2024 Job Drops?

franknd said:
Any idea what percentage of UPT students report having never taken a flight lesson?
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No idea, but a private license is of zero use. I say that with 3000+ IP hours teaching UPT. One of my worst students was a MEI, regional Captain.
 
Can anyone help clarify or verify what I heard from my DS?
I understand from my C2C at USAFA that there is a new wrinkle (in the last year or two) in the way jobs are selected. He explained that class rank 1-100 gets jobs first, then 300-400, followed by 600-700, and then 101-299, 401-599, 701-until complete. Basically it spreads the wealth among the less popular jobs.
If this is the case the Astro major ranked 101 is no better off than the MSS major ranked 700…
 
T-37IP said:
No idea, but a private license is of zero use. I say that with 3000+ IP hours teaching UPT. One of my worst students was a MEI, regional Captain.
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Why do I have that Shania Twain song “that don’t impress me much” stuck in my head?😉
A couple of reactions. Wrt the example, I of course believe it. Don’t we all know a Lt. Norman Dike from Band of Brothers, a gaggle of “experts” with titles,ranks,certifications who are staggeringly incapable, ineffective? There are poor ambassadors from many an Alma mater, service academy, ROTC detachment or training program that make strong impressions.

Overall, the Air Force does at present make flight training moneys available for USAFA and afrotc cadets (prior to commission) and does capture data point inputs / includes flight hours as a contributing weight for pilot slot selection.

There is a no quarter asked, no quarter given (that don’t mean a thing) reset for all new officers who train to fly through the military regardless of prior certs or hours - it’s clear the prior pedigree means nothing and that’s fair. Arguably it to some counts against based on experience with others. Yep, Roger, Nothing new about that. Imo what differentiates is performance and preparation. Each must prove themselves regardless of pedigree. those who perform exceptionally will silence the doubt that may be present based on prior negative experiences with useless pilots with similar hours, certs out the wazoo. I know of one counter example of a prior MEI Ensign who dominated with performance in Nife/primary and just joined the jets aviation community of the Navy - his dream. Outside of needs of the service driving opportunity, Performance is the great equalizer.
 
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SF_DAD said:
Can anyone help clarify or verify what I heard from my DS?
I understand from my C2C at USAFA that there is a new wrinkle (in the last year or two) in the way jobs are selected. He explained that class rank 1-100 gets jobs first, then 300-400, followed by 600-700, and then 101-299, 401-599, 701-until complete. Basically it spreads the wealth among the less popular jobs.
If this is the case the Astro major ranked 101 is no better off than the MSS major ranked 700…
Click to expand...
I believe that is the newer trend in most of the selection/assignments over the last several years. No service wants to have one group be all top of class graduates while another critical (yet unappealing) dept is bottom of class. (Not that those officers can't be better, of course)

I would think the gamesmanship required to nail that coveted 300-400 in the middle would be very risky.
 
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SF_DAD said:
Can anyone help clarify or verify what I heard from my DS?
I understand from my C2C at USAFA that there is a new wrinkle (in the last year or two) in the way jobs are selected. He explained that class rank 1-100 gets jobs first, then 300-400, followed by 600-700, and then 101-299, 401-599, 701-until complete. Basically it spreads the wealth among the less popular jobs.
If this is the case the Astro major ranked 101 is no better off than the MSS major ranked 700…
Click to expand...
I don’t believe it myself.
 
T-37IP said:
No idea, but a private license is of zero use. I say that with 3000+ IP hours teaching UPT. One of my worst students was a MEI, regional Captain.
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Not to sidetrack the conversation, but I'm a USAFA grad with a PPL from years ago. Due to my PPL, I cannot go to IFT before UPT. I tried to send up a waiver, that got rejected because the AF doesn't want to waste resources on someone 'already prepared'. If I could, I would go to IFT in a heartbeat just to have the preparation and seeing how a military squadron runs. Any tips for someone who can't go to IFT and doesn't want to be the incompetent Lt with a PPL? Thanks.
 
SF_DAD said:
Can anyone help clarify or verify what I heard from my DS?
I understand from my C2C at USAFA that there is a new wrinkle (in the last year or two) in the way jobs are selected. He explained that class rank 1-100 gets jobs first, then 300-400, followed by 600-700, and then 101-299, 401-599, 701-until complete. Basically it spreads the wealth among the less popular jobs.
If this is the case the Astro major ranked 101 is no better off than the MSS major ranked 700…
Click to expand...
Air Force did this in 2015 since there was such a huge need for missileers. They did it again in 2019. I don't know if they had to do it this year, but I would not be surprised since there was a cut in the number of pilot slots. I would also not be surprised if they have been doing this since 2019.

The idea is that all career fields need "the best of the class" and not all of the "best of the class" are DG (distinguished grad -- top 10%)

Consider that those who are "fuzzy majors" tend (not all) to have higher GPAs. That would mean many of the highly qualified engineers, physicists, mathematicians are penalized for taking a more difficult course load.
 
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T-37IP said:
No idea, but a private license is of zero use. I say that with 3000+ IP hours teaching UPT. One of my worst students was a MEI, regional Captain.
Click to expand...
If it's not lack of prior exposure (i.e. flight lessons), then what do you think is most predictive of UPT washout? I ask because even 18% seems very high to me, and if it used to be double that, then significant money and resources were being wasted, and I imagine that a lot of that could have been saved with better front-end screening. Certainly it's not just "bad luck."
 
SF_DAD said:
Can anyone help clarify or verify what I heard from my DS?
I understand from my C2C at USAFA that there is a new wrinkle (in the last year or two) in the way jobs are selected. He explained that class rank 1-100 gets jobs first, then 300-400, followed by 600-700, and then 101-299, 401-599, 701-until complete. Basically it spreads the wealth among the less popular jobs.
Click to expand...
I wonder if there is any data to support the premise that 1 performs materially better in the AF, including factoring in longevity, than 1001. More to the point, there are probably fields in which 1001 would outperform 1. So "spreading the wealth" would be a misguided notion. What I'd be suspicious of is that this was done to placate "hurt feelings," that some unpopular field tends to receive more low-ranking grads . . . even though the data might show that it makes zero difference toward performance in the end. So, setting up a Rube Goldberg selection method like this punishes cadets who legitimately earned the opportunity to choose in favor of making people in the field feel better about who they are receiving.

I hope I'm wrong about that.
 
SF_DAD said:
Can anyone help clarify or verify what I heard from my DS?
I understand from my C2C at USAFA that there is a new wrinkle (in the last year or two) in the way jobs are selected. He explained that class rank 1-100 gets jobs first, then 300-400, followed by 600-700, and then 101-299, 401-599, 701-until complete. Basically it spreads the wealth among the less popular jobs.
If this is the case the Astro major ranked 101 is no better off than the MSS major ranked 700…
Click to expand...

If this is true, it is a real dis-incentive to enter the USAFA vs OTS. Which will further degrade the quality of USAFA applicants.
 
franknd said:
If it's not lack of prior exposure (i.e. flight lessons), then what do you think is most predictive of UPT washout? I ask because even 18% seems very high to me, and if it used to be double that, then significant money and resources were being wasted, and I imagine that a lot of that could have been saved with better front-end screening. Certainly it's not just "bad luck."
Click to expand...
Look around when driving. Some people suck behind the wheel - some people are good drivers. Is there a correlation to intelligence? If so, it’s inverse. General coordination, hand eye coordination, anticipation and timing are all qualities that make good drivers, and presumably pilots. Yet another argument for why the services like athletes?
 
franknd said:
I wonder if there is any data to support the premise that 1 performs materially better in the AF, including factoring in longevity, than 1001. More to the point, there are probably fields in which 1001 would outperform 1. So "spreading the wealth" would be a misguided notion. What I'd be suspicious of is that this was done to placate "hurt feelings," that some unpopular field tends to receive more low-ranking grads . . . even though the data might show that it makes zero difference toward performance in the end. So, setting up a Rube Goldberg selection method like this punishes cadets who legitimately earned the opportunity to choose in favor of making people in the field feel better about who they are receiving.

I hope I'm wrong about that.
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How do you factor in the fact that some are taking much more difficult courses (ie: aeronautical/aerospace engineering, physics, etc?) than those who are not STEM-based? How about those who are double-majors? Maybe the answer is to give weighted GPAs?

Ultimately, the final answer is always "needs of the Air Force."
 
SpiritCommitteeLiaison said:
How do you factor in the fact that some are taking much more difficult courses (ie: aeronautical/aerospace engineering, physics, etc?) than those who are not STEM-based? How about those who are double-majors? Maybe the answer is to give weighted GPAs?

Ultimately, the final answer is always "needs of the Air Force."
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That sounds like a problem with how class rank is determined, which is a separate issue from how assignment selection occurs. In any event, skipping over groups of 100 does nothing to fix either problem.
 
Korab said:
Look around when driving. Some people suck behind the wheel - some people are good drivers. Is there a correlation to intelligence? If so, it’s inverse. General coordination, hand eye coordination, anticipation and timing are all qualities that make good drivers, and presumably pilots. Yet another argument for why the services like athletes?
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This looks kind of interesting. Evidently, the AF has good data to show that PCSM correlates very strongly with completing UPT:

PCSM Score Range UPT Phase II Completion Rate
1 – 25 58%
26 – 50 70%
51 – 75 82%
76 – 99 92%

bogidope.com

The Pilot Candidate Selection Method (PCSM) Score Explained - Part 1 | BogiDope

While it’s true that the Air Force, Guard, and Reserve use the “whole person concept” in selecting pilot applicants, there’s no denying that objective indicators…
bogidope.com bogidope.com

So what does AFROTC do in order to select pilots? Water down PCSM importance:

Rated board order of merit is based on the following items:
  • PCSM score (40% of total score) OR AFOQT (40% of total score if you don't have a PCSM score)
  • Commander's ranking (25% of total score)
  • Fitness test (10% of total score)
  • Field Training Ranking (15% of total score)
  • GPA (10% of total score)
And what do you bet that "Commander's ranking" and GPA, if not 1:1, follow each other very closely? The avg GPA for FY22 Rated Board pilot selection was 3.532. So it sure seems as though the AF has a pretty good idea of what measures are effective, and partially waters it down in favor of other factors that have marginal value in learning to fly a plane. I guess that's how you get an 18% washout rate (down from double that).

Rated board (pilot selection) | AFROTC.info

Grav is an easy to use, yet powerful, open source flat-file CMS
afrotc.info afrotc.info
 
T-37IP said:
As of last week the washout rate at Columbus was 18%, that is half of what it used to be. Gleen from that what you will, but I doubt the students are twice as talented.
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I take it that washout means they failed out? What exactly does that mean at UPT, academically or the actual flying or both? What happens if someone does wash out, where do they go?
 
BravoFoxtrot said:
I take it that washout means they failed out? What exactly does that mean at UPT, academically or the actual flying or both? What happens if someone does wash out, where do they go?
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Washout means failed out, could be for any number of things. Not sure what happens with them these days.
 
BravoFoxtrot said:
I take it that washout means they failed out? What exactly does that mean at UPT, academically or the actual flying or both? What happens if someone does wash out, where do they go?
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Had 1 wash out in my class during academics and 1 due to flying. They are reassigned to a different non rated (usually) job in the Air Force. If you fail after T6s now and you're non-ENJJPT you go to an FEB. Most have been getting a job choice in their top 5 after washing out but at that point you are definitely needs of the Air Force
 
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