Top Gun was on TV today

My roommate just asked me "How many #$%&ing times are you going to watch that movie?!" I told him that I'd watch every time it was on TV... until I don't select Jets ("Tailhook").

The current state of the Naval Aviation Primary Selection process is pretty grim for guys wanting to fly a jet these days and it's making me wonder if it's a sign of the times. This week out of the entire Primary program... including everyone here at NAS Corpus Christi and NAS Whiting Field (our sister base with another 2 squadrons of T-34Cs)... there was 1 (ONE) Tailhook spot. If I had selected this week, there's a chance I wouldn't have gotten it.

My Grandmother in Connecticut routinely sends me newspaper clippings that she finds interesting. I think it's great because except for her I'd have little chance to keep up on current events. In a recent packet, she sent me a really interesting article about the Naval Academy's former food service division officer's second job as a prostitute (and you people wonder why I complained so much about the food there...). Also included was an article on the topic of the Navy's recent decision to cap the number of applications to NASA's astronaut corps. It highlighted especially the lack of demand for pilots in NASA due to the end of the Shuttle program.

I read an article today in one of the many aviation magazines found throughout our Ready-Room and learned that the Navy's already set a date for setting up its first squadron of "Unmanned Carrier Aerial Vehicles."

This is all compounded by the fact that very few countries produce fighter planes capable of taking us on and aside from the Russians, most of those are allies. If you watched the "Carrier" series on PBS you might remember that not one bomb was dropped during the Nimitz's cruise.

I'm not ready to say that the days of the fearlessly intrepid Jet Aviator are history, but prospects aren't looking great for young guys looking to prove themselves in the air. One of my friends who selected today even said that he thought flying a jet would be cool but that he'd rather do Helicopter missions.

It just seems like the technology is putting me out of a dream. There's no sound barrier to break, we've already been to the moon and with the current economic situation we're not going back for a while. There's no Evil Empire to defend against... not to say that the Russians aren't becoming more and more aggressive, but it just doesn't seem like the "old days." We control the skies over Iraq... not that there was ever a question because there's nobody out there to challenge us.

The point is that I think the Navy, the military in general, is seeing less and less of a need for tactical jets and reducing spots accordingly. Sure, a month ago, they were giving out Tailhook spots like candy to kids with grades well below my current average, but now I haven't heard of more than 4 spots for all of Primary a week.

It sucks because I want to prove myself in a tactical fighter. I want to break the sound barrier. I want to fly upside down. I want to fly in close formation at night and then land on the pitching deck of an aircraft carrier. I want to know what 30,000+lbs of thrust feels like. I want to look Duke Cunningham or Chuck Yeager in the eye and be able to say I can do what you've done.

The thing is that as highly motivated as I may be, that doesn't translate in the selection board. We recently had one of the higher ups tell us that he'd recently had lunch with an ex-Chief of Naval Operations who was a former patrol pilot and another ex-CNO who was a former fighter guy. They were both "heroes of Naval Aviation" and according to him "just goes to show you that it doesn't matter what you select." I respect his opinion and I fully understand his point, but in all honestly, I respectfully disagree. I want to serve my country in any way I can and not just be the best pilot I can be, but also the best officer. However, at this point in my life I don't have the desire to be the CNO, an Admiral (sorry Mom) or whatever. I just want to fly Jets and I think I'd be pretty damn good at it.

It also sucks because I'm doing really well in flight school... but I'm not the number 1 guy. So maybe I'm freaking out a little about this but it's the bottom of the 9th, the score's tied and I'm the only one up at bat. I've done all I can and whatever happens it'll all work out. If they give me helicopters, I'll fly the hell out of them, but I'm just not giving up on my hope until as Charlton Heston would say "they pry it out of my cold dead hands."

In other news, I have my last T-34C simulator EVER tomorrow morning and I have my Cross Country flight on Tuesday/Wednesday. I wanted to go to San Diego over a weekend but I was moved up to Tuesday (the day after my 10+hr flight coming back from Leave in Darien) and then I tried to go to Chicago to have dinner with a friend from the summer... but that was also nixed, so I'm headed to sunny Tuscon, Arizona... which should be cool mainly because I've never been to Arizona before...