The Marine Corps, in its infinite wisdom, has done something pretty cool. The Basic School is a little backed up right now. Tim will not be starting TBS until June 15th. Rather than have them sitting around doing virtually nothing, 11 of them were sent up to Manassas to a private flight school. He will have a private pilot's license by the time he gets down to Pensacola. I have never heard of this before. It seems to me the Corps wants their guys going down there with one up on the Navy candidates coming down there. I think its pretty cool that they are doing that. If you or I went out there on our own and did this, it would probably cost us beaucoup bucks.

Jim, Tim's in for some hard work, but it's so much fun. What good luck

Wow, fantastic Jim.

Jim,

A PPL between now and June 15th?

That's pretty intense. How many are going? Will each candidate have his own instructor?

To me, it sounds like taxpayer money well spent. Rather see them getting a start on the training than doing nothing.

He'll have a blast! Hope the weather holds out for him.....

Keep us undated. Anything aviation I want to hear about :-)

Yes, they must make a muster roll call at 0700, then they are off to Manassas, which is about 15 miles from Quantico up I95. They do the whole class thing, do some flying in the afternoon, and they are done around 3 PM. It is 5 days a week, so I guess it is pretty intense. I just find it amazing that the Marine Corps would let non-Naval aviators teach them before they go to Pensacola. Something tells me that the instructors are all former Navy/Marine Corps aviators.

Jim,

When I was 25 and applied with the Air Force as a pilot candidate, I already had my PPL. Apparently, they liked the idea of folks coming to them already as a pilot - regardless of who taught them. As a matter of fact, I believe I may have gotten some preferential consideration because they could save some time & money and wisk me through to the next level.

BTW, I never actually joined. I wanted to, but I had some long term family issues that required my attention. Looking back, I was probably applying in an effort to escape those issues, but responsibility got the better of me. Besides, I didn't really want to shave my beard...... kind of a hippy in those days ;-)

Hope he does well. Part of me envies him.....

What does he hope to fly when he gets his wings?

I agree with Dave... taxpayer dollars well-spent
Thanks for the update.
I can only imagine Tim's quite ready to get in the cockpit and learn!

What does he want to fly? Well, he told me he wants helicopters, in particular attack Cobras. "Why," I asked? "I want to get up close and personal with those a**holes." Personally, I would rather he fly the President around in Marine 1, or a C-130 that drops supplies.