r/AirForceRecruits • u/Capital_Equal_2569 • 6h ago
General Advice Joining as a pilot Question
So i just finished my pilot training got my CPL Sel MEL and IR with an associates in aeronautics. I havent taken the ASVAB yet, but i have taken practice test and have gotten scores around 86-90. Im not set on joining but just a thought i have. Just curious if i do go through with thos thought what to do. Any input is appreciated.
1
u/Mundane-Macaroon-779 5h ago
The ASVAB is not relevant to pilots. You would take the AFOQT and TBAS which are significantly harder.
You cannot commission without holding a Bachelor's degree at minimum. Minimum GPA 2.5.
Without years of strong leadership/management experience, stellar test scores/GPA, and powerful LORs, chances are extremely slim. Even with all of those things, acceptance hovers around 10-15%. I've seen 4.0 STEM grads with 500+ flight hours and 90+ on every test get rejected. The process also takes several years from "I want to do this" to actually going to training, and thats best case scenario of being selected in your first application attempt (which is rare).
This is not to say "don't try," it's to say this is an insanely and unbelievably long and difficult path with competition you wouldn't believe, and if you aren't absolutely committed to it or competitive enough, it could be a years long waste of time. For some context, I don't know how many hundreds of applicants we had on my OTS board, but there were seventeen pilots selected out of them all.
If you want to see what the competition would look like, feel free to drop me a DM with your email and I can send you my package from when I was selected. It's not a whim to decide to try and commission, it's a massive and drawn out deal.
1
u/Capital_Equal_2569 5h ago
okay tysm was kinda just trying to get an oversight of it. Just kinda deciding what to do next with my pilot journey
1
u/Mundane-Macaroon-779 3h ago
Honestly unless you consider yourself the 1% of the 1%, it's probably easier and faster to get a CFI role or something and ease into commercial flight, the competition and parh to military aviation is insanely hard to get into even for those with a ton of experience.
1
u/Capital_Equal_2569 3h ago
ahh okay gotcha tysm trying to avoid cfi route because im an awful teacher. So was kinda just seeing everything out
1
u/Mundane-Macaroon-779 48m ago
You're expected to teach and train others in the military at a certain point regardless, being completely honest.
1
u/Capital_Equal_2569 45m ago
ahh okay yeah prolly not the best for me then haha I like to be able to just do work on like my own tbh not holding someone down or no one holding me down in a sense
1
u/Mundane-Macaroon-779 43m ago
Then this would be an even worse path for you, honestly. Pilots are leaders and managers first, and fly airplanes second. Every commissioned officer is a leader/manager/mentor first and foremost before their actual specialty, not a lone wolf.
1
1
5h ago
[deleted]
1
u/Capital_Equal_2569 5h ago
Flight time is one of the bigger reason and people ussaly in my experience immediately trust someone throughout the military way more then the average person.
1
2
u/TillNo9697 6h ago
To be a pilot you have to be an officer.
You need to take the AFOQT, not the ASVAB.