SLAP
Ace
Wingman
Master of Strategery
Exam Ready
Forum Replies Created
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Have you taken the AFOQT or TBAS yet? If not, I would focus on knocking those out of the park. Scores in the 90’s plus an instrument rating and fire medic experience will make your application very competitive.
If you’re focusing on Guard/Reserve squadrons, you likely won’t need to talk to a recruiter. The BogiDope job board is connected to MilRecruiter, where most Guard/Reserve squadrons post their UPT openings. You will just apply directly to the squadron using the application instructions they post. Rarely will need to deal with a recruiter. It’s a different story if you’re trying to apply to active duty.
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@JCO – Everyone here got the military bug at different points in their lives. Some as kids, for me it was in college after 9/11, and for you, 43. It still makes you one of less than the 1% of Americans willing to serve, so I think it’s great that you’re trying to make it happen.
Have you looked into RPAs or CSO slots? The max age is 40, so although you would still need an age waiver, it’s likely an easier sell – and let’s face it, RPAs are the future, so it opens up a lot of interesting civilian opportunities too.
Thanks again for your desire to serve and welcome to BogiDope!
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@EricD – great to hear you’re not giving up! It only takes one squadron to say ‘yes’ to change everything and age waivers (if not hired before 33) are historically easy to get approved.
How much college do you have left? As you already know, time is not on your side, so do everything you can to expedite knocking out your credits.
Good luck and welcome to BogiDope!
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@WAS – Congrats on ENJJPT and good luck with graduate school. Get as much of your graduate school knocked out before ENJJPT (if that’s important to you…not really required for an AF or airline career if you intend to go down that path). I would not recommend trying to do graduate school during UPT, so you may decide just to enjoy those last 6 months of “freedom” with your wife and dogs before the demands of Uncle Sam take over. Just my $.02.
Keep us posted with your AFROTC –> Guard/Reserve pursuits. That seems like a great deal if you can make it work.
Good luck and we may be reaching out for you advice with optimizing AWS!
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@Gillian Here’s your to-do list:
1. Finish your degree ASAP (extra credit hours, summer classes…keep grinding until it’s complete)2. Maintain a good GPA (>3.0) while executing #1
3. Be the best A1C/Weather Forecaster in the Air Force. Earn strong EPRs and letters of recs from your supervisors. Let them know what your goals are and show them how hard you’re willing to work for it.
4. Knock the AFOQT and TBAS out of the park. You get 2 (maybe 3 depending on getting a waiver approved) chances to achieve the most competitive scores you can get. Everything is “superscored” so you should plan on taking both twice since it can only help your scores. You need three months in between attempts.
At this stage, nothing else really matters until 1-4 are covered.
Good luck!
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A guy in my first F-15 squadron was hired from the B-1 community, so definitely possible. Age won’t be a factor because you’re not attending UPT. The experience you’ll get in a stealth mission coupled with T-38 flight time will transition well into the 5th gen fighter communities.
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If selected, you would likely skip T-6s and go straight to T-38s.
Yes, technically, you just need a squadron to like you enough to submit all the waivers on your behalf, and you’re in. Unfortunately, as you pointed out, you have quite a few cards stacked against you, so you need them to like you A LOT!
It sounds like you’d be 35 at the earliest you can start AF pilot training (that’s assuming your age waiver, commissioned service waiver, and USMC flight records review go through quickly – not likely), which would put you 10+ years older than most applicants.
Again, not impossible, but if you don’t already have some connections at the squadrons you’re targeting, I would put your chances at <5%. That said, the only way to guarantee you never get selected is not to apply. Roll the dice and see what happens.
It sounds like your best bet will be to push for the USMC fighter slot. If you really want to switch to the Guard/Reserve, it may be worth opening your aperture to heavies.
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Each fighter squadron is different. The members of each respective hiring board within those squadrons change yearly, meaning different priorities, biases, etc. The point is, what I’m about to say are generalities but will at least provide a baseline.
A typical fighter squadron will receive 100-300 UPT applications for 1-2 available slots. Because there are so many applicants, they must make a cutline to start narrowing the field. The cutline can be any combination of AFOQT scores, PCSM scores, GPA, and flight time (objectively compatible metrics among applicants).
For example, a typical squadron may set the cutline at AFOQT Pilot and PCSM scores at/above 85, GPA above 3.0, and at least a PPL. That would probably narrow the field down from 200ish to 50-75ish.
They would then take the 50-75 apps and perhaps narrow it down more by including age and the other subscores of the AFOQT. This might get them to the top 40ish applicants. From here, they can dive deeper into the applicants to look for things like additional flight training, leadership experience, location, extracurriculars, etc. Some squadrons may conduct phone interviews or host a Meet & Greet to do one final level of cuts to the final 10-15 for in-person interviews.
Outliers that may make it through with lower scores: military members (esp if a member of that specific Wing or from the Spec Ops communities), college athletes, or some other unusual background.
So, here should be your personal baseline to make yourself competitive in a crowded field:
1. AFOQT Pilot > 90 (this impacts your PCSM too, so it’s a double whammy if you screw it up)
2. PCSM >90
3. PPL – This is expensive, time-consuming, and technically not required. But you are hurting your chances by not completing this. If you have to sweep floors and clean toilets at the local FBO to pay for flight time, you are not only building flight time but also demonstrating your grit, which will be required to complete all of your fighter training.
4. GPA >3.0 – For this conversation, having a 3.5 with a business degree is better than a 2.5 in mechanical engineering.
5. All other AFOQT subscores as high as you can get them.The emphasis on the AFOQT and GPA is one of the reasons we hired a dedicated tutor to help BogiDope members. You can take the AFOQT 2-3 times (3rd time requires a waiver) without penalty, so if your scores aren’t high enough, work with a tutor (either here or otherwise) to get above the cutline.
Hope that helps!????
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Just about anything is “possible.” but your situation is pretty unique so it’s unlikely you’ll find too many black-and-white answers. If hired, the AF would do an evaluation of your flying background to determine which training pipeline you’d go down.
Here are a few challenges:
1. Did you fly T-45s prior to the V-22?You’re a rated pilot, but your background may require you to attend certain parts of UPT still (e.g. T-38s & IFF if you never flew the T-45). Army pilots, as an example, have to apply to UPT boards because they have to attend all of UPT. Your current experience would likely make you a strong candidate among UPT applicants but a longshot in a rated board when competing against other fighter pilots who don’t require the time, money, and risk to train.
2. How old are you, and how much commissioned service do you already have?
Since rated boards may be too steep of a hill to climb, getting permission to apply to UPT boards (some squadrons will be ok with this, others won’t) may be your best bet. However, if you’re over 33 years old or have more than 8 years of commissioned service, you’d need a waiver for either/both. These waivers are easy to approve, but the squadron would have to be willing to do the extra paperwork (nobody likes paperwork!) when there is likely 100+ other strong candidates that don’t.
So, where does this leave you?
One of the greatest parts of the Guard/Reserve application process is that if you can make strong connections with a squadron and convince them that you’re the guy they should hire, they can move mountains on your behalf, especially in these unique one-off situations. The challenge, of course, is convincing a squadron you’re worth the effort. Having strong references/Letters of Rec and a clean flying record from the Marines, a strong cover letter and resume, and putting in the effort to meet squadrons in person will go a long way in selling the squadron on this idea.
Prepare for many “no’s” along the way, but it only takes one “yes” to get in. Good luck!
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@A_Foster Welcome to BogiDope and congrats on the AFRC pilot slot! I think you might be the third person in this thread who has gone down that path from the AFROTC, so it appears it’s starting to grow in popularity.
Which AFRC fighter squadrons/airframes are you focusing on? Unfortunately, there aren’t as many fighter squadrons in AFRC as in the Guard, but they have some of the best locations (F-22s in AK and F-35s in UT if you like the mountains and F-16s/F-35s in FL and TX if you don’t like taxes!):
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@Duck Welcome to BogiDope! I’m guessing by “hiring events” you mean the job board? If you click on Military Jobs under the Job Board tab on the main menu, you’ll see a list of all Guard/Reserve pilot jobs submitted to MilRecruiter.com (where squadrons post jobs and collect applications). MilRecruiter and BogiDope auto sync every 24 hours, so anything posted by a squadron on MilRecruiter should show up on the BogiDope Job Board soon after.
If you were talking about something else, let me know and I’ll try to steer you in the right direction.
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@Chase Welcome to BogiDope! Being an engineer and fighter pilot in the Guard is totally doable, especially if your Guard unit is in the same city.
You will have to go on military leave from your job for approximately 4ish years as you go to flight school and complete your “seasoning days” back at the squadron that hired you (your civilian job will be protected this whole time). After that you’ll likely need about 8 sorties a month to stay current (drops to 6 sorties for most fighters after you’re deemed “experienced”). 8 sorties doesn’t necessarily mean 8 days of work per month (you can often get multiple sorties accomplished in one day).
Work as an engineer Mon-Thurs and then go fly jets every Friday (the best day in the squadron anyway) and one drill weekend. That should be doable schedule to keep both your civilian and military bosses only moderately frustrated with your availability.
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@Falcon First, the obvious question…is that really your middle name? There has to be a good story behind that. Do tell.
Congrats on the scholarship! That’s incredible. I’m sure there are tons of people on BogiDope that would be very interested to know how to get some of their flight training paid for, so if you have any info/lessons learned to pass on to the group, it would be much appreciated. Welcome!
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@Boseph Thanks for the additional info. Clearly this path is not well advertised yet, because you were told that you couldn’t go to the ANG, but here’s an article written by one of our previous clients who did just that: http://bogidope.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-earning-a-pilot-slot-in-air-force-rotc-part-2/.
Maybe starting that forum discussion you mentioned would be a good way of consolidating these nuggets of wisdom in one central place. Thanks again for offering to help and congrats again on getting selected!
bogidope.com
The Ultimate Guide to Earning a Pilot Slot in Air Force ROTC, Part 2 | BogiDope
Share In part one of this article series, we discussed what Air Force ROTC is and what it is like. This article will detail how…
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@Keebler we could certainly use some more voices for Naval Aviation around here, so any knowledge bombs you can drop are always welcome.
It sounds like you may need a couple of waivers for your commissioned service time (and age?) but definitely doable with the type of background/experience you have. We’re looking to working with you. Welcome to BogiDope!
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Hi Ben – In addition to maximizing your AFOQT scores, I would start getting as much flight time as you can. To convince a hiring board that “this time around will be different,” you’ll have to be able to display measurable improvements in areas that caused you to wash out (e.g. more aviation experience, academic achievement, etc). Good luck!
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@Dub-J It may be worth messaging @Boseph about the AFROTC pilot slots in the Guard/Reserve. He may have some useful insight.
Regarding your AFOQT scores, I would reach out to @Tutor-Gunboss about setting up some AFOQT tutoring. He has a some great tactics for maximizing your scores. Good luck!
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@Boseph Congrats on the AFRC ROTC pilot slot! That’s super rare, so kudos to you. My understanding, though, was that you had to be “sponsored” by a squadron before going down that path. You got selected into the AFRC without a specific squadron assignment (“unsponsored”)? Can you share what that process was like (perhaps in a dedicated forum discussion)? I’m sure there are more than a couple ROTC prospects that would be interested to know the details. Was the ANG an option for you too, or just AFRC?
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@Waldrop Great story rejecting the naysayers and following your dreams. Glad to hear the BogiDope team has been able to help make your Army app competitive. Keep us updated on how it goes. Good luck!
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@SwollenOstrich First, great name. Second, congrats on getting selected for your dream Reserve unit, and thanks for offering to spread some wisdom to those trying to navigate a similar path!
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@Vance Thanks for joining! Were you able to finish your PPL in December? Are you trying to stay active duty or switch to the Guard/Reserve?
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@Biagi How was that first flight lesson? It’s going to be tough, but if it’s possible to complete your PPL, AFOQT, and TBAS in the next two months before your deployment, you won’t have to miss any application windows while deployed (March has historically been a month with a lot of UPT application deadlines). PPL isn’t a requirement to apply, so at the very minimum, knock out your AFOQT and TBAS so you can apply while you’re away. Your first solo is still a realistic goal before March and looks good on a resume. The point is, it’s going to be a busy few months to accomplish all of this, but it’s worth the effort so you don’t miss any potential opportunities. Good luck!