Join Coast Guard?

Poll - Total Votes: 7

Good idea

Bad idea

You can only vote on one answer.

So I'm currently in the 1st semester of my sophomore year of college and I'm completely miserable. I want a job that actually pays money and feel like I'm serving a purpose. I'm interested in the coast guard because I'm really confident in and around water and because I love the water. I also really want to be a pilot. I feel like I could go to the coast guard and save up the money I make while serving to go to a flight school to get my pilots licenses and enough flight hours to be a commercial pilot. I would also have the GI Bill to help pay for flight school. I feel like it'd be a good option for me toward my career as a pilot. If I ever needed to then I could always go back to school and would have credits already completed that would be transferable. Do y'all think this would be a good idea? Or that this could really help me accomplish my goal of becoming a pilot and being able to find jobs as a pilot? (Of course not an airline pilot or anything like that right away but other jobs like a regional pilot?) what do y'all think?

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MikeSp · 56-60, M

Pilot here since 16. It's always best to get someone else to pay for your flight lessons. You could stick out college and go to OCS and meet all the requirements for a pilot training slot, but unless you want to fly a desk, make sure you can pass the physical stuff first. USAF currently has 2,000 empty pilot slots, and not enough airline guys want to come back in. Over the next few years there will be a lot of retirements which makes it harder to fight future wars.
You could enlist and get the GI Bill benefits, but if I heard right, it does not pay for your Private license which currently costs 6K-12K depending on the vendors. The PP ticket is not considered applicable to future employment because you cannot legally carry earn money with it. The GIB does pay for your Instrument and Commercial but only at approved Part 141 schools.
There are three areas of aviation: Military, Airlines (Commercial Carriers), and General Aviation. There are plenty of fly-for-hire opportunities in the latter; flight instruction, law enforcement, business jets, surveys, patrols, charter, etc. If you ever have any health issues, you should still be able to get the required Second Class medial cert with waivers or SODA's. There are only about 245,000 active pilots in the FAA database now and not all of them are flying. The civilian sector is also experiencing a shortage of comm pilots, and its only going to get worse.
Join aopa.org and eaa.org and read Flying mag every month for the latest info. Good luck.

Daniel1120 · 26-30, M

@MikeSp damn I really appreciate all this info! Honestly I'm set to be in Army ROTC for next semester but they require a 3.8 gpa just to be competitive to fly. So I don't think I'd be able to get a flight spot just because academics isn't really my strong point (I do decent but no where near that level, I'm a lot better at actually working/leading. Every job I've ever had I've been promoted to leadership positions) so I think I could go to flight schools to get my certs and licenses and try to just find fly-for-hire kinds of jobs to build flight hours until I can find a commercial job. What do you think?

MikeSp · 56-60, M

My first thought is similar to what I shared earlier: Not only get someone else to pay for your instruction, but all your hours. Military aviation is the best way to go, and everyone respects the superior training you get. So if you're struggling academically, get whatever tutors you need to help you. Study to the tests, don't try to become an expert in every subject.
OTOH, if you go civilian, being a CFII is probably the best way to build hours. Just make sure the school is financially stable. If you are aiming to fly biz jets, you will need multi-engine and turbine certs and logged time, but then you have to pay for it. That's why I still recommend military.
Look for some flight instruction blogs and forums and get other pilot's opinions.
Good luck.