Ok, so I am currently in Army ROTC. I am an MS1 (A freshman).

My life goal is to fly either Blackhawks or Kiowas in the Army (maybe Apaches, but I would rather not be killing people). However, after talking to a few people in my battalion, I have been told that if you want aviation, you should probably go warrant officer as it is much easier and you get to fly more. From what I have heard, aviation is in the top 3 or 4 hardest branches to get out of ROTC unless you get a slot in a national guard unit.

To add to that, I am transferring and will lose my scholarship that I have with this school and will most likely not get contracted at the school I am looking at going since I will be out of state (Colorado State University), as I am from Maryland. I pretty much have half a year to a year to decide whether I would like to pursue a career in the army as a commission officer, or as a warrant officer.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

If you would rather not kill people then why fly in the army or any other branch?

I would like to serve my country and fly choppers, but I would rather it not be my priority to be killing people.

For example, a medevac blackhawk or something. I mean if I had to I would, but I would rather not.

Join the Coast Guard. You can fly and save people at the same time.

Ok... disregard my comment about killing people, I just want to know the differences between each route.

Hey Cannonball, are you still around and still have questions? just bumped into this thread, but I can point you to a good site w/ a lot of info if you're still interested.

Big mistake, guess what they can put weapons pylons on a black hawk and turn it into an apache. When I was in the gaurd our aviation unit was suppost to be search and rescue but they were turning the helicopters into combat roles, the military is going to do what it wants and if your the pilot your going to fly it whether you like it or not because you signed on the dotted line (you like that one gunny). Pilot slots are hard to get because everyone wants to do it (or so they think anyways) and its not that hard to learn to fly a plane or helicopter so the military creates wierd standards for the sole purpose of weeding people out (because there is only so many aircraft and unless your completely retarded the military can train you to fly it). I have a new outlook on piloting, its kinda like snowmachining, there are a few people who get paid to go out and ride the rest of us do it for recreation and have a real job to finance it so its only natural to first try to get paid to recreate and then go to financing your recreation with a really good paying job that has real qualifications that monkeys cant do. And if you think piloting is rocket science you have some growing up to do.

geez son, your asertions are so far out in left field it ain't funny.

Put weapons pods and pylons on a Blackhawk and all you have is an armed Blackhawk, not anything near the capabilities of an Apache.

Yea I know my exageration of the mechanical capabilities of a black hawk vs an apache threw my entire post into space. This is an example of selectivly singling out one sentence and debating it when the rest of the post was spot on. I dont really care what the capabilities are, weapons can be put on black hawks and used to kill people.

Hey, Asswipe repeatso, no one was talking to you in this thread. Just because you can't read a contract and allowed yourself to get screwed in the ass doesn't mean that you all of a sudden now have the right to insult others who have their heads on straight.

"rppearso" makes some valid points about what it takes to become a pilot -definitely not rocket science...

No one was disagreeing with what it takes to become a pilot. Many like rppearso do successfully pursue this on thier own. We take great expection to him with his attempts to demean us to prospective young folks that come in here to ask genuine questions about the military. Rppearso tries unsuccessfully to come across as a expert in anything dealing with the military, when he just up an quit on his military committment. Ask him how he isn't serving his contract.


RPPEARSO






he even wanted to actually pursue Post Traumatic Training Disorder!!!

Gunny,
Please keep these images in your photobucket. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that as long as rppearso is around these images can NOT be overused.

I have an entire section set aside for him!

Cannonball, if you want to persue a career as an aviator soldier without ever coming into the situation of killing people, please don't join the Army, Marines or Navy. Let me tell you why: Even if you get selected for pilot training no service in the world will make a special deal for you. It is the nature and a hazard in the military to get involved in war. Furthermore, you have to, when you enter, raise your right hand and make an oath. The military looks very angry at officers who refuse to do things they are expected to do. So I suggest you forget the whole thing and go for civilian pilot training.