How many people who join the Air Force aspire to becoming pilots and what % actually make it?

No. Simple reason: Air Force has a lot more fighters, and the Navy can and has to be a lot pickier about who gets to fly their planes on carriers.

If you have the will, study hard, and hit the gym, you will be a pilot, assuming you meet the medical requirements. Most people who want to be pilots have the dreams shattered by the flight physicals and vision requirements.

>Be me.
>Wanted to be a fighter pilot.
>But live in a shithole country with very few jet aircraft.
>So I gave up on fighter pilot dreams and became a normie.
>Realize years later that flying our prop plain COIN aircraft could be as fucking awesome.
>Suffer.

I could be flying a Super Tucano by now FML.

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Army or marine rotary is probably your best bet

ayy

You're talking to a USAF pilot right meow.

Ask me anything

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so youre lebanese?

what do you fly

I fly for AFSOC but i'm not gonna say more than that

what are the >flight physicals and vision requirements
to be a pilot?

>tfw 20/20 vision all my life until last year. Left eye vision is a little blurry

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What are the odds we could talk you into nuking Detroit and Chicago?

2/200 minimum, correctable to 20/20

vision must be *correctable* to 20/20

so long as your vision isn't SUPER fucked and unfix-able they can work with you

lol my friend is from Detroit and he's always telling me that it's getting better

idk if i believe him yet

Most spots are reserved for the (((old blood))), so don't get your hopes up.

so c-130s, got it

as far as the flight physical goes it's fairly in depth. I think mine was three days or something. But nothing was extremely out of the ordinary in terms of what they were looking for. Lots of X-rays, blood tests and such

what about flight physicals? is this the same for both fixed wing and helicopters?

Once a pilot graduates his training the top of the class gets first picks at open positions for aircraft, theyve got a big reveal ceremony and everything.

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you absolutely don't need to be a USAFA grad. Nobody in pilot training and I mean nobody gives a flying fuck about your commissioning source. In fact we always gave our zoomy friends a hard time and made fun of them. It's all based on your flying grades. You track your airframe based on your skill and if anyone with better grades than you want the fighter slots.

the USAFA grad thing is a total meme

but what type :)

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everyone takes the same physical before any flying training begins so it's the same one for everyone.

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bahhaha this is nice

have the government pay for it. It would have cost millions to get my training. Also the FAA can be kind of hard to deal with and being in the air force/navy helps.

If you wanna be a helo pilot go Navy. If you wanna do fixed wing go air force. Beyond that it's a crapshoot.

The Air force is 4% pilots. I don't know much about the Navy numbers because I'm not a squid. But what I can tell you is that the Air Force has a more rigorous training program compared with the Navy. They just redesigned the syllabus to make it a tad easier so there's a couple things they don't require you to be able to do anymore.

I'd say the hardest part of pilot training, in a sense, is getting to the start of training. Don't take unnecessary risk and hurt yourself doing sports. Don't do stupid shit like drinking and driving and you'll be fine.

Yes people do get washed out of training but that's only people who are downright dangerous. The instructors are damn good and the students are motivated as all hell so they meet in the middle and usually end up with a pretty good product.

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I crunched the numbers OP. According to the AF's own statistics (I'm recounting this from memory) around 12,000+ of it's roughly 60,000+ officers are pilots the your chance for flying is about 1/5. That's for any aircraft. For fighters your chances are somewhat less however, it's good to keep in mind that the USAF has more fighters than any other aircraft in its inventory (not sure about UAVs). Given the recent shortage and the fact that they are really looking for people willing to commit to longer service times, if you are perhaps willing to sign a long term contract (if such a path exists) your chances may actually be quite good. However, you're going to have become an officer before you even have the option to fly. As long as you have decent academic record and score well on your Officers AFOQT (Air Force Officer Qualifying Test) you have a pretty solid shot. It's worth noting that a majority of pilots are college-grads with masters degrees (not Colorado Springs grads). Thus, as long as you maintain a good GPA, show diligence and really prepare for that test your chances seem to be much more encouraging that proposed. Once again considering recent circumstances they can't be as picky as they used to be, and more over the line about athleticism is untrue (you have to be mentally athletic to fly though no doubt about that whatsoever.) It may be worth your while to get in shape and adopt a sport and practice complex tasks.

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No spots are "reserved" for anyone

save maybe Saudis because their government pays out the ass for them to fly regardless of how bad they are

I'm sorry dude but I think your statistics might be a tad fucked up.

(2/2) Finally, user is doing you a great favor despite being as wrong as he is. It's this mentality "I could never be a pilot" or "there's no way that they'd accept me" that keeps people from joining and trying, keeps the competition at bay, but if they're so easily discouraged I'd say they're not competition at all. Keep USAF has an add out where a guy who studied culinary arts joined post 9/11, he was 28. Twenty-freaking-eight. The cut off for pilots is 29 and yet he flew. Don't be a coward user and put your Wojaks away. Pilots aren't people who shrink from adversity and if some anonymous post on the internet is enough to kill your ambition then flying near the sound barrier 300 feet above the earth is not for you. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the baker flew the F-22.

youtube.com/watch?v=x4657wAmyX8

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youtu.be/IXfLdPb-31Q

Here's a video a guy I know made. It's a lot of fun

Statistics on officers is from 2009, do you think there are more or less since then, but moreover, the stats on pilots come from the USAF's site, stats circa 2016, remember user, most pilots don't "own" their aircraft. As in yeah they get their name on the side but you can have up to 3 different guys on the same plane by some accounts.

Maybe more recruits at least. once you're at your operational airframe you stay in your little tribe and seldom meet other pilots that don't fly your plane.

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How do I become a pilot for this little guy?

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taken from afpc.af.mil/About/Air-Force-Demographics/
>SNAPSHOT OF THE AIR FORCE
>320,923 Active Duty
>62,688 Officers
>258,235 Enlisted
>The Air Force has 12,363 pilots, 3,256 navigators and 1,317 air battle managers in the grade of lieutenant colonel and below. The Air Force has 25,484 non-rated line officers in the grade of lieutenant colonel and below.
Only reply to this post if it's to say "well slap my ass and call me Susan."

be in the army, 160th SOAR maybe?

Well slap my ass and call me susan

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(3/3 I guess)Finally as a bookend to all this let me just say that it's worth remembering that their may be a lot of pilots but that doesn't change the fact when you join many positions will be filled, although considering how many of the aircraft are actually fighters. Your chances aren't that bad of replacing one of those pilots. Especially for the F-16 which is probably one of the most venerable Air frames in aviation history. Like I said earlier though it might take time, but don't be discouraged. Besides, what else are you gonna do out of college, sit around an play with your dick (does not apply to STEM majors) or are you going to go up and away motherfucker.

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This guy gets it.

>t. interned at my local senator's dc office in college
>processed lots of formal requests for service academy recommendations (these were mostly ignored)
>saw a few informal requests come in (these were handled same day)

For whatever reason people like to pretend that military assignments are based on completely egalitarian principles when literally no aspect of our society really is.

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oh you know why this seems wrong. Because this takes into account guard/reserve fighters. Active duty slots aren't so much but there are a fuck ton of reserve guys. To get in there you gotta interview with the squadron directly and usually have to work for them for a while so they know youre a good dude.

Where's the 34th FS? Oh well, those guys are fucking assholes anyway.

A friend of mine in college was navy rotc. Big 10 school. We graduated 2006. He was the Navy’s first pick for jets. Beat out a few of the guys at the academy. Flew f18s for 10 years, just finished doing a stint with the angels, attended his “welcome back to the fleet” party last month.

He Graduated cum laude, was on the swim team and baseball team. If there’s anyone I’d want flying those machines it’s him.

History of strabismus surgery is disqualifying, no waiver.

What was your college GPA? What was your PT score? Anything you felt helped you get in? OTS or ROTC?

>Baker joined USAF at age 28 and ended up flying a fucking F-22
>youtube.com/watch?v=x4657wAmyX8

god damn that's inspirational as fuck. I've always dreamed of flying and even considered getting a private pilots license. 27 about to turn 28 this month, what I'd do to fly an F15. I've always had mixed feelings about actually joining the military tho

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>you have to know a general or a senator to fly fighters guys
What retarded misinformation, same as the "only academy grads fly fighters" meme. Who do you think flies the air national guard's aircraft since all academy grads are active duty?

>What retarded misinformation

It's an over generalization, but he isn't entirely off base. Anyone who trains for 6 months can max any military PT test and anyone capable of completing an engineering/advanced math degree can ace any military academic test. A few people will be picked up to fulfill diversity reqs, but your LORs are what make or break you for about 90% of the class. The majority of accepted candidates are those with exceptional LORs.

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Is there anyway to avoid mishaps? is it purely pilot error, or a missing cog ? what drives u guys knowing the hidden danger ??

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3.7 I believe, 100 or 99 on each PT test.

In ROTC i always just chose a job that would give me a good learning experience and tried not to regress in responsibility. In school I stayed on my grades and made sure I was on track to graduate and checked that often so i was able to graduate on time.

Oh anything that helped me get into pilot training or ROTC?

My entire family are filled with pilots, all of them graduated basically top of their classes in HS, went to USAFA, maintained good grades and peak physical shape, scored perfect on the PFT and the rest is history. Then I have some friends who just dragged their feet at West Point / Annapolis and got a pilot slot anyway.

To get into the academies, sucking up and knowing who to know helps, but the selection process to become a pilot and especially UPT, they don't give a shit who you are. If you suck, you suck, if you can't fly formation, you can't fly formation. If you want to fly anything FAR (fighter, attack, recon) related, you have to be top 20% of your UPT class and even then, there might not even be an open slot for ANY fighters, so it's a luck of the draw even then. Correct me if I'm wrong with any of this, this is from memory and from talking to family members.

Pilot training, of course. How is getting into ROTC hard? lol

Hell no Navy helo pilots never see combat, whereas every single Marine helo asset has a combat role

Literally if you breathe and are not fully retarded you can get a pilot slot in ROTC. Pilots are extremely needed in the AF. Like I know dudes who got into a pilot slot with a sub 2.5 GPA, just make sure you score well on the two AF tests

(((informal requests)))

Daddy called up his general friend

If I already had my balchelor's degree what would be my option for becoming a pilot. I couldnt join ROTC then.

Joined the fucking Corp to be a pilot cause I’m retarded

Pros and cons?

>Living in a shithole, corrupt state
Must be a really fuckin miserable existence lmfao
Glad I live in the midwest and can get a nomination based off of my merit

OCS

Thought you meant scholarships maybe idk man

You develop a feeling for it. You see situations that you’ve read about. I.e. bad weather on a training sortie and neither of the pilots are very proficient. At that point you need the balls to speak up and say that the sortie is a bad idea