Posted: 7/10/2006 10:03:40 PM EDT
| Can you be guaranteed a spot in flight school (with any service) if you ask beforehand, get a yes answer, and pass through all of the schools you attend during your four years? |
this is true. nothing is guranteed in ROTC. EEven when you get your scholarship, that money isn't guranteed either :) Nothing is 99% final in the military, even if its in your first orders cut after commissioning. They can be changed VERY quickly. |
Depends on when they were telling the stories. There have been programs, such as NAVCAD - Naval Aviation Cadet, that were guaranteed aviation, but not recently. The NROTC midshipmen compete for slots a little differently than the Academy mids. But, as has been previously stated, nothing is guaranteed wtih the military. Aviation is very competetive, evreyone is trying to be number one, alot of times for pure survival in the program. Because when there are cuts they start at the bottom and work their way up. Best thing about ROTC - if you are on scholarship - you don't commit until the fall of your Sophomore year. So you essentially get your Freshman year of college free and clear. You can walk away after your Freshman year with NO obligation to repay in money or service. |
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The answer is no. But... There are ways to ensure you get it. ROTC is based on a OML (Order of Merit List)ranking system. What this means is that a cadet is ranked based on EVERY other cadet that is to be commissioned with them that fiscal year. So if you have EXCELLENT grades a good PT score and do well on campus with ROTC as well as good at the assesment coarse in Ft. Lewis you can get a spot if you pass the flight physical. This is by no means for certain. The OML used this ranking system broke into these basic componants. Grades 40% of OML ranking PT 15%, on campus PMS(Professor of military science at your school) 20% and LDAC (leadership development and assesment course at Fort Lewis) 25%. There is a way to somwhat gaurentee flight however. If you can get an ROTC SMP slot in a local National Guard Aviation unit you can request to commision into that unit. Since you would be drilling in that unit as a cadet and if you have a good reputaion they will most likely take you. If they say they will send you to flight school if you agree to commision in that unit if doesnt matter what the OML score is because the Guard can send whoever they want to flight school so long as the are commisioned or warrent officers. It is easy to go Active from the guard and since you are already an aviator if you do decide to go active later then you would be an AD Pilot. Active duty however you must go thru the OML. If you request AD aviation when you commission thru ROTC unless you go gaurd when you commission. Hope This Helps. |
When I signed the final ROTC written contract in during my senior year in college, it said only that the USAF was reserving a seat in class for me at a pilot training base, with the stipulation that this in no way guaranteed I would actually attend or complete Undergraduate Pilot Training, or that I would have a flying job on graduation. I was signing away the next 6 years of my life to them. Here’s a bit of my ROTC and UPT experience... The USAF has almost always had a huge surplus of pilot wannabes versus pilot slots, so they made it damn difficult for them, to reduced the candidate pool. I was offered a full ROTC scholarship five times throughout college, IF I would agree to take a non-pilot job. I refused every one, which sucked because I had to work full time while taking a full college course load. During ROTC training, prior to acceptance to UPT, you undergo numerous screening programs, designed to eliminate pilot candidates. If your GPA was below a 3.0, the USAF didn’t want you for any reason. Below a 3.5 and you wouldn’t get a flying job. ROTC boot camp washed out anyone who “failed to exhibit leadership and professionalism”. My flight screening program consisted of only five hours flight time to solo a trashed Grumman AA-1B from a short, potholed runway chopped out of a forest. And you were forbidden from taking any other type of flight training on you own (an order that I completely ignored). My freshman year in ROTC, we had 52 pilot candidates. During the senior year, there were 16 pilot wannabes left. At this time, the USAF confirmed our initial assignments. Only four guys in my unit received pilot training slots, so 12 guys who had busted their ass for 4 years, passed every hurdle the USAF threw at them, got navigator slots, non-flying jobs, or never entered active duty. So, I exit college with a 3.5, and a lieutenant’s bar, something I was darn proud of. Off to UPT. Until you actually graduate UPT, you’re dogshit, and other pilots will remind you of that daily. The program used to be 13 months, but cost cutting reduced flight hours and crammed everything into 11 months. The instructors said you have to meet the same requirements, but you have less flight hours to do it. UPT was tough. First three months was academics. Scheduled 12 classroom hours a day plus 4 hours homework. We complained that the reading assignments for one day of classes was over 300 pages, and were told STFU. They said it was possible that the entire 60-person class would graduate, which was a lie. You never knew the passing score of a test until the day of the test. This was because they frequently changed the passing mark to eliminate their desired number of students. Miss the passing mark (usually 90-95%) by one point, and you wash. They wanted about 45 students to reach the flying part of training. You were watched 24/7 while in UPT. Off duty, off-base conduct as well. Guys would get washed out for all kinds of BS reasons. One guy wore his flight helmet (green visor down) while driving his car downtown, just as a joke. Word got back to the base and a serious witch hunt ensued. They were going to shitcan this guy for “unprofessional conduct”. So, I passed all the academics and got to the flightline. 50 guys show up, and find there are only 30 chairs/desk positions. Not too hard to figure at least 20 guys are gonna get washed pretty quick. The T-37, in the desert, in August is a miserable flight. The cockpit can reach 120 degrees, the air conditioner is worthless at low altitudes, and the nav instruments were circa 1950s. The jets break often, but you still fly if at all possible. You fly a navigation mission with inoperative nav instruments cause the USAF doesn’t have the money to pay for a second flight. You are listed as receiving a nav training flight but you really didn’t get it, and you still have to pass a tough nav check ride. You have to meet higher goals on every flight, which really sucks if you’re one of the poor bastards selected to fly twice a day. Fail to meet a flight’s requirements, you got two more chances, then you washed. Airsickness was vaguely interpreted. Three minor instances and you’re gone. My good friend got washed because he burped really loudly, nothing came up, but they still called it airsickness, when it was just evolved gas. Your flying is monitored by sophisticated radar, although they don’t tell you about that. When you are flying solo, you are graded by a instructor pilot who reviews your radar data. One guy got washed because he lied about his solo flight work. His instructor told him to practice acrobatics, but he just chased clouds half the time. Many guys didn’t enjoy pulling Gs. And when you washed, it was quick and dirty. Lots of times the class would show up at the flightline at 0400 and realize a good buddy was missing. If the USAF had already spent lots of $$$ on your training, AND you had a degree in something useful like engineering, they’d keep you active duty and stick you behind a desk for 6-10 years. If not, you’d be made a civilian inside a week. The AF was also offering student pilots deals to quit UPT. One guy quit to get his Masters degree in mathematics at a civilian university, with the AF paying for everything. Another guy, who previously worked at Morton-Thiokol on rockets, quit UPT for a HUGE cash bonus and a job in Space Command. Even if you graduate UPT, you may be assigned a non-flying job, of the Air Force’s choosing. Lots of crappy jobs/locations in the service, that no one would voluntarily accept. As a 2LT, you are pretty low on the totem pole. You fill out an assignments “dream sheet”, but you’ll likely get the crappiest job/base that everyone senior to you is trying to leave. So, I graduated UPT, got qualified for Fighter/Attack/Recon, and got FAIPed (sounds like RAPED). First-Assignment Instructor Pilot, and got sent back to the same dirty, dust-bowl, one-horse town I thought I’d just escaped from. Only one guy (his dad was a General) in my class got a fighter. Everyone else got the shit aircraft other pilots were escaping from, transports, tankers, B-52s, and trainers. One guy actually got assigned a T-41 at Hondo, Texas. That’s a trashed Cessna 172 in a desert dust bowl. There was lots of booing and cussing during my class’s follow-on assignments ceremony. A couple of guys got their senators to start an investigation, but it didn’t change anything. And the news got better. I graduated UPT at a time when the USAF was downsizing their aircraft squadrons, so there was a glut of pilots. We were told quite clearly that our first assignment would be flying, but the second will be non-flying, and the third would probably also be non-flying. Pretty damn tough to get back into the cockpit after 6-8 years behind a desk. |
After reading some of the reasons for being cut from the program (  ), is rotary wing any different?After reading that one person in your USAF class got assigned to a fighter , how would this compare with the Army and Marines in rotary wing school getting assigned to attack choppers? Can someone describe the steps, challenges, tests, trials, and expectations to become a pilot in the Army, Marines, or Navy? My father wanted to become an aviator in the USAF but, he had to transfer to the Navy in order to be able to fly jets. The military has changed a lot since he was a pilot so I'm looking to people around here who have had recent experiences. Thanks for all of the information guys! |
Bump to see if I can get an answer to these questions... |
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Army ROTC used to have a program that garunteed a slot at flight school. They'd actually send you to Ft Rucker between your third and fourth year and you'd receive flight training to the point of soloing in the TH-55A. Once you did all that, you were garunteed a slot at flight school. My roomate in AVOBC was one of the last guys to go through it. I don't think there's such a program now as it simply cost alot of money. I know guys that were areospace engineers and didn't get AV. I branched AV and I had shit grades (2.07 GPA, needing 2.0 to graduate), BA in History, and really no redeeming qualities that would have indicated to me that I would end up being an Army Aviator. And I flew my ass off, probably getting twice as many hours as most of the folks from my flight class because I went to the Maintenance Test Pilot course. So there's no real pat answer as to what the Army uses to decide if you're going to flight school. I wouldn't have sent me, but they knew better and it worked out the way they thought it would. If you want to fly, Warrant Officer Canidates can get flight school garunteed. When I went to ROTC, after being enlisted, I just wanted to lead a platoon. I was figuring Infantry or Armor, and when they made AV a separate branch I thought it'd be fun to try that out. But my driving force for ROTC was to lead as a commissioned officer. In the Army you go to ROTC and get what they give you to perform that function. All else is really secondary. If you end up the platoon leader of a Laundry and Bath Platoon, you're still a platoon leader and still really doing the same job of leading. That's what ROTC is for, to provide 75% of those leaders to the Army. Yeah, it was cool wearing the flight suit, getting the flight pay, telling the "there I was..." stories to the girls, and I get to add another item to the list of things that many have not done, but the only reason I was flying was to enable me to do my primary job as a Lt or CPT, which was lead. Heck, maybe the Army wanted people that weren't Top Gun wannabes. There's no way to know what they think in the grand scheme of things really. Frankly, if you want to fly in the Army, go Warrant Officer. If you want to lead Aviators, then go ROTC and take your chances. You'll end up leading someone anyway, so it's all good. As to type of aircraft, you don't track into a type of aircraft until well into flight school. That's based mostly on how you do during flight school as to what airframe you track into. Ross |
| The Marines used to have flight contract back in the early 80's...your contract upon commisioning guaranteed a slot a flight school based on you meeting all of the "requirements"...however those requirements could and often did change. If you could not meet the eye exam, blood pressure, standards (I use those examples because I know guys who lost their air contract for them) at some point, you were dropped. There used to be a saying when we were at the Basic School---FIIGMAC...F**K IT, I GOT MY AIR CONTRACT. We used to laugh at the guys who thought they could screw off because they were going to flight school, then would get dropped for some reason on their most recent physical...come join us in the grunts fellas! Its what all real Marines joined for anyways! |
This man knows of what he speaks. There are three guys in my OCS class who are attempting to go Aviation. ONE got it, because the unit CO was familiar with him and he got all his paperwork done well. One other did not get his paperwork done right. The third was well known to the CO as well. The CO's only comment was 'F*** NO!' |