Future of helicopter pilots in general (Any Thoughts)

[droz88]

Furthermore, flying is down the list of sh*t we do on a daily basis.

 

 

akscott60,

 

Would you be willing to say what is on that list above flying? Other members here have alluded to it but I have not been able to find a thread that described the day to day duties that warrants have. Are these duties the same as the "BS" that warrants have to put up with, or is the "BS" referring to general things that all army soldiers have to deal with?

Edited October 2, 2013 by droz88

[droz88]

Also there's an alarming trend that I started to see my last few years in. The lines are starting to get blurred between the Comission side and the warrant side. I won't go into details but lets just say being a tactical and technical expert isn't as distinct as was it used to be.

 

I would be very interested in hearing more about this. I always wondered why the army had both warrants and commissioned guys flying their helicopters. If you don't want to go into details on the public forum then would you be able to PM me?

[Lindsey]

 

akscott60,

 

Would you be willing to say what is on that list above flying? Other members here have alluded to it but I have not been able to find a thread that described the day to day duties that warrants have. Are these duties the same as the "BS" that warrants have to put up with, or is the "BS" referring to general things that all army soldiers have to deal with?

Check out my "guide for woft applicants" thread and corresponding PDF. I've got a couple good excerpts from folks on these forums about exactly this. I'd tell you the page/link directly but I'm just on my phone right now. Let me know if you can't find it and I'll send it your way when I get home.

[Lindsey]

Here's the link to the PDF:

http://helicopterforum.verticalreference.com/topic/17022-woft-guide-for-applicants/

[SBuzzkill]

 

akscott60,

 

Would you be willing to say what is on that list above flying? Other members here have alluded to it but I have not been able to find a thread that described the day to day duties that warrants have. Are these duties the same as the "BS" that warrants have to put up with, or is the "BS" referring to general things that all army soldiers have to deal with?

 

Entering data into computer systems, doing property layouts every f*cking month, being an M4/M9 range OIC, being an M4/M9 range safety officer, motorpool officer managing all the services on the trucks your unit owns, arms room officer managing and maintaining all the weapons your unit owns, escorting soldiers to their legal appointments, being the SHARP officer, being the EO officer, casualty notification officer, casualty assistance officer, staff duty officer, TMDE officer, supply officer managing all your units property and maintaining the paperwork that goes with it, organized PT, sitting in on command and staff because your RLOs are all flying, sweeping, mopping, cleaning toilets, putting together fund raisers, manning the fund raisers, information awareness officer, spending your time working on your -1 and your ORB because that's what's important, sitting in OPDs learning how to be a good officer, weekly synch meetings with the commander where you sit there the entire time listening to him talk to LTs until the very end when he hits the one bullet that involves your additional duty, SHARP classes, EO classes, briefs from every civilian run organization on post, stocking the unit's fridge and snack shelves, grocery shopping for the items to stock the fridge, putting together powerpoint slides for S3 since for some reason their E4s can't do it, participating in every FRG/unit event so that you will leave a good impression as a team player (f*ck that, it's just what they tell us), courtesy patrol... I could go on but I don't really want to.

Edited October 2, 2013 by SBuzzkill

[Velocity173]

Here's the link to the PDF:

http://helicopterforum.verticalreference.com/topic/17022-woft-guide-for-applicants/

Wow! Excellent guide Lindsey and free too. Wish there was something like that when I applied.

[akscott60]

Buzz nailed it.

 

Get used to being a Chief Warrant Officer Private. That will make sense to you in time.

[Ardo09203]

 

Entering data into computer systems, doing property layouts every f*cking month, being an M4/M9 range OIC, being an M4/M9 range safety officer, motorpool officer managing all the services on the trucks your unit owns, arms room officer managing and maintaining all the weapons your unit owns, escorting soldiers to their legal appointments, being the SHARP officer, being the EO officer, casualty notification officer, casualty assistance officer, staff duty officer, TMDE officer, supply officer managing all your units property and maintaining the paperwork that goes with it, organized PT, sitting in on command and staff because your RLOs are all flying, sweeping, mopping, cleaning toilets, putting together fund raisers, manning the fund raisers, information awareness officer, spending your time working on your -1 and your ORB because that's what's important, sitting in OPDs learning how to be a good officer, weekly synch meetings with the commander where you sit there the entire time listening to him talk to LTs until the very end when he hits the one bullet that involves your additional duty, SHARP classes, EO classes, briefs from every civilian run organization on post, stocking the unit's fridge and snack shelves, grocery shopping for the items to stock the fridge, putting together powerpoint slides for S3 since for some reason their E4s can't do it, participating in every FRG/unit event so that you will leave a good impression as a team player (f*ck that, it's just what they tell us), courtesy patrol... I could go on but I don't really want to.

 

Easy sh*t like that, and they pay you $40k a year plus allowances? Then, every now and then you get paid to go on a flight (after they paid you to go through $70k worth of training)? I can think of shittier $20/hr jobs. I've done much worse, for much less.

 

Guess it's all how you look at life. Do what ever makes you happy.

[Flying Pig]

8 years in the Infantry myself.... I had a 1st Sgt who used to say that if he found any grunt not complaining about something he would find them something to do. Eluding to the idea that if you were a grunt and you werent complaining, you probably werent doing your job.

 

When I joined the Marines I LOVED guns (still do). I joined to be a Machinegunner 0331. The range time was awesome. M60E3, M240G, .50cal, MK19. We would spend hours, if not days just shooting and working on skills. What made it suck was that grunts usually walk everywhere. So it was the 10mi road hump with full gear and weapons out to the range in November or August.... digging fighting positions, putting up with the Plt Sgt and all of his silliness, getting rained on no matter if it was November or August, shaving with cold water, sleeping in a hole..... Oh..... and then the next day humping 15miles back to the barracks. How 10 miles out turns into 15 miles back is still a military mystery. Drop packs at 2300hrs and clean weapons until 0400, back to the barracks by 0500. Be at afternoon formation after lunch by 1300, stand around for four hours and then off for the weekend. Monday morning at 0600 it starts all over again.

 

However, the time on the trigger was heaven on earth. I would imagine replacing "trigger time" with "stick time" may explain why people dont spend an entire career flying in the mititary. I think with any MOS, you probably spend a small percentage of your time actually doing what you thought you were going to do. There are so many other things that need to be done to make the big green machine roll that you spend an amazing amount of time just prepping and getting things ready to be able to go practice what it is you are supposed to be doing.

Edited October 2, 2013 by Flying Pig

[Velocity173]

 

Easy sh*t like that, and they pay you $40k a year plus allowances? Then, every now and then you get paid to go on a flight (after they paid you to go through $70k worth of training)? I can think of shittier $20/hr jobs. I've done much worse, for much less.

 

Guess it's all how you look at life. Do what ever makes you happy.

 

Have you done all the tasks that Buzz is referring to? Some are easy while some are quite time consuming. All of that is on top of his job of being an aviator. Being an aviator isn't a 9-5 clock in and clock out job either. I'm not sure you realize the extent of training just to do the job of being an aviator in the Army. These guys are constantly studying and giving classes on their airframe. No-notice evals are always a threat. Flying and knowing your aircraft is just the beginning. FTXs like NTC, JRTC and CMTC. It's not just learning how to fly, you're learning a weapon system and how it interacts with other weapon systems. The training for that is extensive. The additional nonsense that's unrelated to being an aviator is extensive as well.

 

Sure there are worse jobs for less money. A lot of those jobs don't require the skills set that an Army Aviator requires either. I was enlisted in the Marines and going warrant was a step up in status and pay. With that step up was all the extraneous stuff Buzz brought up. It wears on ya and gets old real fast. It some ways I had it better as a Marine, in some ways worse.

 

In order to understand what we're talking about you have to compare it to a civilian flying job. Flying civilian has far less nonsense involved for the same pay. Every single one of my friends who have gotten out would tell you their job is far more easier now then when they were in. I was just having some beers with an old Army buddy the other day and we were commenting on how great civilian flying life is and how bad the guys in our old unit have it. I have no additional duties...well I take that back, I have to wash the aircraft about once every 2 weeks. I do one online aviation class once a month that takes all of 15 mins. I fly, that's it, plain and simple. Non of the stuff Buzz talks of I do. After 20 yrs of military it's nice to simply be paid to do a job. It's an absolute breath of fresh air.

 

I read a few months back that like 70 % of Americans hate their jobs. I never hated my job in the Army but I rarely woke up and was glad to go to work. I never looked forward to Fridays and never really dreaded Mondays. It was work. Sometimes enjoyable, other times not so much. Like others have said, after you do it for awhile it gets a bit old and you concentrate more on other things like family or hobbies. Here's a way of looking at it. When I first put on goggles and looked up at the night sky I thought it was the coolest thing around. It was all new to me. After a few hours I thought, crap these things are heavy, they hurt my noggin, I'm sweating my ass off and I can't judge my closure rate worth crap! Now, they're just simply a tool I use to do my job. It's not fun and it's not painful either. It's just a job and while I feel thankful to get paid to do it, but it's more about flying for purpose than flying for fun.

 

I don't regret my time in service for one minute. I served in both wars and flew over 1,200 combat hours. I traveled the world and got paid good money to do it. The military paid for both pilot and ATC ratings to use later in life. I served with some of the best (and worst) people around. I've made friends through aviation and lost friends in aviation accidents. Some great memories of awesome flights, and bad memories of not so awesome flights. Overall I would not have changed a thing.

 

Oh yeah, the training is more like 1 million dollars per student.

Edited October 2, 2013 by Velocity173

[akscott60]

It's a roller coaster of an experience. You just need to understand that flying will only be your primary job on deployment. In garrison it's way down the list.

[Ardo09203]

 

Have you done all the tasks that Buzz is referring to? Some are easy while some are quite time consuming. All of that is on top of his job of being an aviator. Being an aviator isn't a 9-5 clock in and clock out job either. I'm not sure you realize the extent of training just to do the job of being an aviator in the Army. These guys are constantly studying and giving classes on their airframe. No-notice evals are always a threat. Flying and knowing your aircraft is just the beginning. FTXs like NTC, JRTC and CMTC. It's not just learning how to fly, you're learning a weapon system and how it interacts with other weapon systems. The training for that is extensive. The additional nonsense that's unrelated to being an aviator is extensive as well.

 

Sure there are worse jobs for less money. A lot of those jobs don't require the skills set that an Army Aviator requires either. I was enlisted in the Marines and going warrant was a step up in status and pay. With that step up was all the extraneous stuff Buzz brought up. It wears on ya and gets old real fast. It some ways I had it better as a Marine, in some ways worse.

 

In order to understand what we're talking about you have to compare it to a civilian flying job. Flying civilian has far less nonsense involved for the same pay. Every single one of my friends who have gotten out would tell you their job is far more easier now then when they were in. I was just having some beers with an old Army buddy the other day and we were commenting on how great civilian flying life is and how bad the guys in our old unit have it. I have no additional duties...well I take that back, I have to wash the aircraft about once every 2 weeks. I do one online aviation class once a month that takes all of 15 mins. I fly, that's it, plain and simple. Non of the stuff Buzz talks of I do. After 20 yrs of military it's nice to simply be paid to do a job. It's an absolute breath of fresh air.

 

I read a few months back that like 70 % of Americans hate their jobs. I never hated my job in the Army but I rarely woke up and was glad to go to work. I never looked forward to Fridays and never really dreaded Mondays. It was work. Sometimes enjoyable, other times not so much. Like others have said, after you do it for awhile it gets a bit old and you concentrate more on other things like family or hobbies. Here's a way of looking at it. When I first put on goggles and looked up at the night sky I thought it was the coolest thing around. It was all new to me. After a few hours I thought, crap these things are heavy, they hurt my noggin, I'm sweating my ass off and I can't judge my closure rate worth crap! Now, they're just simply a tool I use to do my job. It's not fun and it's not painful either. It's just a job and while I feel thankful to get paid to do it, but it's more about flying for purpose than flying for fun.

 

I don't regret my time in service for one minute. I served in both wars and flew over 1,200 combat hours. I traveled the world and got paid good money to do it. The military paid for both pilot and ATC ratings to use later in life. I served with some of the best (and worst) people around. I've made friends through aviation and lost friends in aviation accidents. Some great memories of awesome flights, and bad memories of not so awesome flights. Overall I would not have changed a thing.

 

Oh yeah, the training is more like 1 million dollars per student.

 

No sir, I can't say that I have ever done any of those task (with the exception of grocery shopping and power points), especially for the military, as I have never served. I understand that the menial task on top of what your job as an aviator actually requires, no matter how simple, will eventually start to wear on you.

 

I'm aware of whats required of pilots on the civilian side, and how you are paid the same (if not more) to do the same job, with none of the "extras". But consider this, how did the civilian pilots get to where they are? I am referring to commercial pilots, and not CFI instructions (sorry Lindsey). They either spent tons of money on civilian training to get a job as a CFI, and were paid way less than $40k, then flew until they had enough hours to fly with the big boys. Or they went the military route and were trained on turbine ships from the get go, and were paid to do it.

 

To me, it seem as though all of those "extra" tasks, and putting up with the army's BS, is almost like paying your dues until you get to the gravy 14 and 14 job with PHI, flying back and forth to a rig for 5-8 hours a day.

 

Where I'm from (South Louisiana), I could get a job making double what most CW2's make by taking an offshore position with my company. But it's not about the money, it's about being happy in my career, and a position offshore would not make me happy. For one, at the beginning and end of each hitch I would be constantly reminded that I didn't follow my dreams while flying to the rig in a 206 or S-76.

 

I guess it's what you make of it, and who knows, I'll probably be back here bitching one day 8 years from now.

 

Oh yea, I understand the the training cost is crazy compared to the civilian side. I was just going off of what it would cost a civilian pilot to obtain the same ratings you could with your training from the army. I read some where than an Apache pilot's helmet alone is like $20k? Is that an accurate figure? Not sure if that was with the monocle or not.

[Lindsey]

The Apache helmet is the Army Aviation version of the Birth Control Goggles in BCT.

[akscott60]

The traditional apache helmet is a part of the aircraft worth nearly 20k.

 

The 64E Uses a modded HGU56P so it actually has some crash protection and doesn't look so retarded.

[Yamer]

nice lindsey.... nice....

 

a helmet is a helmet is a helmet... what some rediculous supplier charges uncle sams deep pockets for it isnt relevant. the most important part of an apachespilots helmet is the ingenious brain of said apache pilot that fills it. it takes a very high tech helmet to contain such awesomeness versus say a kiowa pilots helmet resembles a football players helmet from 20 years of getting hit in the head too many times...

 

with love of course....

[akscott60]

Ironic that the apache hemet is based on old ass technology like an sph4 or something.

 

The rest of the army wears the hgu56p. It's not a Kiowa thing.

[droz88]

I was under the impression that if you want to do all that kind of misc stuff, you should go in as as a commissioned officer. If you want to fly, however, go warrant. If you have to do all that extra stuff why not just go in as a CO and collect a little extra money every month?

 

I may, afterall just stay as a civilian and go part time warrant in the guard instead of pursuing the AD route.

Edited October 3, 2013 by droz88

[Lindsey]

An Apache is quite literally flying right outside of my office window right now.

 

This is relevant because we were talking about Apaches.

[Yamer]

its a sign.... choose 64s

[Yamer]

scott dont cloud the issue with facts... thats not fair

[Justine]

its a sign.... choose 64s

HOOAH

[BM1]

I love how some things are pretty universal. "A bitching sailor is a happy sailor" is the term of choice for the Navy. While the list of collateral duties was pretty long, and while all of those listed are a step down from flying, they were a step up for me on my last deployment. Alot better to go be a Range Safety Officer than another day spent babysitting afghan detainees. Its all in how you use your plight. We got the bright idea to go volunteer to get RSO qual'ed to help units transitioning in and out, but it was really in order to go invite the polish and germans out to the range to shoot each others weapons and attempt to qual for their marksmanship awards. Ended up being well worth it. Managing vehicles for the unit had its perks, being licensed on everything meant never having to ask for a ride to the other side of the base, it just meant taking our offices m1151 out for a maintenance ride to keep the batteries up.....right to the exchange....and the bazaar....and maybe a little light 4 wheeling and then back. While alot of the BS isnt glamorous, couple it with good people and you can find alot of enjoyment in those tasks. That brings me to another Navy term. "Its not the job, Its the people" no matter the job its the people and attitude of the unit that will make or break it. Oh, and no matter what, never get a bus license, ever, thats the only one Ive seen without any perks at all.

[SBuzzkill]

As a disclaimer I'm just a W2 with a few years in army aviation, so take this with a grain of salt.

 

I was under the impression that if you want to do all that kind of misc stuff, you should go in as as a commissioned officer. If you want to fly, however, go warrant. If you have to do all that extra stuff why not just go in as a CO and collect a little extra money every month?

 

I may, afterall just stay as a civilian and go part time warrant in the guard instead of pursuing the AD route.

 

That's the biggest thing we have to work around and Velocity already hit on it. We are supposed to spend our time learning our aircraft, mission, etc. If you look at walking warrants they do not spend a whole bunch of time doing extra stuff. They do the one job that they are supposed to be doing.

 

In aviation our companies are basically split into maintainers and aviators. The maintainers work on the helicopters and we fly them. All of the BS the Army requires to run a unit falls on either the maintainers or the pilots to get done and there aren't very many of us. We are a fraction of the size of a traditional Army company. When we were deploying every other year it was easy to kind of look the other way and ignore the book. Well now the Army has lots of time on its hands and what used to be relatively simple additional duties are now becoming more and more complicated as things get inspected under the microscope. That is part of the "garrison army" thing you guys keep hearing about.

 

Also, now that we don't need as many aviators and promotion rates are dropping the things that set you out from your peers to a board are the extra sh*t you do that can be written up on your OER to make you look good. Additional duties, schools, college education, etc. You can't get by relying on your skills and knowledge as an aviator anymore. So what's happening is the emphasis on technical and tactical proficiency is going away not only because of lack of funds for training but also because of the push for a more "well rounded" warrant officer.

 

So they're molding us into the o-grade way of thinking. The difference I guess is that after a few years you don't go to staff. The amount of time and effort it takes to become and stay a good aviator should take up all your time at work. Unfortunately, even though your command says that being an aviator is your number one priority, it is not what gets emphasized. Until a couple weeks before DES arrives...

Edited October 3, 2013 by SBuzzkill

[Velocity173]

 

I would be very interested in hearing more about this. I always wondered why the army had both warrants and commissioned guys flying their helicopters. If you don't want to go into details on the public forum then would you be able to PM me?

Well Buzz pretty much hit it above. I'll add a few things and give you history of how things changed in recent years. Disclaimer: these are my observations and some of this might be a localized condition.

 

First, everyone knows that warrants are technical and tactical experts in their field. In order to do that you need to be in a position to fly a lot with little distraction. When I was a WO1 this was generally the case. Obviously we had additional duties but nothing extreme. My PLs sacrificed their flying time so us warrants could build hours and become PCs. My company commanders weren't PCs and they didn't care because their job was to run a company and you don't need PC to do that. Besides, they were still AMCs without being a PC anyway. All of this was just after 9/11. Flying was plentiful and since we were deployed all the time, the additional nonsense was kept to a minimum.

 

First sign of things changing was in 2004 when the Army took away our insignia (Rising Eagle) and replaced it with our aviation branch insignia that commissioned wear. To me it wasn't a big deal but others looked at is as writing on the wall in that the Army's goal was to integrate warrants more with traditional commissioned duties. Part of that was getting rid of WOBC and combining both warrants and commissioned into BOLC.

 

A few years later around 2007-2008 senior Army Aviation leadership changed the Commanders Guide (411). I distinctly remember reading an article by Gen Cody wanting to get his junior commissioned guys more experience. So, what they did was make it a required for 2Lts out of flight school to be immediately integrated into a FAC1 flying position. Before that they'd show up and get stuffed into BTL or BDE in some admin FAC2 position and never fly. Funny thing about this new rule was our MTOE just doesn't support that many FAC 1 spots especially since they were sending soo many students through flight school at the time.

 

Second thing was company commanders were no longer allowed to serve as a PI the whole time. They were required to get PC within 6 mths of assuming command. Along with that it was highly encouraged for AMCs to be PCs...actually a good thing.

 

What does all that mean for warrants? Well now you have more competition for flight time. In my last unit for instance, one of our BTLs had a "flying club" going on. This is a good ole boy system where the commissioned had abused their position to bump warrants to get flight time. They were signing off guys who barely met the mins while the warrants were sitting around doing nothing. I witnessed commissioned guys bumping warrants to go on high level missions to get recognition. This concept was basically a paradigm shift from their traditional roles as PLs and staff positions. I witnessed far more additional duties and schools being put on the backs of warrants and even duties of a PL being "delegated" down to warrants.

 

The problem with all this? The commisioned guys who were getting PC were useless because they didnt have the experience to be on any real challenging mission and it wouldn't be long were they would be sent somewhere else (career course) anyway. Now you have a shortage of warrant PCs and a lack of warrant experience. I also saw a shift in traditional BTL tasks being pawned off to the companys. Instead of BTL S3 leading an aircrew coordination brief, they just had the companys do all the hard work and then sharp shoot the product that they had no hand in anyway. As a senior SP and on one step on the "retirement bus" I was concerned but there was nothing I could do about it.

 

So that's what I mean about the lines getting blurred between the both. Like I said these were my experiences and could just be localized. I don't care though. I still have my pickle suit, my squashed bug and my purple hat from flight school. No one can take those away.

[Wally]

 

No sir, I can't say that I have ever done any of those task (with the exception of grocery shopping and power points), especially for the military, as I have never served. I understand that the menial task on top of what your job as an aviator actually requires, no matter how simple, will eventually start to wear on you.

 

I'm aware of whats required of pilots on the civilian side, and how you are paid the same (if not more) to do the same job, with none of the "extras". But consider this, how did the civilian pilots get to where they are? I am referring to commercial pilots, and not CFI instructions (sorry Lindsey). They either spent tons of money on civilian training to get a job as a CFI, and were paid way less than $40k, then flew until they had enough hours to fly with the big boys. Or they went the military route and were trained on turbine ships from the get go, and were paid to do it.

 

To me, it seem as though all of those "extra" tasks, and putting up with the army's BS, is almost like paying your dues until you get to the gravy 14 and 14 job with PHI, flying back and forth to a rig for 5-8 hours a day.

 

Where I'm from (South Louisiana), I could get a job making double what most CW2's make by taking an offshore position with my company. But it's not about the money, it's about being happy in my career, and a position offshore would not make me happy. For one, at the beginning and end of each hitch I would be constantly reminded that I didn't follow my dreams while flying to the rig in a 206 or S-76.

 

I guess it's what you make of it, and who knows, I'll probably be back here bitching one day 8 years from now.

 

Oh yea, I understand the the training cost is crazy compared to the civilian side. I was just going off of what it would cost a civilian pilot to obtain the same ratings you could with your training from the army. I read some where than an Apache pilot's helmet alone is like $20k? Is that an accurate figure? Not sure if that was with the monocle or not.

 

You well and truly do not have a clue. My military was well before MANPADs, stop-losses, extended tours in places that would have to have major renovations to be the crotch, much less the arm-pit of the world... Comparitively speaking, "the getting shot at" part is not so bad, although one might spend the rest of one's life dealing with that. You're not always the coal mine donkey, but that's so often enough that it's cliche. Did you know that it's possible to sleep running? Clueless you are, entire and complete. Ramen years don't even smear that chalk.

 

Also, my experience in the Gulf of Mexico (13 years) had some really good days, but I think you're ignortant of that phase of the industry too. Unless the term "gravy 14 and 14" refers to pilot sweat...