Pilot

[stephanie123]

I

Edited October 24, 2018 by stephanie123

[JustHangingOut]

do you have any civilian flying experience?  If not, maybe go out and take a discovery flight.  If that experience doesn't solidify the desire to fly, then it's time to graciously bow out.  Flying is something that you either love, or your don't.  If it's not for you, then it's better to make that decision before stepping into a program like UPT.

[Yoda]

Those are good fields that can help boost your civilian career as well.  I am guessing you are reserve or guard based on talking about having to balance two careers?  

After having served in multiple MOSs (AFCS) in the Army, my two cents are as follows:

Nearly everyone in every other AFCS wants to be a pilot.  No pilot I know wants to be something else.  Yes becoming a pilot has some harder schools, and yes people fail out.  That is a plus: there is at least a minimum bar to entry that doesn't truly exist in other AFSCs as the graduation rates for their schooling are near 100%.  You have the potential to work with a lot of incompetent people that get filtered out in UPT and follow on training.  Not to say I haven't run into pilot types that need to find new lines of work, but overall it's better.  There are still top 10% officers in other AFCSs, it's just the bottom n% that gets culled in pilots. 

I've found Guard/Reserve pilots as a whole to take their jobs more seriously than other AFCSs.  If it comes time to do the job for real, I want to do it with people who know what they are doing.  Again, broad generalizations and I am sure there are plenty of clerks in the Guard/Reserve that really know their job, love it, and do a great job.  The downside is that means you need to take your job seriously, and you will have to do more than a weekend a month / two weeks a year at your base.  In addition, you will need to do studying even when not at your base.

On failing out: my experience in Army flight training and what I have read about UPT.  If you dedicate yourself to studying and apply yourself during training -- it's pretty hard to fail out if you are a solid person.  Some people's minds aren't wired right to be a pilot, but these are fringe cases.  Most of the issues I have seen are people that don't know what they need to know, or don't know it well enough.  Their flight busts are usually based on their lack of knowledge/chair flying causing them to end up behind the airplane.

Finally: flying is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.   I'll second what JHO says above, go take a discovery flight, especially in something like a Citabria that can do some aerobatics.   If after all that you don't want to be a pilot, then the smart thing to do would be to bow out.

 

Good luck!

 

 

 

 

[Yoda]

What AFSCs interest you?  Have you talked to people doing those jobs and seen how happy they are in them?  I haven't met anyone happier than a pilot that gets to do pilot stuff. 

What about the commitment scares you?  Is it the time spent studying and difficulty?  Or the service commitment on the backside?  Something else? 

"Nothing that's worth anything is ever easy"