Mark Conley
Active member
Good evening...
So, you want to fly? First understand one very important thing..you must start when you are very young to plan, educate, and prepare your self for this type of profession. No person in his right mind would trust a multi-million dollar aircraft (made by the lowest bidder of course) to just any person...Theres a quite a lot of trail you have to go through.
A warning to the reader: these are general guidelines. There are exceptions to every rule: Nothing is graven in stone. You must talk with a professional officer recruiter (you know, the guy that you know lies when ever his or her lips move? That person!) to get where you need to go. And the younger you talk with one, the better your roads going to be.
Theres a physical thing. You must be in good health. You must not have been involved with certain drugs that could make you unpredictable (LSD and Butyl Inhalants are just two recreational use drugs that will get you canned at the start). In some cases, such as fighter pilots, you must have perfect, uncorrectable vision. You cant be too small, and you cant be too large ( you have to fit in the cockpit people, and be able to reach the controls): each service has its own height requirements.
You have to be of the right moral fiber. Got a lot of traffic tickets? maybe it wont stop you from getting in the service, but it could dissuade a reviewer from selecting you due to your taking too many risks ( and that you are one unlucky person to get caught at it so much). Convicted of a felony? Forget it. Convicted of a misdemeaner? Forget it. Are you a social person? do you join clubs, have a life outside the home? If you were a Boy Scout...did you make Eagle? If you were a girl Scout...did you lead a group of girls to sell the most cookies? (I'm not kidding..it takes leadership and sales skills to sell cookies). Did you excel? or did you stay at the bottom of the pack?
Start off by deciding what you want to fly. Is it fixed wing or rotary wings you want to try for? Believe it or not, the Army lets Warrant Officers fly their helicopters...and that only costs you as little as two years of college and a lot of sweat in a warrant officer school in the United States. Choose the road you wish to go down early.
The biggest question from most people is: do you have to know how to fly first? Absolutely not! It helps...but it is not required. They have schools that teach you that. All you really have to have on that point is the desire to put up with a lot of things so that you can fly.
Choose Your Path Carefully. You need to start on the preliminaries long before you even step foot in any type of aircraft.
There will be more posts to follow as th information becomes available. Be patient, this topic will be built over the year or so...
So, you want to fly? First understand one very important thing..you must start when you are very young to plan, educate, and prepare your self for this type of profession. No person in his right mind would trust a multi-million dollar aircraft (made by the lowest bidder of course) to just any person...Theres a quite a lot of trail you have to go through.
A warning to the reader: these are general guidelines. There are exceptions to every rule: Nothing is graven in stone. You must talk with a professional officer recruiter (you know, the guy that you know lies when ever his or her lips move? That person!) to get where you need to go. And the younger you talk with one, the better your roads going to be.
Theres a physical thing. You must be in good health. You must not have been involved with certain drugs that could make you unpredictable (LSD and Butyl Inhalants are just two recreational use drugs that will get you canned at the start). In some cases, such as fighter pilots, you must have perfect, uncorrectable vision. You cant be too small, and you cant be too large ( you have to fit in the cockpit people, and be able to reach the controls): each service has its own height requirements.
You have to be of the right moral fiber. Got a lot of traffic tickets? maybe it wont stop you from getting in the service, but it could dissuade a reviewer from selecting you due to your taking too many risks ( and that you are one unlucky person to get caught at it so much). Convicted of a felony? Forget it. Convicted of a misdemeaner? Forget it. Are you a social person? do you join clubs, have a life outside the home? If you were a Boy Scout...did you make Eagle? If you were a girl Scout...did you lead a group of girls to sell the most cookies? (I'm not kidding..it takes leadership and sales skills to sell cookies). Did you excel? or did you stay at the bottom of the pack?
Start off by deciding what you want to fly. Is it fixed wing or rotary wings you want to try for? Believe it or not, the Army lets Warrant Officers fly their helicopters...and that only costs you as little as two years of college and a lot of sweat in a warrant officer school in the United States. Choose the road you wish to go down early.
The biggest question from most people is: do you have to know how to fly first? Absolutely not! It helps...but it is not required. They have schools that teach you that. All you really have to have on that point is the desire to put up with a lot of things so that you can fly.
Choose Your Path Carefully. You need to start on the preliminaries long before you even step foot in any type of aircraft.
There will be more posts to follow as th information becomes available. Be patient, this topic will be built over the year or so...
