Before or after you have your PPL, recommend you take every hour of training/ opportunity to get additional flight hours of experience while at USAFA including IFT or perhaps while on AFROTC scholarship, - even before. Some options outlined below. Beyond the academies or college, you just can't control whether you will fly for the military -despite performance/ talent/interest - as noted above. Just be committed to serve as an officer even if not a pilot if going this path- you may end up serving as an officer, say Cyber, but then pursuing a commercial pilot license part-time and total hours count toward your certs.
Just for your and other reader consideration, there are programs where you can gain flight experience/ flight hours prior to attending college or a SA. Might not help a rising senior unless already in these programs like JROTC or CAP, but might help future candidates.
- While in college:
- Aforementioned Programs at USAFA:
Airmanship involves flying, soaring, instruction in concepts of flight and navigation, and real-life application of these principles.
www.usafa.edu
- AFROTC: There are also opportunities to gain experience while in ROTC / scholarships available (last checked it was $4000.00 to earn flight experience/ hours if selected.
- Overall, recommend taking at least an orientation flight/ intro lesson or two in a small craft (Cessna 172 et al.) to see how you like it - not everyone who thinks they will, actually does. I had a sad conversation with a bookstore employee at a flight-centered university - he came there to be a pilot / had never flown, got a few thousand feet in the air in a cessna, panicked/ quit the program, switched to something else. Paying for a couple of flight lessons might have been a lot cheaper.
- Confirm the specific advantage mentioned above, that getting X number of hours would bring you toward being selected for a pilot slot when near commissioning- those advantages may change/ be redefined so keep tabs on where that lands.
- Just to reinforce that not everyone who attends USAFA ends up being a pilot. https://www.usafa.edu/the-breakdown-class-of-2023-stats/
The great majority of USAFA graduates do not have more than a PPL, most have less - getting one is not expected, One nice advantage of earning it is taking friends up for flights, flying over break, etc. all while the flight hours tally meter is running.
Post above notes the Air force way to fly. For those with prior experience, this has not been an issue for some, and yet has been an issue for others. I think humility and active listening/ attention to detail are key here to avoiding that being an issue. Through the opportunities above you can learn to fly from prior military pilots, and that's a great way to cover BOTH what you need to pass FAA checkrides AND the way to fly/ communicate to tower etc. in the military. DS spent hours "chair flying" with a military pilot, going over how to do things for the military vs civilian. Procedures, checklists, even the standard pre-flight steps. this was important as when pre-flighting with an instructor say on a 105 degree day, being able to correctly and swiftly executre pre-flight gets things off to a good start.
Hope any of that may help the communiuty - Good luck and thanks for his willingness and interest to serve.
