The Military
 

So recently I have decided that while I am going to finish my degree in CS, I am relinquishing my goal of being a programmer and looking at joining the military to become a pilot.

I like programming, but I have always enjoyed the idea of flying.

Because the military requires me to become an officer I have to finish my degree, in CS since I only have 2 years left, they will pay for it too, and I suppose that one I am done with flying I can always find a career working in simulation/training or some other computer/aviation background--I am sure there are many jobs that pay really well for this field, lol.

Now, lets just hope I can get in. I have started a physical training plan to get myself ready for the entrance tests. My martial arts has fortunatly helped a lot with this, should not be difficult.

Do you think it is strange? lol. I don't imagine too many other people here ae active with the military, or are there?

I don't think it's strange.
Why should it be strange to be what you want to be?
I'm not active in the military but my brother and some other family is.

Good choice, the military is good if you like job security. Getting into any air force to fly aircraft is very very hard these days. You will need to be very fit and have perfect vision. If you dont haver perfect eyesight you will never fly a high speed jet, and you will only be able to fly multi engine or roatry wing aircraft.

You do realise that if you get in and they pay for the last two years of you degree you will probably be locked into it. Its difficult to get out of it. Also when you sign up as an officer(especially as a pilot) you will have a minimum term or 12-16 years. Its a long long long time, make sure you are ok with spending 6 months or more in another country away from friends and family. They might want you to become a non flying officer as you will(hopefully) have a CS degree.

What martial art do you do? That will be a good thing to talk about in your various interviews.

When you finnish you could always become a civil pilot, though that is getting to be a crappy job as you never know when the airline you work for is gona go bankrupt.

I once looked into joining the RAF, i very nearly singed on the dotted line. I just was not 100% sure i wanted to be in the armed forces. I have some moral objections to current conflicts and i really dont know that if i had to complete a mission that i knew would kill innocent people or was in my opionion just morally wrong that i could carry it out. I thought about it for quite a while and i backed out, i dont want to put myself in that sort of situation especially if it would risk the lives of others fighting with me.

My advice: get very fit, go for an eye test, and hope to god you are good enough to pass the tests they will make you do. Best of luck. :)

Yeah, I was the same way JimmyJim. I would join the army, but I can't take orders, and no amount of screaming would change my decisions in the long run:p

Fairly odd. When I was little all I ever wanted to do was fly fighter jets for the USAF. Being that my vision was poor, I took up my next interest... programming. After graduating college and in the job force for a while, I was fixing to join the marines... but I backed out of it and stayed in programming. The closest I have gotten to the military is programming for the US DoD. :)

btw: A switch of interest is common. A friend of mine was near the top of his class, he left programming and went into theology to become a priest. Hah.

Good luck Kurifu...

It is not just about eyesight... it is about height too. That was my brothers achilles heel... at 16 he was over 6' which ruined his plan of going to Embry Riddle and becoming a fighter pilot. A few years of wasted flight school and a broken dream.

Actually here in Canada they are desperatly looking for pilots right now, they are offering incentives to get people in on the program. I am actually not interesting in flying the CF18 (fighter) jets, preferrably I would like to fly the Auroras, they are a turbo-prop based carrier.. I will settle for chopper too though.

The CF18, and CF16 jets have the most restrictions with height and weight, I am a very light person and of moderate size so I actually meet the qualifcations, I just dont' want to fly a fighter jet, lol.

The default contract for ROTP (officer training) is actually a 5 year term, renewable to 10 years or 25 years if I perform well. I don't have a problem with being indentured, because I know I would enjoy it.

And I have 20/10 vision, what more could they ask for? lol.

Now when I retire I will have a background in computer science and my pilots license, so actually I would probably look into moving into some sort of computing background if I don't want to be a pilot, leaves many options open for me. If I continued to fly I may even consider commercial flight which seems to be a little more prosperous right now for employment, but that is not something I really need to worry about in the mean time.

And as far as the travel goes the Canadian army is very good at accomodating living arrangements with families, though yes I understand that I could be spending 6 months every three years total away from family, this is not a concern for me. It would however give me and my S/O a chance to travel a bit and possible even see other parts of the world. I have spoken with other military members about this and they say it really isn't as bad as some people would have you think, the military will actually attempt to accomodate these situations.

I actually do multiple martial arts, training 12-26 hours a week, it is pretty intensive. And once the summer is over I will actually be teaching karate to children 8-14 which I know looks really good for an officer program application. I actually did the website for our academy http://www.kindai.ca (though it will be offline for a few days as I move everything over to a new host).

This is similar to what I want to do. I want to get a CS degree then move on to becoming an airline pilot.

However, if I were to follow your path: to join the military after my CS degree. Jimmy says:

Now does anyone know if laser eye surgery counts? I’m asking because my vision isn’t perfect right now.

If I hadn't been in a serious relationship since I was 18, I would have already joined the Air Force. I have ALWAYS said that if I don't end up doing anything with my CS degree, I would become a pilot.

The Air Force was a serious consideration, seeing as I could fly for 5? years, and then have them pay for my schooling. But my relationship with my girlfriend came first, so here I am paying for it on my own :P

I considered the air force, and from everyone I know that's in the military, the air force is the best branch to go into. I know someone who was a base commander for the USAF back in the day and has a masters in CS. He did stuff for the air force developing computer systems and did some work at GM and ford, he developed their timing systems for the daily production schedules and was one of the first at GM to discover the secret of a vast performance increase by using hard drives instead of tape :)