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Originally Posted by bwall0430
How fast are you able to rank up? Also is aircrew a good quality of life?
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In general, you'll promote a little faster than your peers in other rates. There's always going to be people doing it faster or better (that's anywhere), but as long as you keep your eye on the ball then your advancement is really in your hands.
Lifestyle depends on your particular platform; we all have different missions and different schedules.
For us EP-3 folks, life can be pretty busy. We're the largest squadron in the Navy and have crews deployed around the world 365 days a year. So keeping up that operations tempo can be work. The benefit however is that we are hands down the unquestioned experts in naval airborne SIGINT.
P-3/P-8 folks fly somewhat similar schedules as we do when they're deployed, but they're only deployed every so often. Outside of that, they're maintaining proficiency with flights at home and occasionally helping out with larger fleet exercises.
Personally I think the biggest perk for us fixed wing folks is that we get set up in hotels when on deployment. Coming from the ship previously, that was super nice haha They're not the swank 5 star hotels everyone always seems to talk about; majority of the time it's whatever is on base. But having your own space and being able to go do stuff after work is pretty legit when you're downrange.
As far as helo guys go, they're lives are much more dependent on the ships they support. Still a great lifestyle and that platform is great to work on, you're just typically deploying on a ship rather than by yourselves.
All in all it's a pretty good life, just a very different culture than the rest of the Navy. Some people enjoy that culture and thrive in it, others would probably enjoy ship life a little more. It all comes down to personal preference honestly.
/r
CTT1