Is AVI (Coast Guard Aviator) a Good Rating?

AIT / Training

52 weeks

Training Location

NAS Pensacola, FL

Career Field

Aviation

What the Recruiter Says

As a Coast Guard Aviator, you'll fly the most daring search and rescue missions in the world. From pulling survivors out of hurricanes to interdicting drug smugglers in open ocean, you'll pilot advanced aircraft in conditions other aviators won't touch. You'll earn your wings and join the most elite rescue pilots on the planet.

What It's Actually Like

You fly helicopters into hurricanes on purpose. Let that sentence just sit there for a moment. While every commercial pilot in America is diverting 200 miles around the storm, you're pointing your MH-60 Jayhawk directly at the eye wall because someone's shrimp boat made poor life choices and there are four people clinging to a hull in 30-foot seas. The rescue footage on the evening news is incredible. What they don't show is the three hours of paperwork per flight hour, the annual swim qualifications where you get dunked upside down in a pool in full gear, or the 2 AM alert launch where you go from dead asleep to flying into zero visibility in eleven minutes. Your non-military friends will always, ALWAYS ask 'wait, the Coast Guard has pilots?' Yes. Yes they do. And those pilots have more flight hours in worse conditions than most military aviators will see in an entire career. You have performed hovering rescues in 60-knot winds, lowered rescue swimmers into seas that would sink a small boat, and medevac'd people from cruise ships at 3 AM — and you still have to explain what your branch does at Thanksgiving. You have the most objectively badass flying job in the entire armed forces and the least recognition. The airline industry will hire you in a heartbeat. You'll fly in clear skies and wonder why your hands aren't shaking.