Jumping Ship – A USAF Pilot Joins the Navy Reserve

BogiDope was founded by Air Force pilots and much of our work is Air Force-centric. We’re here to help pilots from all branches though, and this article is for anyone who’s ever considered becoming a pilot in the Navy Reserve.

This article is based on an interview with former-USAF Major and now Navy Commander-select Albert “Pone Star” Rampone.

Table of Contents

1. Intro
2. The Job - USAF vs USN
3. The Aircraft - T-6A vs T-6B
4. Career Progression
5. Getting Hired
6. Having a Day Job

Intro

Pone started as a “late rated” officer in the USAF with four years of service before he became a pilot. He flew the E-3A Sentry (aka AWACS) before taking an assignment as a T-6B Instructor Pilot at Naval Air Station Whiting Field. This is an Active Duty Air Force assignment open to just a few pilots at any given time. While assigned to Whiting, Pone did a deployment flying the E-11A BACN, which is where he and I met. (Look for a full post about the BACN deployment on BogiDope in the near future.)

That deployment was Pone’s last hurrah in the Air Force, and he returned home about the time his 10-year pilot training commitment was expiring. He’d been hired by FedEx, but wanted to continue his service as a military aviator. In considering his options, he realized that he had a shot at joining the reserve unit at Whiting Field, doing the same T-6B IP job he’d been enjoying for several years. Yes, he landed two dream jobs in one fell swoop. (Next time I go to Vegas, I’m going to bring Pone with me and stake him at the craps table because he’s one of the luckiest people I know.)

Let’s get some boring stuff out of the way: If you are a member of one military branch and want to switch to another branch, you have to do what’s called an inter-service transfer. As you might expect, this process is a bureaucratic nightmare. You have to go through all the regular out-processing stuff from your own branch, to the extent that you even get a DD-214, and then you have to go through the hiring/gaining process in the new branch.

This isn’t something you undertake lightly or without cause. Pone mentioned that doing the inter-service transfer was something that you don’t start until you’ve been officially hired by your new unit in your new branch. The process took about 10 months for Pone, so it’s something to plan ahead for. You don’t do this on a whim after you’ve already started the separation process from your current service. You need to start looking for jobs so you can get hired and start the transfer paperwork earlier than you would even give notice that you plan to separate or retire. More on this later.

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The Job - USAF vs USN

I was hoping that Pone’s unique career path would yield great insight to the differences between teaching pilot training as a T-6 Instructor Pilot (IP) in the USAF versus the Navy. Fortunately for Pone (though maybe not for us) his Active Duty assignment teaching in the T-6 at Whiting was about the least Air Force experience a pilot could have.

Pone worked on a Navy base, flew Navy aircraft, and gave Navy-style instruction under the Navy syllabus. He went nearly 4 years without checking his USAF email account. It’s considered a pretty choice USAF assignment, and the fiefdom at Air Force Personnel Center that has power over this assignment guards it closely for the “right” people. If you want it, you need to be good at what you do and start asking your commanders for it early in your career.

Luckily, I taught in the T-6, so I’ve been able to interpolate here for the sake of comparison.

In the Air Force, students are organized into classes of about 30 pilots, divided into two “flights,”  and the whole class progresses together on a very set schedule. A training day starts with a morning brief and “stand-up” emergency procedures. (More about those another day.) The flight and simulator schedule is broken up into three periods. Each student could be assigned to training events in any of those periods and otherwise sits around a flight room all day studying.

As an IP, you show up for morning brief and can expect to fly twice during the day. Two training sorties equates to a total of not more than 3.5 hours, but you’re almost guaranteed to be there for at least 12 hours every day, 5 days a week, on Active Duty. (I’ve mentioned that I averaged 6 hours of non-flying work for every hour I got to spend in an aircraft during my career.) USAF Reserve T-6 IPs get things a little easier. They tend to fly two flights each day but have far fewer other ground duties. Once they’re done for the day, they leave the office and relax. Reserve IPs tend to fly for 5-6 days straight and attend one drill weekend per month. Commuters make sure the drill weekend falls immediately before or immediately after their week of flying.

Pone noted that Navy pilot training is much more laid back in many ways. The Navy tends to graduate a “class” of students at the same time, but it’s rare that a given group of students all start and graduate at the same time. They just aren’t as efficient with scheduling.

Pone and I noted that the Air Force does a very good (or bad?) job of telling students exactly what to be studying and when. In the Navy, there’s very little hand-holding. They just expect you to show up prepared for your next event. (It’s not that the Air Force doesn’t, it just feels more relaxed overall.)

Another difference in Navy vs AF flying is that most USAF pilot training bases only have one auxiliary airfield where T-6s can practice pattern work. The Navy has at least a half-dozen Outlying Fields (OLFs) and there is a very complex set of “course rules” defining how to get from base to each one and back. Learning these course rules was challenging for Pone as an experienced USAF pilot, and it can be brutal for students.

The end result is that this training can take twice as long as it does with the Air Force, but Pone feels like it may produce a better overall pilot in the process. (Hold your horses and put away your petty tribalism. We have enough of that in our country right now. Pone is a big fan of the Air Force and dedicated flight instructor. I’ll trust his opinion on this one, especially if it helps make my point that the USAF’s current efforts to cut as much as possible from pilot training are a very bad idea.)

For Pone, life as a Reservist is pretty great. His unit is very willing to work with its pilots on scheduling to maximize the benefit for both parties. Unlike the USAF which has an entire regulation about training and currency requirements for pilots (AFI 11-2T-6 Vol 2), the Navy’s currency requirements are defined in the T-6 NATOPS (the aircraft manual). At the most basic level, a pilot has to get 100 flight hours per year and meet a few other requirements. These help make scheduling a lot easier. By contrast, USAF Reservists have to accrue a laundry list of currency beans every six months or they go on a naughty pilot list. If you have a life and/or job outside the military, it can actually be challenging to accomplish all of the currency items you need in the USAFR.

The Navy does require a lot of check rides for it’s T-6B IPs. There are annual check rides for instrument flying, teaching instruments to students, basic aircraft qualification (the NATOPS check ride), and teaching contact to students. It sounded like a lot of pain to me as an Air Force pilot, but Pone gave me the impression that Navy pilots don’t get so worked up over these events. (If you’re following the rules and keeping your skills up, then a check ride should never be anything to fear...says the former check pilot who still hates check rides.)

Pone lives in Memphis and drives to NAS Whiting Field, near Pensacola, for a few days at a time. He spends his first day catching up on email and completing his travel voucher in DTS, then double turns (flies twice a day) for the next two days. On this schedule, he has no problem meeting his currency requirements and feeling like he’s proficient in the aircraft.

I’ve noticed that USAF Reserve squadrons at pilot training bases are very close. Every single time I went out for a night on the town, I’d run into most of the Reservists I knew all hanging out together. Since they have a great job, they tend to stick around for a long time and they get to know each other. Pone feels like his squadron has a similar closeness. When he gets into town for reserve duty, he usually starts things out with an ongoing group text: “Hey dudes, I just got in. Who else is here?” You may not see the entire unit out in force every night, but he always gets several replies right away. He has also been known to crash family dinners at a friend’s house and is always welcomed with open arms.

This isn't special treatment offered only to Pone because he's uniquely handsome. (In fact, I'm surprised he isn't turned away from dinner at the front door when he shows up during Mustache March.) It's common for all of the local members of his unit to host commuters for dinner, drinks, or just hanging out on a regular basis. Pone loves this about his squadron and believes that it reflects an overall state of awesome unit cohesion.

Another interesting part of flying with the Navy is the variety of cultures your fellow instructors come from. In the Air Force there’s plenty of variety between pilots of different backgrounds...fighters, bombers, tankers, transport, spec ops, helos, etc. The Navy takes this to the next level. Many of the Navy IPs come from helicopters, though there are also P-3/P-8, fighter, and other types of pilots. However, NAS Whiting Field also supports the US Marine Corps and the US Coast Guard. This adds to the types of aircraft IPs have flow, but also adds another layer of cultural difference.

In the Air Force flying squadron, an O-3 can probably call an O-4 by his or her first name or callsign. In most cases, if that O-3 were to address the O-4 by rank or use “Sir/Ma’am” the O-3 would get laughed at. While some parts of the Navy may be like this, it’s guaranteed that a Marine Corps O-3 will address a Navy (or Air Force) O-4 as Sir or Ma’am, and stand up straight when doing so. This endearing...quirk?...seems to be a Marine Corps quality and doesn't reflect the overall mentality of Pone's squadron or wing. We don't single-out the Marines here to say their mentality is good or bad...it’s just different. Within the squadron, the Coast Guard pilots are about as opposite the Marine Corps mentality as it gets and may feel a lot more "normal" to an Air Force pilot.

I asked Pone about deployments because they’re a specter that haunts Air Force pilots. The USAF has even been deploying FAIPs (First Assignment Instructor Pilots who have never even been combat mission ready) for the last few years. Pone mentioned that CNATRA (Chief of Naval Air Training...the Navy’s equivalent of Air Education and Training Command [AETC]) was deploying a lot of people to supplement other forces (even Army ground units) in the 2012-2014 timeframe. So many people started quitting the Navy that CNATRA stopped the deployments. Although things are still good for now, Pone warned that all it takes is one bad day for deployments to pick right back up again. Don’t run there assuming you’ll never deploy again.

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The Aircraft - T-6A vs T-6B

It’s not all that common knowledge that the Navy flies two flavors of T-6. They use the same T-6A that the USAF uses to teach NFO training at NAS Sherman Field in Pensacola. (NFO stands for Naval Flight Officer. This roughly equates to Combat Systems Officer (CSO) or Weapon Systems Officer (WSO) in Air Force-speak. See also: Goose, may he rest in peace.) Since the T-6 was procured as the “Joint Primary Aircraft Training System” (JPATS) the training academics and systems information was very similar to that in the USAF. Even the T-6 aircraft manual (“NATOPS” in the Navy or “Dash-1” in the Air Force) was based on the USAF version. With that said, the Navy’s flight training aircraft has some important differences.

The Navy uses the T-6B for its pilot trainees. This variant has a very different avionics setup and a Heads Up Display (HUD). This setup is basically the same as what Raytheon (uh, Beachcraft, uh Textron) put in the AT-6, and is itself intended to feel a lot like the A-10C. The Navy version also has a lot more Hands on Throttle and Stick (HOTAS) controls, like a real fighter, than the T-6A.

The T-6B has an air-to-ground mode that will let you designate targets and practice bomb runs. It also has an air-to-air mode that will generate a simulated bogie to chase around in your HUD, or let you chase around another T-6 if you’re flying IP vs IP.

Pone noted that all these bells and whistles are fun to have, but they’re absolutely useless when your primary mission for the day is getting Ensign Snuffy to finally hold altitude +/- 100’. In that way, the job is exactly the same whether you’re flying for the Navy or the Air Force.