Advice about leaving the Pilot world

[Guest Loss of Motivation10]

I know this thread may be a bit of a downer and something many people aren't used to reading on this site. However, with that said, I am looking for those who may have any insite on the process, if any, on changing career fields. I know if you are permantly DNIF or there is some other outstanding circumstance which allows people to do this, but that's not my situation. I have given the pilot thing a chance and come to the conclusion that enviornment is making me miserable. Maybe it's my base, airframe, Sq...who knows. Unfortunatley I have quite sometime left on my contract which ended after UPT. I know that contract ties me to the AF rather than just the pilot world, therefore, I'm trying to see if there is a way I can look into changing AFSCs to a purely non-flying job. I know this may seem farfetched especially with force-shaping and budget cuts, but I'm just considering it right now. I obviously don't want to burn any bridges and find myself quickly PCSing to Cannon, hence me using this avenue rather than a face to face with my SqCC. Any info people may have would be great. I am just looking for ideas and seeing what's possible.

[JVBFLY]

anything is possible. What do you want to do if this pilot thing is not for you?

[Guest Loss of Motivation10]

anything is possible. What do you want to do if this pilot thing is not for you?

Well, I always considered Finance or Acquisitions. Two fields I could use strong leadership, which I enjoy, and that can be used in the business world after my contract is up.

[ViperStud]

My gut reaction is to say be careful what you wish for. How far are you through the pipeline? What is your MWS and what is their manning situation? I'm assuming first ops assignment. If that's the case your best bet might be to tough it out until your VML comes up and then think long and hard about what options are available to you (ALO/UAV/non-fly Nellis/Eglin). The reason I say that is because considering what's going on in the flying world right now your situation has one-way door to UAV written all over it. If you get some experience and/or upgrades done you may open up a few more doors. There are always those non-flying assignments to Red Flag and test that are talked about on the career brief for your MWS but I don't know anyone who has gone to one.

Another reason to suck it up until you're due to move is that you don't know what is going to happen for the next (assuming) 7-8 years before your commitment is up. Not returning to fly following an ALO-type tour would probably put you in a better place than walking into your CC's office tomorrow and telling him your heart just isn't in it. To be blunt a move like this probably rules out making the AF a 20-year career, so you need to think about what avenue leads to the best quality of life until you can get out.

[stract]

ditto on what ViperStud said about the ALFA tour option. It might not be exactly what you want to do, but it would get your out of the cockpit and burn less bridges in the long run...and open up opportunities a few years down the road for the potential retrain.

[Guest C-21 Pilot]

If you think that Finance and Acquisition officers deal with "business" on a day-to-day basis, you'd better go ask them in person. I have a neighbor who swallows a 12 gauge every night discussing his job (Finance).

I too would like to know what MWS you are in?

Lastly, you are a if you are scared of a face to face w/ you SQ/CC. He gets paid to take care of his folks. If you are legit and up front, he should do the same for you.

[Herk Driver]

Ditto on ViperStud and stract. I had a friend who did exactly this back in the mid-90's when things were way different than they are today. He wanted to leave flying to go to OSI. It didn't go well for him. FEB, wings taken, and if memory serves me he was shown the door. I may be wrong about the final resolution but the other piece is a certainty. Be careful whatever you do and how you present it. Is there an ALFA tour out there that you would be willing to do or are you hell bent on no ops whatsoever?

You say that the environment is not for you. Maybe sit down and talk it out with a trusted friend. Make sure you can trust this person before you lay it out, but try to figure out what the problem is and then see if there is a way to minimize that problem somehow without necessarily saying I don't want to fly, at all, anymore. There are other ways to contribute without giving it up entirely.

[ViperStud]

Lastly, you are a ###### if you are scared of a face to face w/ you SQ/CC. He gets paid to take care of his folks. If you are legit and up front, he should do the same for you.

Yeah, right. SHOULD is the key term there but there are great commanders and crappy ones out there: the the rest run the full spectrum between those extremes. It's very probable that if you go to your CC with this and lay it all out there, you'll find your pucks off the board the next day. Before you talk to any leadership you need to figure out what your best and worst case scenarios are. If you go into his office without a realistic gameplan (or if he's a d-bag) you could end up VERY unhappy.

Bottom line is this...we all made a commitment. I know plenty who would LOVE to get out early but until Big Blue decides to let more pilots VSP we are all stuck with our ADSC. The only way we can influence our future is to fly well, upgrade early/often and impress our commanders by being good sh!ts outside the cockpit. The guys on my VML who got what they wanted did exactly that. Any commander is going to work harder for a dude that impresses him than for one he's not too sure about. My point? Right now your need to kick ass flying and with whatever your other job is in the squadron. Particularly if you want to do something out of the norm, you need to be an even stronger swimmer.

Unless you have done really well I would not expect to get your choice of assignments after essentially quitting your day job. It won't happen. If I were you I would suggest trying to go back to school. There are programs within the AF where officers can go to law school, pursue a masters/doctorate or do other non-traditional jobs. The one thing they all have in common - they are very competitive. I think you have a better chance of leaving the operational flying world if you pursue something like that. Frame the discussion with your CC about pursuing another career/dream, not about your displeasure with flying and your lack of motivation. Otherwise, expect UAVs...

[Bergman]

There are PLENTY of non-flying (staff) jobs for pilots out there! If, for whatever reason, you've had it with the flying side of things, I would advise sticking it out for the remainder of your current tour and putting a non-flying assignment on your preference list. Call it "career broadening" and they'll eat it up, especially with everyone else either trying to dodge a staff tour!

[HuggyU2]

Just curious: is it that you don't like flying in general? Or is it specifically the military flying environment?

[HeloDude]

I know this thread may be a bit of a downer and something many people aren't used to reading on this site. However, with that said, I am looking for those who may have any insite on the process, if any, on changing career fields. I know if you are permantly DNIF or there is some other outstanding circumstance which allows people to do this, but that's not my situation. I have given the pilot thing a chance and come to the conclusion that enviornment is making me miserable. Maybe it's my base, airframe, Sq...who knows. Unfortunatley I have quite sometime left on my contract which ended after UPT. I know that contract ties me to the AF rather than just the pilot world, therefore, I'm trying to see if there is a way I can look into changing AFSCs to a purely non-flying job. I know this may seem farfetched especially with force-shaping and budget cuts, but I'm just considering it right now. I obviously don't want to burn any bridges and find myself quickly PCSing to Cannon, hence me using this avenue rather than a face to face with my SqCC. Any info people may have would be great. I am just looking for ideas and seeing what's possible.

Hey bud...my advice is just to stick it out a while longer without saying anything to anybody. I'm assuming you're a copilot, and if so, things get better when you upgrade to AC and IP. Upgrading also opens more doors for you to your next assignment.

The Air Force overall right now isn't doing that well. They're failing inspections left and right, we seem (haven't seen the statistics) to be crashing more aircraft lately, and we're firing our top Air Force leaders. Add that with the fact that assignments are now 4 years long, pilots are being forced out of the cockpit to fill UAV's (which is a critical mission), and people are deploying considerably more now than ever before...and what you get is a lot of us in the Air Force that aren't as happy as we could be...but hey, there's a war going on so we have to sacrifice our personal desires at times for the greater good.

My guess is the only way they'd let you stop flying would be in the way of an FEB or MEB. You can always say that you're 'scared of flying' all of the sudden or severely depressed and that will get you out of the cockpit, however, I'm quite certain that isn't a way to get where you think you want to go right now (finance, etc). Let me give you some insight to how the assignments/manning issue works: I volunteered for a 365 to help train Iraqi pilots and I recently found out that though I'm supposed to get 'preference' on my assignment on my return, most of what they offered me were things that I could have gotten without deploying. I was hoping to go to a C-12/Defense Air Attache' assignment out of here, but with current helo manning, they told me they can't release anyone right now. It's frustrating, but just the way it is right now. So relaying this back to your situation, I don't see anyway of them letting you out of the cockpit early unless VSP comes around again.

So all I can say is just keep plugging away man and things should get better. Try to be the expert with some part of your job...learn your niche. If you guys you PFPS, practice and learn as much as you can so that you become the expert...so that even when the DO or CC have questions about Falcon View, they know to go to you because you're the expert.

Also, try and find a hobby outside of work. Work always seemed to be better if there was something else outside of work that I was into...for me, road biking. This flying job, as good as it is (dude we get paid pretty well to fly!)...can be very tiring and frustrating at times...you need to find a way to relieve the stress and have some enjoyment outside of work.

I hope some of this helps. Good luck.

[M2]

Listen to HeloDude (and the others), they speak wise words...

Also, who have you discussed this with already? Flt CC? Flt doc? Chaplain? Before you pull the handles on your flying career, be sure you have addressed any and all issues that may be causing you to think this way. Whatever is making you miserable may be reconcilable.

And despite what everyone says, Cannon is not the end of the world. It may be close, but it’s not the end. We’ve all assignments that we are less than thrilled with; but I have yet to have an assignment that I didn’t like for some reason or another.

And don’t feel bad about posting this on the forum, I am honestly surprised we haven’t see this before. We’re all buds here and want to help you through this and to make the right decision!

Cheers! M2

[ClearedHot]

Loss,

The USAF will most certainly NOT allow you to stop flying. Think of it from their perspective, they have invested millions in you, they have a ten year contract with you, they have already rerouted the careers of hundreds of other pilots to pay bills to DOD and AFSOC, and we simply don't have enough younger pilots right now. I heard a staggering figure the other day, the USAF bill to the UAV community over the next three years is something like 1100 pilots. We make fewer than 1000 per year, something has to give and until it does, every available body is going to be thrown into the fight. My guess is that if you go to your leadership they will at least listen to what you have to say, but you may be putting a ginormous UAS target right on the front of your nugget. That is not meant as a comment against the UAS community, there are some really good dudes over there eating a shit sandwich for the team, and it might not be a bad thing in your case.

All of that being said, life is too short to be miserable. Others mentioned the chaplain which is an excellent source, even if you don't have a strong faith. USAF chaplains are trained counselors and they can help you work through a problem.

Whatever you do I urged you to step away from the situation for a few days and think about it before you talk to leadership or start to cross a bridge you can't recross. This weekend is a long one for most of us and it may be a good opportunity to go away and do something unrelated to the military and flying, clear your skull and decompress a bit.

Finally, I understand you are trying to keep it somewhat generic so as to protect your identity here. Your specific situation may have other contributing factors that you can't or don't want to share on the internet. If that is the case, feel free to PM me and I will be glad to talk details.

Whatever happens, I wish you the best.

[M2]

Finally, I understand you are trying to keep it somewhat generic so as to protect your identity here. Your specific situation may have other contributing factors that you can't or don't want to share on the internet. If that is the case, feel free to PM me and I will be glad to talk details.

Loss

I strongly urge you to take up CH's offer...if you are ever looking to get a straight answer from anyone, he's the one to talk to! I strongly suspect you and he are both in the (somewhat) same community as well...so he can relate to your situation and best advise you on how to deal with it.

Best of luck to ya!

Cheers! M2

[di1630]

It will depend on your leadership and how much they go to bat for ya.

I knew a guy in fighters, who after his first tour proved to himself and everyone else he should not have been there and was either going to get himself or someone else killed. He was a great dude and really just wanted to stay in the AF and do something useful....not fly fighters.

He got fooked. FEB'd, then force shaped mostly because leadership wanted him punished for giving up his fighter. This was a while ago though.

Just curious, what is it you don't like? Deployment schedule, the flying, lifestyle??

[M2]

Doesn't Cannon have Preds? I'm wondering if this guy is bummed about getting sent there for UAVs...

He didn't say he was going to Cannon, just that he didn't want to burn and bridges and end up going there!

Cheers! M2

[Guest LocoF16]

If it hasn't been started already, we should start a thread of obscure jobs that most folks may not know about. In my short flying career, I 've stumbled upon a few. If you're unhappy where you currently are, I'd bet it's not the flying. I was a shoe for four years and I promise sitting at a computer all day doing spreadsheets and power point is not cool. Having troops is cool, but it just can't top flying. If you check around, you may find some flying jobs that you didn't know you qualified for. Here a couple I've seen:

- Being an Advanced Instrument School instructor and flying the C-21 in your "free time." Those dudes were super laid back and seemed like they loved their little flying club. They had a pretty large variety of MWSs. I'm pretty sure those guys are always looking for folks to do that job.

- Being an FAA terps check pilot. Kinda boring flying instrument approaches over and over again, but the T-1 FAIP sitting next to me said his job was similar. Plus, they have three different aircraft, although they might have moth-balled one of them by now. They also fly all over the world to ops check approaches, including "convenient" trips to the AOR for some tax free action. Again, while I was there they made a pitch to everyone to come talk to them if they are interested in the job.

- For you Viper guys, there is currently an O-4 (or above) position open teaching Egyptians to fly the F-16. I know the same job exists in other countries which fly the Viper, alot of them go unnoticed.

All of these jobs might be good for someone biding their time, obviously they won't get you on the fast track to a command position. Like I said, I bet you're unhappy because of something other than flying. Again, I think we should start a thread of "little known" flying jobs, but I thought this guy might not look at a new thread since he looks pretty new to the site.