NROTC pilot selection

He is in his Junior Year, I imagine the pre-commission physical will be scheduled soon, he has no news yet...
 
Well... here we go ... DS easily passed the ASTB and Pre-commissioning medical is coming up soon at NAS Pax River ...
Anyone has any idea what the trend in Aviation slots is these days ??
 
How does the service selection board decide on who gets an aviation slot? Does the MIDN have to have an aviation 1/C summer cruise to get selected?
 
The requirement to get pilot is to have the required scores on the ASTB and pass the flight physical. I had tons of friends who never did aviation cruises but went pilot, but they were all USNA guys so training options are different. They will look at your grades, your evals, your LT's endorsement, etc. Remember they look at the whole package to make an evaluation. An aviation cruise wouldn't hurt as it increases your knowledge to the aviation world, how it works and could give you some good marks on a summer eval from cruise.
 
MGEP said:
Well... here we go ... DS easily passed the ASTB and Pre-commissioning medical is coming up soon at NAS Pax River ...
Anyone has any idea what the trend in Aviation slots is these days ??
Click to expand...

This is a curiosity question.

For the AFROTC cadets that are selected for rated they must pass the FAA FC1 physical in the summer of their rising senior. It is a 3 day exam, which obviously includes the exit DoDMERB exam. Does NROTC do it that way too, or are you saying they will do the DoDMERB and than later on they do the FAA FC1?

The reason I have been told that AFROTC does it this way is because if they fail the FC1 than in the fall when the non-rated board meets they will be placed in the mix.
 
It happens during 2/C year for Midshipman at USNA. I believe Midshipman in NROTC do the same. At USNA it's considered a pre-commissioning physical and includes a flight physical for all Mids. It is the FAA FC1, but we really don't call it that, we just say flight physical. This determines who is or isn't medically qualed for aviation. It is done this way because at USNA we are required to list all career fields we are physically qualified for during service selection to include Marine Corps. SEALs pretty much have the same medical quals as pilot so that is also screened for. There are plenty of Mids when I was there that their list was SWO, Marine Ground and that is it. They had bad eyes and didn't screen for nuke (this was pre nuke draft and prior to eye surgery being allowed). I believe NROTC also lists everything they are qualed for too. I am assuming they follow the same pattern for physicals. Because we don't have rated vs non-rated we all get the physical first, then service selection.
 
NavyHoops said:
The requirement to get pilot is to have the required scores on the ASTB and pass the flight physical. I had tons of friends who never did aviation cruises but went pilot, but they were all USNA guys so training options are different. They will look at your grades, your evals, your LT's endorsement, etc. Remember they look at the whole package to make an evaluation. An aviation cruise wouldn't hurt as it increases your knowledge to the aviation world, how it works and could give you some good marks on a summer eval from cruise.
Click to expand...

I'm curious because originally I wasn't supposed to go on this years 1/C summer cruise because of some stuff going on in my personnel life; however, I got it handled in time to go. Down side was the fact that they gave away the rest of the aviation cruises to the guys that didn't get mini buds.

I'm in NROTC, so they had us fill out a dream sheet and why we wanted a certain service assignment. My advisor told me to put down my total flight hours because I'm already rated up to my private pilot IFR. I currently have 109 flight hours with an associates in aeronautical maintenance technology. Does the amount of hours I have actually increase my chances? I was a little confused because I thought they only looked at our commissioning score and astb.
 
I am curious too.

For AFROTC if you have flight hours you get a bump on the score for rated selection. If you have a PPL, than you do not go to the pre-UPT flight school.

Just curious to see if they do it like the AF.

1 more question from the FAA FC1 physical aspect. I know for USAFA grads they do it at USAFA. AFROTC are sent to Wright Pat for 3 days. In this day of sequestration isn't that alot of money to spend sending everyone, especially the mid that has no desire to ever fly or be a Seal? I get it if the exam is not a TDY, but not if it is. Wouldn't it just be cheaper to send only those that need the high end exam instead of everyone?

I know, I know, it is not up to us question why? Just curious.
 
For USNA guys we all get them at USNA. Not sure how ROTC does it. Be curious to the answer myself, but I think because Navy makes you list everything they might require it. There has been an NFO draft in recent years. I sent an email to a buddy of mine asking how ROTC is handled.

From my understanding talking to current Mids flight hours are becoming a bigger deal. When I was there no one cared if you had any. You all went and did the same training. Since then training has changed. I think now students do some sort of training before API, believe it is called IFS. You would complete this prior to API. With certain hours and training you can skip this. This wasn't around when I was at USNA, they added for a few reasons. Weed out some folks who just don't have the aptitude for flying or they end up hating it. Lets them move on prior to spend huge Navy dollars or being 2-3 years into a career before moving on. I know USNA Mids can do Powered Flight for their summer training and this eliminates that school prior to flight school after they graduate. Doesn't sound like ROTC Mids have this opportunity for powered flight. IFS isn't very long and if you don't have hours its not a big deal. Air Warriors is a forum alot like this for Naval Aviation, does a pretty decent job and has good info.
 
Flight hours "kind of" matter but they don't really give you a huge leg up either for selection or during flight school. What matters much more is the ASTB. I can't think of any of my NROTC friends in flight school who had many/any flight hours. I think the Navy's been burned too many times by dudes coming out of ERAU or wherever with a zillion flight hours and flunking out since they can't learn the Navy way.

Powered flight at USNA eliminates IFS down the road, which for the most part is a pretty great idea. It saves the Navy a lot of time and money (start pushing kids through API rather than have them dick around on the beach for four months waiting for IFS). I did the first part of flight school out of order (so API then IFS) due to timing/funding issues making it not clear if they'd send Marines to IFS and for the most part it didn't matter. IFS is a very wide-screened filter to get out the people who can't put their beers down long enough to even look at a book.
API (aviation preflight indoctrination, or a very basic ground school with aviation physiology and water/land survival) is where they really start to weed people out. So getting IFS out of the way before coming to Pensacola or not changes nothing success-wise for like 90% of SNAs and if you're the kind of person who is so worried about failing that you want to eliminate every possibility of failure, regardless of how remote, you're doing it wrong and probably not going to do super well in flight school (I know a guy who drove 45+ minutes to a different FBO from the one right next to his apartment to do IFS because the one near him "was much harder." He's a tool.)

As for the medical exam: it's possible to not want pilot/NFO and get it. Especially NFO. I know people from 2011-2013+ who wanted SWO but got selected for NFO. There's a relatively small list of designators available for USNA/NROTC mids at the start (SNA, SNFO, SWO and SWO/N, subs, EOD, SEALs) because Big Navy only wants them going Unrestricted Line. All those designators deploy and have certain medical restrictions beyond the baseline for being qualified for the military (like color vision, etc.) as well.
Why eliminate a mid from most of the those choices, especially if they change their mind come 1/C year after they do a sub cruise and decide they want to enjoy life after all?
 
Hurricane well put. Better than I did. The advice I heard from all the pilots was don't rush out for flight hours. IFS isn't hard and is nearly impossible to fail as long you aren't a total moron. Kind of made me chuckle about a guy trying to do an "easier" IFS. OBTW, I used tool at least 4 times today at my civilian job, so don't worry, you will use it forever! And moron has more to do with not being able to act like adult rather than flying ability. Correct me if I am wrong Hurricane, I think most drops at IFS are either DOR because flying just isn't their thing, they can't act like an adult, alcohol stupidity, etc. Agree with Big Navy having fewer service assignments and the fact we are required to list all items we are qualified for. We don't do a first board with Rated vs Non-Rated and then a career assignment for Non-Rated later on. Its one board only. Plus there are some medical nuances for things like subs, SEALs, EOD, etc. Congrats on the wings Hurricane12, hope things are going well.
 
Such an interesting thread for me. (AF O2 pilot mom)

IFS is huge for AF. It has @25% washout rate. Not DOR or stupidity. They arrive on Wed. 1st class Thursday, 1st bold exam Friday. It is maybe 3 weeks.
~ Anyone in the AF as a cadet with a PPL, requests a waiver for IFS because it is a risk you just don't want to take.

AF cadets with flight hours also get bonus points for PCSM. I think TBAS is your ASTB.
~All AF cadets also take the AFOQT, but only those that want rated take the TBAS.

Hopefully kinnem will answer soon enough about NROTC and every mid taking the FAA FC1.

My true curiosity really does come from the aspect of how each branch is cutting costs from the sequestration perspective.
~ Guessing that for the AF that 35 program Lockheed bill is why they are trimming every which way from Sunday:biggrin:
 
Probably different for Marine Option. Because they apply for a flight contract. Slightly different than Navy side.
 
Hurricane would you happen to know if there is a huge need for NFOs again? When I was on summer cruise I talked to someone that was going to OCS and they said that more of them were going NFO this year.
 
They have had to 'draft' NFOs at USNA the last few years or so. That tells me it's not high on folks list and they are having trouble filling spots. OCS is a way to fill those gaps because they can direct contract them to that assignment. That is pretty common for all services for OCS, you will surges to meet manpower needs. Since services have been cutting its easy to cut OCS to bare minimums and only push through communities that are needed.
 
Question. Since there has been an NFO Draft in the past and USNA shares spots with the all the other commissioning sources, would a person putting NFO as their first choice, regardless of their commissioning source, be likely to receive that service selection?
 
As long as you pass the ASTB and flight physical I would say your chances are high. But remember that things can change from year to year, no one ever knows what the 'needs of the service are' until they release numbers. Also remember they have had a sub draft in the past too. So things year to year can change. My theory when I was doing all this was, 'hope for what you want and be prepared for it to say anything!' That can apply to service selection, schools, duty stations.
 
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