Questions about the MV-22 Osprey and its ratings

[FIGMAC]

Hi im a Marine student aviation in primary training rights now and am thinking about selecting ospreys. Does anyone know if the ratings/hours for tilt rotor a/c will transfer as fixed wing, rotary, or if it is stuck in its own class? Basically wondering if I will be able to take my hours and fly anything else post-osprey either helos or fixed wing aircraft.

[SASless]

Graduate at the top of your class....go F-18's or C-130's....you can always find an Osprey seat later in your career. Corporate and Airline Jobs would find the Fast Jet or large transport time very attractive.

[Um... lifting...]

Below are what newly-winged Marines through various pipes will come out with if they pursue their FAA commercial certificate (you're a fool if you don't, it will never be less costly. The ratings are pulled directly from the FAA website certificate info of several Marines of my acquaintance). The V-22 powered-lift won't come until after qualifying in the fleet aircraft. Harrier boys don't get multiengine far as I am aware now that the T-2 is gone. If a fighter guy wants an ATP, he's going to need to do some time in a multiengine multicrew airplane, either on his own dime or flying the general's G-5 or T-44s or whatever else he can lay hands on.

At this stage of the game, I'm in agreement with SASless, put your nose to the grindstone. Don't get your heart set on a pipe based upon what you might be doing in 20 years. You also still must manage to make it through PA, FORM, upper-stage RI, and so forth. SASless will never admit it, but he loved his Chinook (as an Army geezer, he was happy just to not be flying recips).

Study your butt off, ask questions, attend all the community briefs you can, go to fleet fly-ins and talk to every pilot you can. Make it a point to ask ALL your Marine IPs what community they're from. Most training squadrons have Fleet Flight Suit Fridays, where the IPs wear patches and such from their fleet squadrons. This is one reason why it's done.

You need to be careful about talking about life on the outside before you even have your wings. It tends to make the IPs suspicious of your motives and your focus on the goal that Uncle Sam is paying you to achieve. Take my word for it, I was one. The IPs do talk about you behind your back.

Ask the reservists in the squadron (those who work in commercial aviation... there will be some) about life on the outside, but you'll need to do that on your own time, not squadron time. You may be surprised to learn that the vast majority of them prefer their military flying, whatever that may be.
Long ago, an officer I admire a great deal advised me to "Never ask for a job you don't want." He never did, and was a happy guy and very successful. I took his advice.

Being ABLE to choose your pipe is a nice problem to have. If your grades aren't good enough, what you want won't matter (sometimes if your grades ARE good enough, what you want doesn't matter... friend of mine wanted Hercs, got 18s... other times, there are no strike slots when you select). There is also the small matter of some number of combat deployments between your winging and your final separation from the service you'll need to get past.

Also, life tends to get in your way for the next several decades starting about an hour after you get your wings.

A helo guy (you MAY be able to add a type rating, depending upon the type):

COMMERCIAL PILOT
AIRPLANE SINGLE ENGINE LAND (comes from the primary trainer)
ROTORCRAFT-HELICOPTER (comes from the advanced trainer)
INSTRUMENT AIRPLANE AND HELICOPTER (comes from both)

A F/A-18 guy (he did the T-2 back when, so this has probably changed to just the first and third lines):

COMMERCIAL PILOT
AIRPLANE SINGLE ENGINE LAND
AIRPLANE MULTIENGINE LAND LIMITED TO CENTER THRUST
INSTRUMENT AIRPLANE

Limits:
AIRPLANE MULTIENGINE VFR ONLY.

A Herc guy (You can add a L-100 type later):

COMMERCIAL PILOT
AIRPLANE SINGLE ENGINE LAND
AIRPLANE MULTIENGINE LAND
INSTRUMENT AIRPLANE

A V-22 guy:

COMMERCIAL PILOT
AIRPLANE SINGLE ENGINE LAND
ROTORCRAFT-HELICOPTER
POWERED-LIFT
INSTRUMENT AIRPLANE AND HELICOPTER
INSTRUMENT POWERED-LIFT

[SASless]

I love my Chinook....but would have really liked to have been a Herc Pilot....and if the USAF had ever opened up a pipeline for Flying Duty only, Rank limited to Major, Hercules Pilots....I would have been there till they physically threw me out the Front Gate.

Um is giving some very good advice....focus upon your Military flying first. Take advantage of the Military Competency method of obtaining your FAA ratings. Decide what you really want to do in the military....be it fighters, transports, helicopters or tilt rotor but be the best you can be. Show your dedication to that task first and foremost.

As you progress in the military....you can then try to steer your assignments in the direction you want to go. Remember the Maintenance Pilot, Safety Officer, and other related assignments that would be of much benefit in later life.

Hit some of the web sites that advertise civvies Aviation jobs....and see where the most and frequent advertisements are located and what background would make you a good fit for them. That way if you decide not to be a career officer and pilot....you have a good start on where you go after the military.

For the time being ....live, eat, breathe the Marine Corps! OOHRAH! Being a Marine will let you into a very strong group of Good Ol' Boys and Girls that will help you all through your life and working career. Marines look out for one another (except for John Murtha) and have a secret handshake system that is to be admired.

[212man]

Harrier boys don't get multiengine far as I am aware now that the T-2 is gone.

Since when did any Harrier ever have two engines?? :confused::confused:

I thought the USMC flew TAV-8A trainers - the T.2 and T.4 being RAF models

[tottigol]

212. the USMC fly the TAV-8B, the T-2 Um is referring to was the Rockwell T-2 Buckeye, it was the US NAVY basic jet trainer and it had two engines.
The whole US NAVY training pipeline is now covered by the T-45, another Brit design.
By the way, Harriers T.2 and 4 have been gone for quite some time now, I believe the only two seater left is now the GR.9.

[Um... lifting...]

tottigol wins the obsolete Navy trainer trivia contest for the day!:8

I probably could have stated it more clearly, but the F/A-18 guy didn't get multiengine as a rating because of the F/A-18 (at least I don't think so), but because of the T-2. Most naval military equivalency ratings done to the Commercial Pilot level in the U.S. are completed at the level of the trainer prior to the fleet aircraft. T-44 (King Air) for the multiengine guys, TH-57 (Jet Ranger) for the helicopter guys, T-45 (now) for the jet guys. In the past, the strike guys all got multiengine centerline thrust ratings because of the T-2, even the Harrier guys, which I am aware has but one big fat engine.

The exception to that general rule is the V-22. My info isn't current, so I may be incorrect, but it was that way for many years, and I have no reason to think that it may have changed.

[ospreydriver]

Graduate at the top of your class....go F-18's or C-130's....you can always find an Osprey seat later in your career. Corporate and Airline Jobs would find the Fast Jet or large transport time very attractive.

No, one likely can't get an Osprey seat later. The lateral moves from other communities are fewer and fewer every year, and will likely go away entirely once the fleet switches completely over in the next couple years, save for test pilots and such. Those transfers are in the low single digits already.

If the OP wants Ospreys, he should put them on his dream sheet out of primary. He'll get both multiengine and helps time in the Advanced pipeline.

Key thing of selection--select what you actually want to fly NOW. Planning for some weird thing 5 or 10 years from selection is pointless.

[JimNtexas]

For heaven's sake's! If a pilot can fly a military Osprey, wouldn't any rational aviation organization not conclude that this pilot could fly a conventional transport airplane???? Or a helicopter? Or a space shuttle?

Is there a more complex, demanding airplane flying anywhere?

OP, lots of military pilots need to go to the local civilian schoolhouse and pickup a civil multi-engine rating or some such when they get out. Its no big deal.

Put 100% effort into your military training, put all thoughts of your military afterlife on the back burner. Ask for the assignment you want, and accept what you get cheerfully.

You've got the world by the tail!

[ospreydriver]

Rationality probably doesn't have much to do with it. As an Osprey guy myself I worry about my future civilian employment daily.

Airlines generally don't give a damn about rotary-wing time, for example. Doesn't matter if you were Task Force 160 or a crop-sprayer.

On the other hand, helicopter employers don't care too much about fixed-wing time.

I worry about not having enough appropriate time to get hired at either.

The V-22 is primarily an airplane, but as far as the civilian world is concerned, I worry that a lot of employers will not know what to make of it, and so will discount much of the experience, unless that individual has another "in" to get through the first steps in the screening process, e.g. if an airline says, "minimums are 1500TT, 1000 multi-eng airplane," and I show up with my 3500TT including 1000 V-22 time, will I still rate an interview?

Lord knows it's a complex, high-performance, multi-crew, glass cockpit aircraft, which to me makes it a lot more relevant experience than say, a Beech twin. However, it's not "true" ME unless there's the possibility of asymmetric thrust.

It'll probably take the first few guys making it into the industry to make or break it for all the rest. Hopefully those guys are ****-hot, and not just some clowns who got out early because they weren't hacking anyway.

Me, I'll get my ME and ATP at a shake-and-bake school before I get out, but I won't have a lot of time behind those ratings.

[JimNtexas]

Rationality probably doesn't have much to do with it. As an Osprey guy myself I worry about my future civilian employment daily.

The civil economy is a cold hard place right now for everyone, but I hope that there is enough logic left in aviation to at least grant an interview to a 3500TT V-22 pilot!

I hope that Shirley in HR will surely see what kind of talent you guys bring to the cockpit!

[SASless]

Let's ask the question this way.....

If given a choice of F-18's, C-130's, MV-22's, AH-1Z's, or CH-53E/K's.....and knowing the various mission taskings and deployment schedules....combined with post military service employment opportunities....FAA licensing issues....can one spell Lockheed? Particularly if one were to think about an inter-service transfer to the US Coast Guard!

[Lonewolf_50]

FIGMAC: I spent some time as a Navy Flight Instructor.

You've been given some good advice so far.

Bust your butt. Select what you want, the USMC will assign you to what they need you to fly.

Excel at that during your first tour, whatever the airframe.

You second tour will force you to make some interesting choices that you can then add your "post Marine" career considerations into.

Also, if you do select Ospreys, you will get training in both T-44 (or C-12 if it is still flying in Training Wing 4) and TH-57. Your instrument rating is the most important rating you will earn, in terms of its applicability in civilian world. I think you'll earn it in the T-44/C-12.

You'll need to investigate the equivalency route to other ratings after you earn your wings.

You'll likely need to pay for a bit out of pocket to get what you need for various civlian tickets, so START SAVING YOUR MONEY NOW.

Best wishes and Semper Fi to you, Lieutenant. You are embarking on a great journey.

I envy you.

LW_50

PS: Looks like VT-35 still flies the C-12.
https://www.cnatra.navy.mil/tw4/pipelines.asp

EDIT: Sent you links via PM.