First Duty Assignment

Parked on the CG's Lawn to prep for a VIP movement

After flight school, I got assigned to a TDA unit.  If you don't know what that means, it just basically means that it's non-deployable.  There are a few out there, most of them are Medevac or VIP.  It can be good and it can be bad.  For me, it was great.  All of the people I know that went to TDA units out of flight school are getting consistent hours and obviously don't have to worry about deploying.  Most of my friends that went to MTOE units took awhile to get started flying, and don't fly that much when they are stateside.  However, generally they are flying a good amount of hours during deployment, and they get that aviation deployment under their belt.

I average about 30 hours a month of flight time which seems to be pretty good upon asking around.  Also, I'm really happy with the mission that I am performing.  I am qualified in almost all "special mission tasks" with the exception of Caving Ladder and Water Bucket Operations.  I am qualified in FRIES, SPIES, Helocast, Paradrops, and Rappells.  Although passenger movements are our bread and butter, we perform those special mission tasks on a fairly regular basis.

Arriving To Your First Aviation Unit

I arrived at my first duty station with 1 other WO1 and one more incoming a month later.  Most of the time you will arrive with many other WO1s and LTs, but since I was assigned to a small flight company that was not assigned to a CAB, it was just us.  All units are different, so YMMV, but I didn't experience any WOJG games, or "hazing".  After a few weeks of in processing, it only took me about a month or so to get on the flight schedule.  I just found out who the flight scheduler was and asked if I was going to be on the schedule every couple of weeks.  They have to work with the Standardization Office to figure it out to get you through RL Progression though, so be patient.  You want to be eager, but not pushy.  Show that you want to fly, but don't annoy anybody about it.

Performing FRIES

Before I started flying, I spent most of my days studying.  It is VERY important to have solid oral knowledge. Many times an IP will do an oral evaluation with you well before you start flying, and if you've arrived with other junior aviators, they will use this to base their decision on who gets to start flying first.  So, I spent my time in the books.  Also, since you have the time, don't just study using study guides.  Actually get into the publications and read them.  You'll learn new things, and refresh on things that aren't considered "important" in those study guides.  

Starting RL Progression

If you are unfamiliar with RL (Readiness Level) progression, it is a series of flights that are used to progress you to a fully mission capable pilot.  When you arrive at your unit, you will probably receive a Commander's Evaluation to determine where you are at with your skills and what RL they are going to place you at.  RL3 is for crew members that are undergoing training in base level tasks (1000 series in the ATM).  Once you are considered proficient in RL3 tasks, you will be designated as RL2.  RL2 is for crew members that are undergoing training in additional and mission tasks (2000 and 3000 series). The tasks that you will be train on will be dependent on your unit's METL (Mission Essential Task List), or the tasks that your unit is authorized to perform.

Performing SPIES

You have 90 days to progress from one RL to the next.  My progression from RL3 to RL1 took about 5 months.  This was due to a couple of different factors.  There was one month that I didn't fly at all right after I started progression, and then during progression I was sent to the ALSE course at Ft. Rucker which was a over month long.  In addition, I had to get proficient on all of the mission tasks that we perform at our unit.  Another factor is the climate of the standardization office.  At the time I was in progression, they wanted to see every task performed to a satisfactory level multiple times before signing off that task.  For example, if I went out and did Paradrops satisfactorily, the IPs wanted to see it a few more times before signing me off (which isn't required).  The nice part was that I got a lot of hours during progression.  It is really nice to get through progression and be able to fly with pilots that aren't IPs.

Additional Duties
One of the things that you'll find out, if you didn't already know, is that your job as a pilot isn't just being a pilot...unfortunately!  Each untracked pilot has some additional duties.  The types of duties will depend on the unit.  Since my unit is fairly small, I was assigned a lot of additional duties.  Some were bigger than others.  My additional duties were ALSE officer, NVG officer, OPSEC officer, Social Media Admin, Information Security Officer, and some other minor ones.  After about a year I was given even more including Master Resilience Trainer, Information Management Officer, Training Officer, Assistant Operations Officer, Traditional Military Gift Fund Manager, and Fridge Fund Manager.  So, I definitely have my hands full when I'm not flying.  Generally, you will be assigned as the fridge guy and possibly one or two small jobs and that's it.

One thing that I found out is that additional duties are what makes your OER (which is basically an annual performance review).  And good OERs are what get you promoted.  Being a good pilot, or knowing all about missions and aviation related material doesn't really have much a place in your OER....which I find unfortunate.  My primary MOS is UH-60 Pilot, but only a minuscule part of my OER is about my PRIMARY job!  But, I digress.  The point is to do well with your additional duties.  Not just because it will hopefully get you a good OER, but because it will help the unit as well.  And since, as Army pilots, we don't actually fly very much (especially compared to our civilian counterparts), you'll have a lot of time on your hands anyway.  However, don't let your knowledge slip.


After getting through progression, the next milestone that you'll have to hit is making PC (Pilot in Command).  I'll talk about that in my next post.