Amount of Military pilots with degrees.

[Tigerformation]

I was wondering because I am in the process of deciding my university course, how many military pilots actually hold a degree?

[ORAC]

It's well known that all the best pilots took degrees in Underwater Basket Weaving. This left them with more time for drinking and fornication. :D

[saudipc-9]

Well that all depends upon which Air Force you might be refering to. In the US all Air Force and Navy pilots will have a degree as it is a requirement in order to be an officer. Canada used to not be a requirement but has now said that it is a must. Australia, NZ and the UK I believe is not a must. My experience has been about half will have a degree and out of those half only 1/4 will actually have one which could be applied to aviation.

[airborneport]

Too Many;)

[kbf1]

In the Army Air Corps almost all Direct Entrey Officers will be graduates, almost all NCO pilots and most Late Entry Officers will not have degrees, most not having any formal non-professional qualifications below A Levels.

[flygunz]

It's a bit misleading to call a US degree a 'degree' in the real sense. A US degree is barely meets the standard of a UK 'A' level, thats why everyone has one, even Bubba!

[Flatus Veteranus]

That's about the size of it, Flygunz. To get anywhere in the USAF you need a "Master's", which equates roughly to a 2/2 from a UK "plateglass". Even I, with a very ordinary class in PPE, was offered a lecturership in Economic History at the University of Nebraska!

[Hertz Van Rental]

I suspect that my collegues are being unfair both to the US educational system and to those dedicated officers that work all day then study hard at home for many years to attain the Masters needed to advance beyond Major.

In the 80s the RAF was attempting to recruit about 1/3 of it's officers from the graduate population. Don't know it it achieved this. What you actually need to consider are the pros and cons of having a degree in the RAF, not whether all your mates will have one. On the plus side you will probably join as a more rounded individual and so increase your chances of surviving the training; it also gives you a fall back career if you don't. On the downside, you are a more rounded individual mainly because you are three years older than non-grads. This is not a problem in training, but those extra years will work to your disadvantage downstream if you intend to run the joint; the military can become quite ageist when it comes to promotion and command tours.
If you are tempted by the "In Service Degree" (an OU course), think very carefully about whether you will actually have the time and opportunity to study once in productive service.

[Nearly there!]

I reckon about half to two-thirds of the current RAF pilot intake have degrees. Rumour control has it that the top brass are looking to reduce this proportion, because they want people to reach the front line aged 21 instead of 24. However, given that Tony apparently wants universal higher education, the pool of suitable non-graduates will surely reduce over the next few years (with the honourable exception, of course, of cadets who are so committed to a flying career that they decide to skip uni). As an aside, it's funny how often policy changes on this matter - six years ago a friend of mine applied to the RAF straight from sixth form and was told to go to uni first (without even being OASC'd)!

As regards your choice of subject, I would say it has absolutely no bearing at all on your career. Specialist knowledge from (e.g.) aerodynamic engineering or avionics degrees is not required - RAF training courses are designed to cater for the lowest common denominator. Some of your future colleagues may not have done maths or physics since GCSE! So go ahead and pick the course that you will enjoy the most...

As for choice of university, that's a different matter, and one that would prompt an eternity of bickering.... so I won't even go there!!

[BEagle]

And the wheels on the bus go round and round......


Im 1968 the 'traditional' Cranwell course stopped being the preferred entry method (there was also some secondary modern place in Bedfordshire) and we were urged to become 'aerocrats' (yuk!). This meant going to university as an APO, paid about twice a standard student allowance, automatic membership of the UAS and then preferential 'Green Shield' promotion whilst going through the Cranwell Graduate Entry course. This was quite gentlemanly; some basic foot drill (no rifles, just standards and swords) basic Officer Training, a bit of PT (no running about in cabbage kit like a brain dead grunt), 3 training exercises and then basic flying training to wings standard. The whole Cranwell phase took about a year.

It was a very good deal for the average person - and the pay was very good at university. The promotion aspect occasionally led to some strange quirks - such as the student who went straight from Plt Off to Flt Lt thanks to seniority gained from previous apprentoid time and a year as a Flt Cdt. Another chap who'd done a 4 year course actually outranked his ex-DE blunty Flt Cdr......

But it was expensive. Now there are some who would like young pilots to join without the benefit of 3 years sponsored alcoholism and applied fornication at University (and they've done there best to discourage this by binning the 'real' cadetship scheme for pilots, making UAS life far more difficult and cutting the pay down to virtually nothing - even for 'bursers') - because they allege that TypHoon needs younger, more agile minds than mellow, cynical graduates. Or perhaps it's just that they can get away with paying people rather less if they arrive straight from school.....

So unless you want 3 years of hard sums, the stress of UAS assessment and the same Cranwell regime as the schoolkids, there ain't much point in getting a degree just to win any significant advantages towards your time in the RAF (as we all did!). However, it's an invaluable insurance policy to fall back upon if you are unsuccessful during RAF training and subsequently choose to go elsewhere. Then, if you only intend to stay in for sufficient time to win the 2000hrs-to-ATPL concessions after 10 years or so of excellent flying, you will be highly likely to need a degree on your CV to further your chances of airline employment.

If I were you? Go to University, but choose a pleasant part of the country and do a degree like Geography (it's in English, lots of babes, lots of field trips....). Cetainly not something like Aero Eng at Impossible College in expensive Larndin! Do NOT join the UAS in your 1st or 2nd year, join the OTC or URNU. Then, in your final year, apply to join the RAF. Time it so that you go to DORIS after a post-finals freedom break. Tell them that the reason you didn't join earlier was that you needed to devote as much time as possible to your academic work - and didn't feel that that would leave you sufficient time to do as well at the UAS as you needed to.....a shame, but that's down to the current policies.

You will then go to Cranwell, do the running around and saluting course, then probably go to a UAS 'DE' flight to do nothing but learn to fly and enjoy life! So you'll have a much better chance of making it to FJ training.... It seems that the UASs are going down to the 'Regional EFTS' status which I first suggested in 1990 - looks like I was right again.

It's a tragedy that you'll never enjoy the terrific deal we all had in the 70s - and I really regret that I can no longer recommend that you join the RAF whilst at university. But they've brought that on themselves through thoughtless bean-counting policies, I'm afraid.

[teeteringhead]

I go along with BEags (who appears a close-ish contemporary), but the in-service degree also sounds a good bet, particularly as the RAF training will give contributory "credits". There are details on the OU website (http://www3.open.ac.uk/credit-transfer/previous/text19.htm), but basically professional aircrew training gets you nearly halfway to a degree. (First degree at OU is 180 points - with no time limit) Staff studies (ISS etc) also attract credits, if you can be @rsed to do them. I've managed to do OU courses while in busy flying jobs, and that's after several decades killing braincells at happy hours......

BTW, El Presidente's idea that all should go to Uni compares to 7% who went when I joined the RAF (and I turned down Uni offers and a Cranwell cadetship [sorry BEags - but I wasn't in Bedfordshire either!] to get into a cockpit asap).

We must get people onto sqns younger; if you're going to work back from an Air Marshal in his 50s (and they were all fg offs once!), you inevitably finish up with a 28 yr old sqn ldr - which you ain't going to get if he's a 26 yr old first tourist!

I'm sure I'd have sh*gg*d and drunk myself into being sent down from Uni anyway, whereas such behaviour was more acceptable (almost compulsory) in a JP - and better paid too - and overseas - and I was flying real aeroplanes!;) ;)

[BEagle]

Did you really manage a sh@g in a Jet Provost.......?? If so, then "Respec', Bro"!

Or did you mean as a Junior Pilot?:D

[kbf1]

"Respec'" ????

Yeah Gads it's quite scary when Beagle shows some appreciation of popular culture!

[Dunhovrin]

Don't you know he's da main man of the Carterton massive (or was that the Belfast?)

[Axel-Flo]

In days that are not that far back in the good old days FOLA and FLAG had a real and positive effect on the enlisting and moral of the Greensheilders.........where are they all now? IRA, INLA all perfectly legal and useful organisations seemingly now defunct, is this all we can expect with the influx of graduates?:confused:

[Arkroyal]

I know some airlines think that pilots come by the pound or kilo..... But until they do, should the thread not be entitled 'Number of pilots' rather than 'Amount'?

And I only made it to 'O' Level.:D

[Tigerformation]

I'm going for uni for the pure fact of going to uni and all the fun that goes with it! For the BSc after my name, accelerated pay and extra chips in the mess ;)

[Axel-Flo]

There is still a role for FOLA and FLAG then!:D

[Dunhovrin]

Yes,

As gofers for graduates...

[Blacksheep]

So its impossible for a university graduate to become an Airship? That explains a lot... ;)

**************************
Through difficulties to the cinema

[Tigerformation]

Thanks guys for all the advice you've given, hope that I make the right choice. I think its a case of weighing up the prospect of a better career move within military service and what I want out of the job.

Regards

Tiger

[MajorMadMax]

HvR

Hear hear! As a USAF major, I have been busting my hump to get a master's degree in my "spare" time. Unfortunately, it is in a marketable area (information systems), so instead of using it to advance my military career, I will be using it to advance my income. I will hit my lieutenant colonel promotion board at 19 years of active duty service, if I get picked up (and it isn't hard nowadays with 85% promotion opportunity), I would wait about a year to pin it on, then have to wear it for two years to retire in that rank. However, I know damn well that during those two years the USAF will provide me an "opportunity to excel," meaning a remote assignment (possibly a command), meaning no family. To which I will respond by putting in my retirement papers anyway, as if I didn't I wouldn't have to worry about my family because I wouldn't have one any more! Therefore, with the opportunity to make some decent money, and to get away from the abortion of a personnel system the USAF has (I my boss, a lieutenant general, recommend me for a specific assignment In Germany, and the USAF sent me to Belgium. They probably think it is the same country!) means I will be "punching out" at 20 years. Hate to leave the service, it has had its ups and downs but mostly it has been a great experience; but we are getting jerked around more and more (like having to have a graduate degree), and it is getting to be too much.

Just my €.02!

Cheers!


"I suspect that my collegues are being unfair both to the US educational system and to those dedicated officers that work all day then study hard at home for many years to attain the Masters needed to advance beyond Major. "

[Bus14]

I'm a woodentop (non graduate) through and through, even to the point of admitting to attending 'that place in Bedfordshire', so please feel free to take my opinion on graduates with a pinch of salt.

As far as I am concerned though neither military or civil aviation requires a degree (I've done 11 years plus in each). The best pilots will achieve degree level knowledge, but as has already been said, this can be achieved on the job, whether formally or not. Aviation is like many other careers, where people are being pushed into doing degrees for no particular reason. In many, like nursing, it actually damages the capacity to do the basic job in hand (in the case of nurses, the job in hand is often attached to a pilot!)

The Merchant Navy had it right (when we had one), what they wanted was 5 O'levels and keen to go to sea; they provided the rest. In my own case (9 O'levels, 2.5 A'levels) I have progressed quite happily to fast jet pilot, Senior Airline Training Captain, FRAeS, and freelance Human Factors Consultant without a degree.

I'm not knocking graduates, or 3 years of deabauchary, just suggesting that the recruitment system has no need to seek a degree as a pre entry requirement.

[griffinblack]

I have found that a lot of the guys/galls who go to the various military institutions to gain their degree also gain a marvelous characteristic called the 51% mentality. Most of them have been studying all their lives and are sick and tired of it. they are then face with the most challenging experience of their lives and they often cope badly.

a degree has no correlation with a high intelligence. don't waste 3 years of your life!!

[Double Asymmetric]

I can say with a great degree (boom! boom!) of certainty that my military-sponsored Bachelor of Hang Gliding (okay, with a submajor in Arts) has in no way helped my subsequent military flying career. However, seven contact hours a week in third year whilst being paid wasn't too shabby! Just don't lose sight of the end game.

[laidbak]

Living in US, I observe that, to get anywhere, one is pressured from the get-go to attain some kind of higher education check in the box.
Criticism of Baccalaureate US degrees has some foundation, but of course there are also good schools (sidebar- a major problem with education in US is that, in the supposed interest in preserving individual State's rights/autonomy, no one will agree to a 'universal' syllabus).
Associate degrees (foundation/conversion to baccalaureate) are all the rage, and though in many cases a joke, necessary to try to move up the food chain.
As to whether degrees have applicability in the military- probably not, but that depends on current policy from the Brass. They can however be a good backstop in transition to civvy street- I speak from experience. My Bsc in Under-Water Basket Weaving got me where I wanted to be living after Endex (oafs duly impressed when I pointed out that a Brit 3 year is at least equivalent to a US 4 year BS. All the stuff about Uni being worthwhile is true. An observation : if you join up and have major career aspirations (Marshal of the RAF, Chairman Joint Chiefs), there's something wrong wit' you, though you'll probably go far in a 'peacetime' military.
Acronyms(US):
BS- Bulls**t
MS-More s**t
Phd- Piled high and deeper
Anecdote : 2 days to first year college exams, was taking rays on roof of tower block residence during last good summer in UK(1976) putatively studying Physics notes.. awoke to find, as binder was unclipped, most of pages had gone awol in breeze. Kept finding odd pages for days afterwards, scattered across campus.

Through difficulties to Asda
F.I.D.O.

[The mother alligator]

Hi Tigerformation, I am in exactly the same position, have applied to universities, but am applying to the RAF again next year as a DE. I applied this year for the pilot scholarship (what a mess that scheme was) and was told to improve on my part 2 stuff. Hopefully they will accept me next year, I really just want to learn to fly and live life in the RAF. I know that I am the kind of person that they are looking for, as I passed the interview, and I think that it will just be better for them to accept me now instead of in three years time (with a severe deficiency in brain cells). Good luck in whatever you want to do, TMA.

[Dukeyboy]

Well, Im currently on a JEFTS course numbering 6. Two guys on the course have degrees. In the course after me of ten, 3 have them.

[BEagle]

Out of interest, Dukeyboy, is there a significant age difference between your graduate and non-graduate colleagues?

How times change. Back in 1973 the emphasis was on getting a degree to join the RAF and most of us were 22-23 when we started officer training. But we wore Fg Off rank and were paid as such - then became 'Green Shield' Flt Lts about a year later.

[caspertheghost]

I think one of the main reasons they're trying to attract pilots straight out of school these days is so they can actually get more productive service from them.
I applied to join when I was 16 and was told to apply for the bursary/cadetship scheme as that's what the RAF needed at the time apparently. After 4 years at Uni, 5 months waiting for IOT, 6 months at Cranwell, 4 months holding for BFJT, a year at Linton, another 4 month hold and now with Valley still to come, (no doubt with another bloody hold before 19Sqn!) I'm going to be at least 27 before I'm combat ready. If I get selected as a (spit!) creamie I'll be pushing 30 which only gives me 2 tours to get more bitter and cynical before I can leave with a pension!

Compare that to the guy who comes in at 18 and reaches the front line at age 21/22. I know which one makes better sense to recruit from a financial/productive viewpoint.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my time at Uni and got an extra years seniority out of it, but the RAF seem to be wanting them younger these days.
Hope this helps.

[Pontius Navigator]

As a direct entrant navigator I was on 'full receive' mode during training. The one graduate out of 100 was distinctly 'above' the rest of us. He was still odd 15 years later.

Look at the graduation lists now. About 9 out or 10 have a Science or Engineering degree often at Masters level.

Yes you get your first operational tour at 27. Me, I was on Ops at 21 and Flt Lt at 23.

Does the degree help? I think it does in the ultimate career progression but not early on. A Maths 1st was unable to add 2+2 when under pressure. 0859 plus 2 minutes became 0861!

I have almost completed my degree now and it is certainly very helpful although entirely irrelevant - humanities.

Never mind the quality, feel the width.