12:07 PM

 
2:21 PM

 
1:18 PM

 
7:56 AM

So eventually we march (poorly) back to our dorms and finally have a few minutes of peace as we get ready for bed. The rooms are pretty nice and have air condition which I learned to love in FL. My roomate showed up at 12:30 since his bus from MEPS was late, so I said a quick "nice to meet you" and went back to bed.

Now the night before they had told us, Be outside in the hall at 0500 but you can't wake up until 0500...doesn't make much sense. Luckily, or unluckily as you will see later, I had been told to set my alarm a little early and be ready to go. So the clock strikes 0500 and a bunch of scary people start slamming on our doors yelling at us to get out in the hall. I pop right out and see that I was the only OT going into this with a little prior knowledge. No one else is out there, or gets out there, for 5 minutes, all while these upperclassmen and officers are running up and down the hall screaming their buts off. Ok gotta go to commanders call will continue later.

 
10:45 PM

 
10:30 PM

I really feel this is one of the best gigs out there in aviation right now so I would love to help anyone get started. If you want a reserve/guard slot remember that recruiters are pretty much useless until you are dealing with the one at the unit sponsoring you. Case in point, a reserve recruiter in Florida signed me up for a physical at MEPS in Miami which turned out to be completly useless as it wasn't a Flight Physical. I signed myself up for my AFOQT and BAT test, and contacted all the units on my own. I hope this site will be as useful to all of you as the above ones were for me...

 
12:35 PM

After talking to a recruiter in New Hampshire, my first of many extremely productive sessions with random recruiters, I realized I was going to have something else on my resume if I wanted any chance at all of becoming a military pilot. So, after discussing it with my Dad, I decided to attend FlightSaftety Academy in Vero Beach, Florida. I started there in August, 2001, and 6 months later I had my commercial/multi/instrument ratings. I also met a lot of great people and got a lot of great advice. About halfway through my time at FlightSafety I started talking to friends/recruiters again about the military. While recruiters were telling me "Hey how about a nav slot, you can upgrade to pilot in...oh....a decade!", a friend of mine told me about the National Guard,Reserves. He sent me to an amazing website, baseops.net, which has a list of all the guard and reserve units that are looking for pilots. Long story short, I sent out about 30 e-mails, and got a few replies back saying "Send us your scores and we'll talk." Scores? Thanks recruiters! After a quick google search and a phone call I signed myself up for the AFOQT and BAT test in Orlando. A few weeks later I had my scores back and was sending out more e-mails. The first call I got back was from a C-130 unit in the North East. They invited me up for a board to interview, and I was off on a plane.(if only I knew how many times I would make that flight!)

It was pretty cool to see the C-130's lined up on the ramp next to the runway as the 757 flew down final. Got to the base and interviewed (I will never forget walking into that room with 8 officers and high ranking enlisted men sitting around a table in flight suites, all sizing me up). There were 6 of us there to interview, one guy from the base itself, a former army SSgt, a flight instructor with 700 hours, myself with my commercial ratings and 200 hours, a pittsburgh native with his private license, and a music major who also had his private license. After the interview we got a tour of the base and were told they would let us know in a week or so. I got back to Vero feeling fairly confident but also pretty nervous. My test scores were pretty good, but they had told us they were only taking 3 guys. Monday came and I got a call from the unit, saying I was picked fourth. "Damn..." I thought, but he continued to say we have decided to take 4 guys! I was on cloud nine as I asked him "So can I tell my mom I'm in the Air Force?" And that was that.

For the past year or so I have been getting my package finalized and getting all my Class Dates. I have been working at Sun Jet Center, the ONLY decent FBO here in Vero Beach. I couldn't have asked for a better job or a better group of people to work with. So....sorry for the long entry but figured I would get it all on the table in one go. I'm sitting here at my computer with less than a week until I start OCS with the April 9th Class 03-06.