Flight training before pilot slot?

[Boltonpilot]

For a while now, I've been dreaming of flying for the military after college. Is it a good idea to go through advanced civilian training (up to commercial-multi) if I have dreams of flying for the military? I've heard that some pilots have a hard time trying to get rid of old civilian habits when learning to fly the "military way."
I wouldn't want to build up a lot of bad habits that the military would not want in their pilots, then again, I'd like to know that I have plenty of civilian training behind me in case I don't earn a pilot slot for whatever reason.

Your thoughts?

[GirlInTraining]

FWIW, I did up through my comm/inst prior to going through UPT, but that was because I thought I would never be able to get a slot with my squadron.

For me, it hurt having prior time when I was going through the primary phase (T-37) because that "style" of flying was so much different than civilian flying. Learning the "roll, pause, power, pull" thing just about killed me.

However.... once I got through that, I've found having prior instrument time is a big bonus for flying during Phase III (mostly for the T-1/T-44/TC-12 crowd) - it just helps to have developed a good scan, good techniques for briefing/flying approaches, etc. Plus, hopefully studying for advanced ratings will give you some good study habits for getting through military training.

As far as bad habits, I really didn't find that at 250 hours I had too many. I think it would most affect guys who had been flying on the line for a regional/major and had their own SOPs and had to "relearn" the military way of flying, and you have to get rid of 10 planes worth of systems knowledge to memorize ops limits for whatever plane you're flying in UPT, wherease it's pretty easy to distinguish between C-172 ops limits vs. a military jet.

You have to ask yourself, though, if putting yourself in debt (unless you have a few grand of expendable income) to pay for advanced ratings is really worth it. It might make you *slightly* more competetive during the application process, but each board tends toward the "whole person" concept.

I'm sure the others will weigh in with their opinions too!

[MikeD]

I didn't have any problem, but then again, I went in with the attitude of "regardless of my previous experience, I'm a student here, and will sponge what they're trying to teach me. Any prior knowlege and experience, I'll apply towards air sense and judgement."