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Originally Posted by bolo
hey first i want to start by saying thank you for all the info, it's really appreciated. So my question is how would u compare aircrew life to that of another rate? Also between the different aircrew rates which is the funniest per say? I'm currently 25 and have a pretty good job, however i want chance and adventure and feel aircrew is the best route for wat i seek. If u know of any other rate aside from spec ops that also provides this please feel free to give u're opinion... once again thank you!
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You're welcome, glad to help!
Aircrew is an easy life. The Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance community... which is most likely where you're going to be going if you go AIRC... has an especially easy life. I work from 8am to 3pm M-F, with a 1.5-2hr break around 11 for lunch. That's our general schedule... sometimes the day is shorter, sometimes it's longer... it depends on if we've got training, an intel brief, a simulator, or a flight. About once a month, we get a 3-day or 4-day weekend... but about once a month there's also a flight on the weekend. If you fly, you don't come to work until your flight, and you don't work for at least 13 hours after landing... if you fly late enough, you don't come in at all the next day. Navy says at least 8 hours, but every Wing and Squadron is different. When you go on deployment or detachment (It's like a mini-deployment of just 1-3 crews), you go to a foreign airbase and either stay in some sort of base housing (Which is rare on foreign bases), or you stay in a hotel on or near base. The only exceptions currently are Bahrain and Djibouti, where you live in CLU's... basically, air-conditioned shipping containers. On deployment, you also generally do things as a crew... socializing with the officers on your crew isn't prohibited like it would be in most other communities... the reason behind this is that we are supposed to be a single, cohesive crew; we work as a unit, and we play as a unit. The saying is, "
The difference between the O-6 in the pilot seat, and the E-4 in back, is 1/10th of a second. That's how much longer the E-4 is going to live if we hit a mountain nose-first."
As far as which Aircrew billet is the most fun? That depends entirely on personal preference. I love my job... it's like playing the most intense real-time strategy video game you can imagine, if it was written by Tom Clancy. MPRA has it's fingers in every major military event you can imagine, and we do some stuff that is truly fascinating to me. I am, however, one of the last children of the Cold War... I watched the Wall come down, I grew up playing RTS video games, and I absolutely love Tom Clancy novels. Threat briefs on current world affairs interest me, as does studying the most updated threats coming out of Russia, the PRC, and Iran. There are others I work with who are bored to tears by that type of thing, could give two-s**ts about Russia putting 3 new classes of submarine into their fleet, and actively avoid flying whenever possible. It's all about personal preference... some guys wanna fly in helos and shoot machine guns; other guys wanna sit sideways in the back of patrol and reconnaissance aircraft and hunt submarines and ISIS. Neither one is right nor wrong if they enjoy their job...
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Originally Posted by jbair1
Is it possible to volunteer for aircrew after A school, (that's how it used to be done, right?) or do you have to go into boot camp AW?
For example, can a guy graduate boot camp, go through AE school(s), then get on an aircrew?
Thanks!
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Unfortunately, no... the only non-AW rates that can volunteer for Aircrew duties are HM, CT, CS, and MC (
The latter two rates are exceptionally rare). There's discussion about going back to the pre-2008 system where AWO/AWR are the only real AW rates, and everyone else volunteers from other ratings like AE... but it's just talk right now.