USAFA V USNA

"This business will get out of control. It'll get out of control and we'll be lucky if we live through it."
 
Fearless Tower said:
I can tell you this: the USMMA is NOT the place to be right now. Very uncertain future and they are fighting for their existence.
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Probably wouldn't go with West Point either if my end goal was to fly. Limited number of flight school slots, then you'll find yourself as a S1, S3, S4 or any other battalion / brigade staff positions rotting away.

Some pretty good command slots if you go 160th or FW but those are few when you look at the overall number of pilots.
 
Velocity173 said:
Probably wouldn't go with West Point either if my end goal was to fly. Limited number of flight school slots, then you'll find yourself as a S1, S3, S4 or any other battalion / brigade staff positions rotting away.

Some pretty good command slots if you go 160th or FW but those are few when you look at the overall number of pilots.
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You can still go to any branch from west point, right?
 
whattauser said:
You can still go to any branch from west point, right?
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Ah, not sure if you can or not. My comment was along the lines if one went with the Army after attending USMA.

A typical flight company would be warrant heavy. For instance, say you have 13 total aviators MTOEd in a UH-60 company. It's make up would be a CPT (CO), 2 LTs (Plt Ldrs) and 10 line pilots. All those line pilots will be WO1-CW3. Also, they hold those company RLO positions for only about 1 maybe 2 yrs at most. After that, they're stuck in a staff slot and rarely fly. To the point in some cases, they go out right at their 60 day non flying mark and knock out a currency flight.

It's a decision of, do I want to lead, or do I want to fly? You can do both in the Army if you play your cards right but that's not the common path of RLOs in Army Aviation. Also, unless you're high in your class, you won't be getting a flight slot. Their aren't many and they're divided between ROTC and USMA.
 
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First of all congratulations on being accepted at both academies. To best answer your question you need to look at each service's overall mission goal. If you think of each service being like a bee hive with all individual worker bees trying to support a queen bee at the top you might have a clearer picture of what would be most digestible for you personally.

In the Navy/USMC the end goal is fleet support/maintaining sea supremacy. Basically all jobs in the Navy exist to support and defend those boats/carriers/subs and their personnel. Their queen bee is the Chief of Naval Operations or CNO. As an aviator you exist as a servant to this end goal. You are a worker bee - granted a very high level worker bee but still a part of the machine.

In the Air Force their goal is Air Supremacy/Superiority. Basically every single job in the USAF has the end goal of supporting a pilot and getting him into the air. Their queen bee is always and will always be a pilot. As such much revolves around aviation and aviation themes.

So I guess you need to ask yourself - do you want to be at the top of the pyramid or just pretty close to the top ? Do you want to be in a service that values boats most or aircraft most ?
 
Snodgrass owes me money!

As a controller I can say that the Air Force pilots are the best in the pattern with the Coast Guard a close second. The Navy "aviators" and Marine pilots are prone to say one thing and do another and have caused me to issue a traffic alert on several occasions. The Army pilots - where do they get these guys?

That said, I'm flying an AH-64 simulator this evening courtesy of one of those Army pilots.
 
Timbeck2 said:
Snodgrass owes me money!

As a controller I can say that the Air Force pilots are the best in the pattern with the Coast Guard a close second. The Navy "aviators" and Marine pilots are prone to say one thing and do another and have caused me to issue a traffic alert on several occasions. The Army pilots - where do they get these guys?

That said, I'm flying an AH-64 simulator this evening courtesy of one of those Army pilots.
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I hope you throw up in sim! :DArmy Aviation is "Above The Best"...what ever that means.:confused:

Seriously though, the visuals might make you sick. Take Dramamine. Then again, I know people who take all that crap and still get sick.
 
No, I watched SteveO's latest video with the Coast Guard dolphin ride on YouTube. I'll be okay. ;)
 
Oh and more more thing: Is it a foul to use the word "question" for Navy and Marine pilots? "Tower, Viper six four interrogative."

I know in the Air Force, the words "head" and "coin" are strictly verboten.*





*noggin, nugget and RMO are acceptable facsimiles.
 
By the way Velocity, I like your avatar. I have a lot of experience in front of one of those.
 
whattauser said:
You can still go to any branch from west point, right?
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Not any more since the USAFA opened up. I do have several friends including a few General Officers who selected the USAF after the Boat School or West Point. Tells you how old I am.

Cheers
 
X3 Skier said:
Not any more since the USAFA opened up. I do have several friends including a few General Officers who selected the USAF after the Boat School or West Point. Tells you how old I am.

Cheers
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You certain about that?
 
It's what I been told and the USMA site makes no mention of that option. The reason you could select the USAF in the old days is there was no Service Academy for the USAF when it was formed in 48and new officers came from ROTC, OCS or direct commissioning from the enlisted ranks. Adding USNA and USMA Academy graduates was another source to fill slots. With the adding of the USAFA, that more than filled the need.

Cheers
 
Fearless Tower said:
I can tell you this: the USMMA is NOT the place to be right now. Very uncertain future and they are fighting for their existence.
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Actually, I was meaning the USCGA...as a branch of the DOT most of the time. It is a good point for ribbing my brother-in-law, a retired USCG Captain C-130 pilot.

Velocity173 said:
Probably wouldn't go with West Point either if my end goal was to fly.
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Honestly, getting my wings clipped before I began is the primary reason I went there. Ironically, I had several aviator bosses in the Artillery over the years...pre-Aviation as a dedicated branch. In all my years, in MTOE units, I spent three months on VCA staff during Kosovo campaign. All the rest of my ground pounding days were in Battalions. I finished out as a Combat Arms Branch instructor at the AMEDDC&S, of all places.

I guess the numbers have changed since my day. My class had a large number of folks branch into Aviation and become pilots. I have picture for TF Hawk with five of us as Majors. All were actively flying pilots, except me, the token Artillery guy who was their acting FSO (as the VCA acting G-3).

whattauser said:
You can still go to any branch from west point, right?
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Nope. While it was still fairly common in the early 70s, it is highly uncommon these days. I had a couple of USMA grad Zoomie types as professors 81-85. They had chosen the USAF and we able to make the jump. When I graduated in 1985, you could make the request, but had to have some strong reason (family history such as dad and/or more generations who were USMA grads who went USAF or USN) to even be considered. A few in my class tried. NONE were allowed. I know one who reported being chastised for being "disloyal" for even asking. While there may have been a few selected cases since, I don't know of any.

X3 Skier said:
Not any more since the USAFA opened up. I do have several friends including a few General Officers who selected the USAF after the Boat School or West Point. Tells you how old I am.

Cheers
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It didn't automatically end with USAFA. As noted above, it lasted into the 70s.
 
Cooter143 said:
I'm not making any absolute claims, but the cultural distinctions do exist and general opinions can accurately represent them. That doesn't negate the reality of differences among communities or even squadrons. Look back to your initial post, your way of pointing out the differences was to portray the Navy as more concerned about a sh## hot break and fly-by's than training to real world threats. That's a general statement that may capture some truth, but also may reflect more myth than fact. Your experiences will mostly shape your opinion. I've been in the cockpit on both sides, and in general I've found the stereotypes to be true. As have others I've flown with. But I've also seen (and worked with) some AF Reserve units that act more like a Navy squadron than an AF one.

In my experience, that mentality is a lot more rare on the AF side that it is on the Navy side, but I'm not saying it doesn't exist. As for the Eagle guy that was holding up departures for winds, I don't know his whole story. But he did almost made me late for my recovery time.
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Got me there, I did make a generalization about the boat guys. Some of them are tactically awesome and all of them are hampered (from what I understand) with the fuel ladder during training on cruise. (Part of the business.) Got to admit, they do love the sh## hot break stuff. :)

I hope that follow/bend/break mentality becomes more widespread. It's hard to see the limfacs of your own organization - we're all too close/too involved. I love that we have so many different units to train with in the ANG. Marine AV-8Bs last week, Navy Hornets, Growlers in two weeks, F/22's every other week, etc. It's great to get the goods and bads from all the other squadrons and try to incorporate new stuff.
 
One guy in my F-15 basic training course (2001) was a West Point grad; got commissioned in the AF from West Point.
 
EvilEagle said:
Some of them are tactically awesome and all of them are hampered (from what I understand) with the fuel ladder during training on cruise.
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You mean AIC sorties flown at max conserve and BFM sets at idle aren't good for tactical proficiency?:(
 
N3368K said:
Actually, I was meaning the USCGA...as a branch of the DOT most of the time. It is a good point for ribbing my brother-in-law, a retired USCG Captain C-130 pilot.



Honestly, getting my wings clipped before I began is the primary reason I went there. Ironically, I had several aviator bosses in the Artillery over the years...pre-Aviation as a dedicated branch. In all my years, in MTOE units, I spent three months on VCA staff during Kosovo campaign. All the rest of my ground pounding days were in Battalions. I finished out as a Combat Arms Branch instructor at the AMEDDC&S, of all places.

I guess the numbers have changed since my day. My class had a large number of folks branch into Aviation and become pilots. I have picture for TF Hawk with five of us as Majors. All were actively flying pilots, except me, the token Artillery guy who was their acting FSO (as the VCA acting G-3).



Nope. While it was still fairly common in the early 70s, it is highly uncommon these days. I had a couple of USMA grad Zoomie types as professors 81-85. They had chosen the USAF and we able to make the jump. When I graduated in 1985, you could make the request, but had to have some strong reason (family history such as dad and/or more generations who were USMA grads who went USAF or USN) to even be considered. A few in my class tried. NONE were allowed. I know one who reported being chastised for being "disloyal" for even asking. While there may have been a few selected cases since, I don't know of any.



It didn't automatically end with USAFA. As noted above, it lasted into the 70s.
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I'll say this, every USMA student I had was squared away. They listen, knowledgable, attention to detail and generally good sticks. Best student I ever had was USMA but overall, I was impressed with all of the academy grads.
 
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Plenty of service academy graduates cross-commission into sister services. In my squadron alone (back in the early 90s) we had one guy go Army and another go Navy. This still goes on today.
 
N3368K said:
Actually, I was meaning the USCGA...as a branch of the DOT most of the time. It is a good point for ribbing my brother-in-law, a retired USCG Captain C-130 pilot.
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While they still perform functions for the DOT, the Coast Guard is entirely under DHS since 2003.
 
Velocity173 said:
I hope you throw up in sim! :DArmy Aviation is "Above The Best"...what ever that means.:confused:

Seriously though, the visuals might make you sick. Take Dramamine. Then again, I know people who take all that crap and still get sick.
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No dramamine required. The other two kids (yeah, anyone younger than me is a kid) were more interested in shooting the gun and firing missiles. I was more interested in taking off and landing. Flying it was just like a fixed wing but the take off and landing were really tricky. Up on the collective, a little left cyclic, a little left (yeah, that was weird) rudder, and bob's your uncle. I had a great time. I only crashed twice; once when I tried to land on the side of a hill and the other when I was on the ground after landing and didn't realize the collective was still at 40% power. (thought it stopped at my hip and didn't go almost to the floor)
 
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