I'm just curious about the steps you go through to fly for the Air Force. One of my teacher's husband flew C-130's for 20-something years after doing ROTC in college.

So, say I did ROTC. After graduation, I'd be Second Lieutenant. What comes next? Do I head straight for flight training? And when I do get there what happens? From what I understand I'd start in a T-6 and try to earn a flight slot (and what happens if you don't win a slot?). If I win one I keep getting bigger and bigger aircraft until eventually whatever it is I'm going to fly for a living, right?

If someone would explain the process in depth to be I'd really appreciate it.

 

http://www.hec.afrl.af.mil/Publicati...SMStat.doc.pdf

It looks a bit dated, but it should answer most of your questions.

 

It goes something like this...

In order to be a pilot in the AF you need to first get commisioned as an officer. To do that you need to go through one of the commisioning sources (AF Academy, ROTC, OTS). Lets say you go through ROTC. At some point you will have to make your desire known to get an Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) slot. EVery AF pilot (even if you already have civilian licenses) goes through AF UPT. If you are competitive enough to get a slot then after you are commisioned as a Lt from ROTC you will go to UPT at one of the training bases. Currently Columbus, MS, Del Rio, TX, and Enid, OK are the training bases. Some people actually do part of their training with the Navy in Pensacola but we'll keep it simple for now.

UPT is 52 weeks long. You will start off on the T-6 (T-37s are being phased out). Everyone flies that for 6 months and then you do what we call "track select". This basically determines who is going fighters, heavies, helos, and C-130s. You'll rank the T-38 (fighter trainer), T-1 (heavy trainer), T-44 (C-130 trainer), and the helo and based on how well you did in T-6s and how well your IPs like you you will get assigned one of those aircraft. Classes are normally 20-25 students. Most of the people get T-1s, 1 or 2 will get T-44s (C-130), 5-8 will get T-38s, and 1 maybe two will get the helo.

Lets say you get T-1s. You finish up the last half of the 52 weeks flying the T-1. Near the end of training you will get a list of all the available airplane assignments for YOUR particular class. This is called the "drop". For the most part the same types of planes are available to every class but the numbers and the bases they are going to vary. After you get the drop you will rank all of the available assigments on your dream sheet/wish list and turn it in. Once again your class standing will determine what you get. For heavy guys you could end up with a C-17, C-5, KC-10, KC-135, C-130, E-3, C-21 (I think I got them all). From there you graduate UPT and go to 3-4 months of training for your specific airplane. Now that you are a rated pilot in the AF you can work all kind of magic. You are pretty much stuck in the heavy community but plenty of people bounce from one airplane to the other (at least once). There is always the opportunity to go back to UPT to be an instructor too...

Hope this helps...

 

Thanks for your post, it helped a lot!

 

That is the one thing about ROTC, you must be commissioned before you earn your pilot slot to UPT. So if you don't have the quals to get a pilot slot, you will be doing something else for at least 4 years. If you go the OCS, or OTS route, you can apply for that pilot slot before you get commissioned. If you don't get that slot, you don't owe Uncle Sam anything, if you do, you will go onto to OCS, which is in Pensacola for Navy folk, and get your officer training there. After commissioning, then you start flight school. But don't let any recruiters fool you by trying to get you to sign up for a NFO slot telling you that you can transition to pilot, it won't happen. For your first and second choices, put 1.) pilot and 2.)pilot, and nothing for 3.

 

Just make sure your GT score is 110 or above and you score at least an overall 90% on whatever Officer's Battery test you take, whether it's for the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines.

Oh, and btw....GET EVERYTHING IN WRITING!!!!


Best wishes & blue skies.


atp

 

You can always go guard too. AMS is sorter than OTS, and you dont have do silly ROTC things during college. You just have to get the guard job thats all, dont get me wrong that could be easier said than done, but its an option

I dont know what the GT is but, I took the AFOQT and the BAT tests. They were pretty stupid as standardized test go

 

How many hours do officers typically fly a month in the Air Force?

If any other pilots with other branches are out there, how many a month do you fly?


thank you for your service.

 

It all depends on what airframe that you are flying. The heavy guys fly more than the pointy nose pilots.

 

This varies widely and depends on factors such as airframe, crew qualification (copilot, first pilot, aircraft commander, instructor), additional duties, world situation etc. Generally speaking heavy pilots get more hours because of the long cruise times. I would say an AF pilot who averaged 50 hours a month was doing pretty good. That would give you about 600 hours a year. I would say the average heavy line pilot is doing somewhere between 300-600 hours a year. A lot of guys have 60+ hour months but at the end of the year when you throw in the non-flying things we do for training or officer stuff you rarely see someone manage to do 60 hours a month for a whole year and end up with 700-800. I think C-17 and C-130s are probably doing the most right now (although I cant say that for sure)....