A Day In The Life Of A Pilot At U.S. Marine Corps
A Marine aviation pilot's day is highly variable, ranging from "ground job" and simulator training to actual flight missions, all shaped by deployment status and mission demands. Post-mission debriefs are crucial for continuous improvement, making the career a "challenging and different" experience compared to typical office jobs, as the interviewee highlights.
Military Aviation, Flight Training, Mission Operations, Pilot Life, Work-Life Balance
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Mark J. Desens
Military College Faculty
U.S. Marine Corps
U.S. Naval Academy
National Defense University
General Studies / Not Applicable
Aerospace, Aviation & Defense
Education
Honors Student, Veteran, Student Athlete, First Generation College Student
Video Highlights
1. There is no typical day in the life of a Marine aviation pilot.
2. A pilot's day may involve ground work, studying, flight simulation, and actual training missions.
3. When deployed, the mission dictates the daily schedule, including pre-flight preparations, briefings, flight time, and post-mission debriefings.
Transcript
What does a day in the life of a marine aviation pilot look like?
It's a great question, and one of the great things about being in that profession is there's no such thing as a typical day. Certainly, when you're in training, you always have your crew day as a pilot. But sometimes you're flying daytime missions, and a lot of times we're flying nighttime missions, so your day can vary when you come in.
A typical day involves an hour or two of ground job, and then most of your time is spent studying to fly, flying in a simulator, or flying actual training missions. That's where most of your time should be.
When you're aboard a ship or deployed, almost everything revolves around the mission. You basically set your clock by when your flight day is going to be, when you have to get up and get ready to prepare for your flight, when you conduct your briefings, and then when you go fly the mission. After every mission, we always conduct debriefs to talk about how that mission was and how to make ourselves better the next time we go out.
The great thing about being a pilot is it's really a lot of fun. A lot of times, the people who get into the military, especially aviation, do it because they want to do something challenging and different from just going to the office every day. For me, it combined the best of all those things.