Fighter pilots fly jets in combat. They defend troops and protect against attacks by enemy planes. The first step toward becoming a fighter jet pilot is to join one of the branches of the armed forces. The Navy and the Air Force are the branches that use fighter planes. The Marines have some combat aircraft, but their job is mostly in the area of supporting ground troops.
To fly in any of the services, you have to enter an officer training program. This can be done from the Naval or Air Force Academy, the Navy or Air Force ROTC, and Officer Candidate School. All pilots in the Air Force and Navy are commissioned officers, and in these two branches officers must be college graduates. You also have to meet the demanding intellectual, psychological, and physical requirements for officer training. Officer training involves a very detailed application procedure that involves turning over the application to the FBI for a full background investigation. It is crucial that you tell the truth in the application. Having a court record may not keep you from making it, but lying about it can.
During officer training you are treated much like an enlisted person in basic training. One goal of the program is to "weed out" those who can't handle the stress of being a military officer.
The physical requirements for being a fighter pilot are stricter than those for becoming a commissioned officer, particularly in the area of visual acuity. You must also be within a certain size range to fit into the cockpit.
Upon your commission, choose aviation as your preferred career field. If you have done exceptionally well in your commissioning program, you'll have the best opportunity of getting aviation as your career field. The particular branch of the service will have the final say-so on your career field.
Assuming you get aviation as your career field, you will go to flight school. At first, flight training is the same regardless of which aircraft you'll be flying. During flight school you will have more freedom than you did in officer training, but pilots are the elite among the elite, particularly in the Air Force, and you're not there yet. You will still be fairly low in the pecking order as a student and someone who hasn't earned his or her wings.
In flight school, you'll learn the academics of aeronautics, meteorology, and other related sciences, and you'll learn to fly on simulators and in real planes. You will have to learn to deal effectively with stress. Some people will drop out from the stress. Flight school takes about a year, after which you will have earned your wings.
During flight school, you will be repeatedly ranked and evaluated, and the rankings will be posted. This means everyone knows where they stand relative to everyone else. As training proceeds, senior officers will review their needs for pilots and send lists of their open assignments to flight school. There are no guarantees that any of the assignments will be as fighter pilots. Pilots are assigned to planes based on their rank in class. The top ranked person gets first choice. Since fighter pilot assignments are the most coveted assignments, if there is an open assignment, you can be certain that they will be taken by the top ranked officers in flight school.
Being chosen for a fighter jet pilot assignment does not necessarily mean a seat in the jet, but rather a place in the school for fighter jet pilot training. Before your fighter jet training begins, you will be given wilderness survival training during which you will actually be left in the wilderness for a few days to put your knowledge to the test. Then you'll learn to survive on bugs and plants while at the same time evading enemy capture. Then you'll be "captured" and treated like a prisoner of war as part of your training.
If you make it through all this, you'll complete training in the fighter aircraft you've selected. You will be in that rarefied atmosphere of the best of the best. Once you complete that training, you'll have one of the most respected and coveted positions in the Air Force, second only to astronauts and test pilots.
Clearly, if you want to become a fighter pilot you should have a backup plan. As you can see, there are many reasons why you may not end up being a fighter pilot, so it is important to be realistic about your chances and have a back-up plan in place.
