7 in the most serious sense. what other kinds of jobs can i take up with pilot training? would i need to get a commercial license? i dont know if commercial is just for airlines or anything that gets you money

is it true that the air force pays for your flight school? i wanna be a pilot but i dont want to get my ppl and find out the air force would have taken care of it. currently on track to get it in the summer/fall

Im a 29 yr old US history teacher, am I too old to try and go street to seat to fly helos? No bullshit just give it to me straight

Are you married? How is work life balance?

Time is relative. The higher up from the ground you are the faster you age compared to those on earth.

Would I be competitive for street-to-seat if I have an Associates and PPL?

You can use the GI Bill to attend flight school. Not that you’ll have time as an enlisted.

How hard is it actually to become an army aviator?
How selective are they?

It depends, what do you bring to the table? I flew for 10 years. I worked with some amazing pilots. I also worked with a few really shitty pilots. I literally had to send one home from a deployment because he wouldn't engage the enemy.

People slip through the cracks, but the caliber is generally pretty high.

I'm dropping my commission and putting my commission in, any tips for me?

do you have any stories? drop your wisdom upon us

Not that guy, I'm another pilot. I'm working on my commercial as well, gonna knock that and the multi out in one go, and then from there right seat shit. I'd rather not do the CFI route, really.

Ideally I want to do what apparently everyone and their grandma does: bush flying. But, the money in airlines is getting too nice to ignore. I'll probably end up doing both. Not to mention ANG and firefighting as potential options as well when I get good enough, but I only have about 5 years left to get on the ANG.

Might just buy an L39 and call it a day instead of the ANG lmao. My investing skills are what I plan on having carry me mostly. If I get in the airlines I plan on dumping that money into the market.

Also I want to get into helos. They seem fun as fuck. I won't have time for everything but by God I'm gonna try.

How hard is getting the necessary flight physical, I'm curios because I remember hearing about aspiring fighter pilots that very many applicants are simply deemed medically unfit?

What kind of suit is he wearing?
It looks nice.

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>super high school achievers

>2.93 CGPA reporting

What business are you in?

I don't have any statistics, but I know quite a few people get weeded out.

Some people slip through. For instance, I had a kid make it through flight school with an undiagnosed case of diabetes. He got to our unit and we had to kick him out. It blew my mind.

The business of giving you the business.

I started a small tech company with a buddy.

>It depends, what do you bring to the table?
What did you mean by this

What have you done with your life? Did you have shitty grades in school? Are you fat? Can you pass an APFT? Does the army think you're going to be a good investment?

I know a bit about the warrant officer aviators, but hows the life of a commissioned pilot?

I'm a WO, so I can't really say.

I'll say this...they don't get to fly near as much as we do.

With all these guys saying how overworked they are I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

How is the work life balance? How long are you away from family or home?

splain dis k
youtube.com/watch?v=UELAqTROe0s

>It's a shitty job.
COPE.

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Being super strung out for hours on end knowing if you fuck up anything your either dead or losing your wings. Constant barage of information in high stress situations being forced to make quick decisions that may or may not get others killed. There's a reason they all age so quickly.
That said I'd still give just about anything to do it.

Cope with what?

t. not a pilot

survitecgroup.com/media/208774/eurofighter-pfe.pdf

t. not a pilot

Cope.

Any hot tips for a prospective skynigger? How do I start this process, just show up to the closest flight school?

Start right away, don't wait, and study your ass off whenever you have free time.

PPL is pointless, I joined with nothing, they teach you all you need to know about it...

combat flying is best flying, and killing people is the best thing in the world! and yes, the army makes the most funnest shit just lame as all fucking get out.

I paid for flight school with a 6 year ADSO thats about to come to and end as I pop smoke from the army. the new ADSO starting very soon is 8 years from the completion of flight school. its a hefty toll.

you definitely arent too old, and right now the army is hurting for pilots so if you were serious you could definitely get in, they are moving towards the street to seat pilots as "preference" because they can possibly get 20 years out of you. work life balance is GARBAGE, you are typically gone for more than 1/2 of the year when you average it all out.

yes very, but a bachelors and no PPL would be even better, the PPL doesnt help much, they will teach you all you need to know

very easy right now because they are hemorrhaging pilots

yeah there are some real terds I work with unfortunately

youre doing what?
if you want to switch to WO I highly recommend it if theyll send you to flight school. WO is a million times better than O

stories of what? I have a million stories
shitty army times stories, murdering people stories, wasting time stories?

O grade blows
WO is where its at, as I'm sure this other guy will agree

O grade doesnt get to fly like the WOs do. You make pilot in command and air mission commander and you get to fly your dick off. O grade gets to be a platoon leader for a little bit then off to one of the SQDN S shops to die like a bitch

>street to seat
Ho shit I've never heard of this. What was your background prior to joining? Military pilot was my dream in HS but I abandoned it because I wasn't a good student. I'm about to work my first federal wildland firefighting job and hoping it'll add to my qualifications for future endeavors.
What's the job like when you're not flying?

holy fuck-quads

(checked)
How hard is it to get the airframe you want? Apache sounds fucking sick, but I bet everyone wants that one.

>Work life balance is GARBAGE
Shit, what's this all about? I love working like a good little wagie, but what are my hours looking like?

I owned a business where I used to live, I was just tired of dealing with employees and solving everyone problems all the time. the job is lame its tons of additional duties and extra shit and planning and just crap, and there are 300 #1 priorities from the CAB and everyones hair is on fire all the time
but when you make it, and you are out flying, its amazing...at 2000 hours I'm so comfortable in the aircraft its like an extension of me, and I can make it do amazing things, the way I can maneuver it, so smooth and so controlled, its a real blast

get

its not too bad, I wanted apache, I finished 5th in the class and selected the second apache, first was chinook, then 2 kiowas, then an apache then me for apaches, now its different I have no idea what the class layouts look like at selection, chinooks and apaches are hurting for pilots right now

I mean it depends, in garrison its not terrible, usually no PT we roll into work 9 or so and leave around 4, but if you are flying early or late you shift appropriately, but we get an easy garrison life because frequently you are in the field working 12+ hour days for 30+ days in a row

Do you have wife/kids? How do pilots deal with family life?

PS How much fun is it to blow shit up in a helicopter? Whats it like taking fire? Did you ever think you were going to die? Who gets to be the gunner...is that a different school entirely?

Radiation from high altitudes! You get an equivalent of a chest xray every time you go above 20K feet

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>12+hrs a day
thats basically what I do now as a faggot teacher. the pay is shit so I drive the bus in the morning, teach till 3 and then coach until 5:30, then grade papers or lesson plan for another hour. If Im going to be wasting this much time of my life helping others who don't give a fuck, might as well do something i really like doing

during peacetime do you just live on base and get to go home after work...or are you deployed around the world for months at a clip?

baby momma and a kid, family life is fine she understand but a lot of guys wives aren't so understanding and a lot of guys have rocky family relationsihps, its a tough gig

blowing shit up is fucking amazing, the best part is when you are talking to the JTAC or other ((OGA)) ground force element who are cool and have you do cool shit and blow up cool shit, regular army dudes on the ground are miserable to talk to
taking fire is eh, ive been shot at by 23mm ammo and it looks like a glowing basketball flying past you, Ive had RPG's blow up near-ish to me, kinda scary, Ive come back with a helicopter shot up 3 times, none of which were overly serious damage.
the scariest is when you are sitting in your room off shift and the incomming alarm goes off and you just sit there and hope CRAM snags it and you hear the guns open up and miss completely and you hear the whistle of the round go over your tent and you just breathe a sign of relief because it wasn't your time
same school, typically the junior guy sits in the front as the gunner, senior guy sits in the back, unless you get two senior guys on the same crew then your rockpaperscissors for who sits in the front because thats how you get to blow shit up

///

the BEST thing in the WORLD is to turn inbound on some fucking loser terrorists, select the 30mm cannon, wait till you are about 800m away from them (the gun will shoot MUCH further but thats not fun) and put 3-4 10 round bursts of ordinance onto them and when you get a direct hit? oh man if thats not the best when you see it just explode a terrorist

you should def get a new job that sounds terrible...
"peacetime" you get to do CTC rotations, but if you arent in the field then yes you go home. we all mostly live off post, I just have a house I bought I live in.
deployments are 9 months long and you are gone the whole time
CTC rotations are 30ish days and you are gone the whole time
field exercies are 1-3 weeks and you are gone the whole time

how loose is your butthole?

thats fucking awesome man, you are my hero

this is probably stupid as fuck but obviously you cant listen to music when your blowing shit up right

How much time do you get at home in between deployment, CTC or exercises? I just got married and wifey wants to have kids. I don't mind working hard and being away from home but I think thats going to be really hard for her

Is the pay decent going in as a low grade warrant officer? im pretty frugal and from what I understand the army hooks you up with housing?

>am I too old
Nope

extremely, the army STRETCHES that thing out every chance it gets with its big green weenie, my dumps just tumble out now almost need to wear a diaper

depends on how cool you are....!
but all kidding aside usually the radios are so busy, you are monitoring:
1. a team internal to talk to your wing man
2. the ground force JTAC frequency and hes coordinating things
3. the ground force team frequency if able
4. the SATCOM radio for people chatting there with bullshit you prob should care about
5. a common traffic frequency to listen for other helicopters in the area

no time for music, shits busy and you are trying to figure out best weapons release

It's the red bull and ciggies.

Do you think the AF is going to start fielding A-29s?

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Did you go WOFT? How difficult was the program? How long were you flying before you experienced combat? What was your first combat flight like?

not much time, few weeks or a month or two max but there is always bullshit to do between those times, as long as your wife is super understanding youll be ok, I will say it is good pay and good times GENERALLY but man sometimes it sucks dicks.
your wife will have to be understanding, it will be super hard on her if you do it
the army gives you BAH, all the pay scales are on the internet, you get base pay, BAH, BAS and fly pay, all the scales are on there and are based on rank and time in the army you can figure it all out easily

literally no idea man, AF is a mystery to me

WOCS warrant officer cantidate school in Rucker AL
I had about 500 hours flight time when I deployed the first time
combat isn't really a "fight", its more like a big ass solid ass whooping for the bad guys, the afghanstan "fight" is us bringing to bear an incredible amount of assets onto a small area where we have a ton of details about who and what were doing, typically the stack is AH64's, F16s or A10s, an AC130, a pred or reaper, plus another 1 or 2 assets that cant be mentioned, and some highly trained ground force elements rocking some mean ass weaponry, to c/k some loser terrorist with a rusty AK and a cellphone, no contest
occasionally they get lucky and score some hits on the good guys but thats pretty rare

>big ass solid ass whopping

Ive never thought of it that way before but that makes a lot of sense

Do you ever worry if we fought against Russia or China you'd be in a flying deathbox?

we would get slaughtered
dont get me wrong we would slaughter them too
but man I dont wanna fight that fight
I like a good old fashioned unfair fight

How PC is the army? Does anyone actual give a shit about that stuff? Are you bros with all the other pilots? Have you ever sang great balls of fire around a piano? What is the pilot drink of choice?

>working on 4 year aviation degree
>have a 3.8 GPA
>want to be an A10 pilot
>got told at 16 I have crohn's disease
>world gets destroyed
>10 years go to see another doctor about my condition
>he does blood work
>he says I don't have the disease
>wut
>"Yeah user those are just hemorrhoids"

now 27, should I join my states Air Guard or no? I could really use the guard to gain more flight hours

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the opposite of PC when you are around the right people
but you gotta be carefull until you know whos around
were all super bros, the people who suck get excluded quickly
drink of choice is anything with alcohol, literally we all drink all kinds of shit

thanks for answering my questions good sir, god bless you

to say it in the native language

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>27

You better get sworn in before you run out of time, user. Flight school takes time.

Can enlisted become a fixed wing pilot in the US Army?

I thought the max age was 30

>Must enter Undergraduate Flying Training (UPT) before age 30. Age waivers up to the age of 35 are considered. To qualify as an air force pilot, you will need at least a bachelor's degree

nope

you got it buddy!

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Ya ever blow up a mule with a hellfire?

Yeah. So you better get hot the fuck on it right the fuck now dipshit. This isnt signing up to be some 0311 crayon chewer, sign and you're on the bus next week shit. This stuff takes TIME, and you have to take the steps.

Shit man, you got any advice on getting a pair of waivers? I’ve got hearing trouble in the upper range (doesn’t affect speech) in my right ear only, and I’m missing a nut.

Got a perfect ASVAB but the USAF wouldn’t take me, because they wouldn’t give me waivers.

Currently a Nasty girl E4, I was looking at putting in WO packet for either my MOS when I hit E5 or just say fuck it and try for flight warrant. What’s WOCS like? I average a 230 PT score with it climbing as I run more. Would recommendations from WOs regardless if they fly help me?

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>and I’m missing a nut.
explain pls

Born with one cord strangling the other one. Bad luck. No problems with hormones.

>shuffle papers for 3-5 days
>fly for 2 hours
>repeat

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Squinting into ANVIS goggles for hours at a time really take a toll on the eyeballs, ya know.

I wanted to be a pilot for so long, but I just don't want to put up with the constant bureaucracy and bullshit to get in...

It sucks because my grandfather became a pilot in WW2 with nothing but a bare bones education to his name, with minimal effort compared to today.
The stories he told me about flying through WW2 and Korea made everything sound so much more simpler back then.

I know it's a defeatist attitude, but whatever.

What’s your opinion on anime?

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How far in are you?
Greentext seems out of order. Do it fast, like the other guy said. Not a bad time to go civilian either way.

To the military guys, I pass my civilian physicals with flying colors, I'm in shape with 20/20+ vision and good hearing. That said, I've fractured both wrists and got the ever-loving shit beaten out of me, 8 breaks in the nose etc. None of it affects my range of motion or breathing, respectively.
If I were (hypothetically) to go for the Air National Guard reserves, how thorough should I be in disclosing my medical history (purely hypothetically of course, I would admit everything :^)

Hypothetically you would not say a single goddamn thing.

If it doesn't affect your combat capability, we desperately need pilots. Do not. Say a single thing.

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1. Stress. As much computer stuff a modern aircraft contains, it's still a very exhausting thing to fly an aircraft under military conditions. For several years now we've been trying to reduce pilot workload. But at the same time sensors and sheeeiit grew much more capable. At the end of the day work load is still the same although the pilot is more aware of his plane and the surroundings.
2. Forces. Especially in fighter jets, also attack planes pilots receive a considerable amount of G-forces. That alone is kinda bad for skin.
3. Work times. With aerial refuling the range of any given plane is global. Even training sessions last several hours. Hours with sometimes lots of stress, night time, bad weather etc. Add the need to smash a plane onto a very small carrier deck for Navy/Muhreens pilots and you got a nice jug full of wrinkles

Is it really true that the army’s low on Apache pilots? Why is that? It seems like the role that’d attract the most people.

Also, what variants of the Apache would I end up flying if I walked into the program ASAP?

>Why is that? It seems like the role that’d attract the most people.
First and foremost helos in general are the most demanding aircraft. Simply put, a regular aircraft flies as long as you have enough air speed (not speaking of modern aerodynamically unstable designs since as long as their computers work properly they work the same way)
To keep a helicopter in the air, you have to keep constant attention. Eye input + cyclic + collective + pedals. Thats four things that need constant attention and adjustment.
Speaking of Apaches: Their main purpose is to fly close to the ground, pretty fast, all weather. So thats even more demanding even if computers have made the job a little easier.

You know you don't have to join the military to be a pilot, right? odds are 90% of fixed wing fighter pilots will never encounter an enemy aircraft in their flying career anyways, so if that's what you wanted it's almost non existent off the bat. Though you would probably get to fly over Islamist countries strafing mudslimes.

You should find a local civvie airport with flight training. Protip though find one away from any major city, instructors will let you get away with more freedom of control and movement when you're in the open landscape.

Flying helos is actually fairly easy, it's just that some guys 'dont get it', in regards to the counter torque needed to maintain directional stability at first up initial take off. But when flying especially at speed it's no more harder than any other aircraft. You can trim the cyclic, and even the pedals in some aircraft, so it's not like you're fighting anything.

I would say flying a piston engine fighter with 2000hp is actually harder than flying a helo, and more dangerous on take off

you got radiation dose calculated when you fly professionally tho

>You know you don't have to join the military to be a pilot, right?

He probably does, but unless he or his parents are fairly well off, getting Uncle Sam to foot the bill for his flight schooling is the only option. Becoming a pilot is not cheap.

>I would say flying a piston engine fighter with 2000hp is actually harder than flying a helo, and more dangerous on take off
Yeah but it's not 1950 anymore so we only have to compare helos and jets.
>Flying helos is actually fairly easy
Not as easy as a winged plane. You're talking outta your ass here buddy

I have a PPL, BS in Biology/Physics, and no medical issues. What are the odds I can get a waiver for a diverted DUI?

Also, is it possible to finish your time in the Army and try to go for fixed wing/jets in a different service so long you aren't that old?