redlinemike

If you could go anywhere in the world you wanted for two weeks, in the month of August, where would you go and why? Keep in mind you have to include travel time and things like that. Basically, I am in the military and I get a certain amount of leave per year. After I aquire 60 days of leave anything more than that gets taken away if it is not used before October 1st. I need to burn 2 weeks of leave and I want to go somewhere nice. My top choice so far is Peru to see Machu Picchu and whatever else I can find. Pictures would be cool too. I just got back from Italy last december and I thought about New Zealand but I think I would rather go there during their summer. In a few months I have a 38 day trip going thru: Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece. So those are already taken. Cost is not much of a factor. I am not rich. I just have not spent much money in a while so I have a bit saved up and I do not really like to buy "stuff". I do not mind using a chunk of it for a good vacation.

Motorcycle wrecks are alway fun. It is too bad I only have pics of one of my wrecks.

I had about 30 credit hours of college when I originally applied. I know 100% for sure there is no college requirement. Flight pay is dependant on your years of aviation service Starts at 125 a month and hits its max at 840 a month with 14 years of service. Go here and you can see the rates, http://www.dod.mil/dfas/militarypay/newinformation/WebPayTableVersion2006updated.pdf . As an officer you will collect Base pay, Basic Allowance for subsistence, Flight pay the same as everyone else your rank with same time in service. In addition you will recieve Basic Allowance for Housing which is dependant on housing costs where you live and possibly Cost of Living allowance depending if you live in an area deemed to be more expensive than average. There are a few other pays available but you probably will not se them as they are rare situations. You are a W1 for 2 years, W2 for 4-5 years, W3 for 6 years (average, but varies), and W4 until you have 20 years of service, then you hit W5. I am not sure what you mean by perks. Nobody really gets any perks in the military with their rank. An O1 butterbar does out rank us but they would not even dream of messing with us. Rank in the Warrant side is almost automatic so we do not really have to go against each other to get it. With the regular officers you see a lot of back stabbing and things like that but that never happens with Warrants. As a result we are all very close and protect each other. Because we are the technical experts we control the majority of aviation. We are the maintence test pilots, we are the Instructer pilots, we are standardization, we control the operational rate and many other things. Too fuck with us would be insane for a commander to do because his operational rate would go to shit and then the levels above him would be breathing down his neck. It happens. You have to submit a packet and be formally selected. Creating the packet is probably the hardest thing about being a warrant. It is a pain in the ass to collect everything the packet requires. It is worth it though. I promise you it is. Should you decide to convert to regular officer one day you will stay aviation, that is about the only way I can think of to be sure about your branch as a regular officer.

It is better in some ways. For instance, the Air Force does have much nicer stuff. You get alot of the same training but not all. We have different missions. The Army does all the mission the Airforce does plus things like Air Assault, the Air Force is more oriented towards rescue so they limit them selves. Warrants max out at W5 which is still really good. Look at the pay scales for a W5, it is not that much lower. Where Warrant Officer becomes a better deal is in the fact we do not have to do staff jobs and things like that. 99% of regular officers get boring paperwork desk jobs most of the time. The definition of a Warrant is a technical professional. A pilot Warrant concentrates everything on flying. That is our main duty. As a result we get a lot more flight time than regular officers and we do not have to do the boring staff jobs they do. You would be amazed on how many regular officer convert to Warrant in order to fly more. For me I do not really care about the pay and I do not want to eb a general one day, I just want to fly. I love flying. Coming from civillian adds a few more negatives. If you go to get your 4 year degree and go for regular officer you have no idea what branch you will get. You can cross your fingers and hope for aviation but it is pretty low chances you will get it. The Warrant program offers a way to contract to be an Army aviator before you even enter any kind of military service and you know they are not going to decide to make you a chemical officer or something afwul like that. Most people consider it this way in the military, if you want to be a full time pilot, go Warrant.

That would be the downside, you have to sign a 6 year contract that does not start until after flight school. I will only be 28 when my contract is up though. Still young enough to do whatever I want with my life, but as of now I think I am going to finish 20 years are pull a fat retirement check for the rest of my life.

I have a little over 300 hours. I got all my training from the military. I fly Blackhawks for the Army. If you want to be a helicopter pilot that is honestly the best way to do it. They give you something like 1.3 million dollars in training in aircraft a civillian could not even dream of flying. If you try to start civillian you will be in something like a gasoline powered R22 with hardly any power. In the Army you start in a turbine powered TH-67 which is basically a bell jet ranger. Next thing you know you are flying a Blackhawk(or any other of the Armys aircraft) with two 1560 horsepower turbine engines. The types of flying we do are way better than what civillians get to do as well. Just imagine flying in a formation of multiple aircraft of different types at night wearing night vision goggles. Best of all, they pay you to recieve all that training. No college degree required, no prior service required, you can be a helicopter pilot in the army. You can even be under 18 and get picked up. A good pilot friend of mine turned 18 a week before he shipped for basic, went straight from basic to WOC school, straight into Flight School, and was flying Blackhawks by his 19th birthday. He will probably be a pilot in command of a 16 million dollar aircraft by his 21st birthday. http://www.usarec.army.mil/hq/warrant/ http://www.goarmy.com/about/warrant_officer.jsp If you want to know more just ask me. I am not a recruiter, I just think this is such an awesome deal and I cannot believe more people do not use it. BTW Micro, who is your cousin, Army Aviation is a small world, I might know him.

I have a Commercial Pilots license with instrument rating. What is up?

Golden knights Black and gold inter-service competition? Does anyone have any more information about this? I found a little bit of stuff on the golden knights website but I would like to know more. I am an active duty soldier so I know I am eligible. Is it basically show up and jump for free? What kind of aircraft will be there? Are there usually long waits for aircraft? Anything you can tell me about this would be great. Thanks.