I’m a former USAF fighter pilot.
The physical standards (and age standards) change from year to year. The current standards are published; if you can’t find them online at af.mil any recruiter will be glad to do so for you. You either meet the criteria or you don’t; waivers for folks not already a year or more into the Academy (read folks on whom USAF has already spent a boatload of money) are simply not given, period, amen.
So step one is to learn what the standards are & see if you think you meet the current specifications. If so, the next hurdle you’ll have to pass are a series of extensive interviews, tests & medical exams to ensure you really have the physical, educational & mental capabilities & parameters you say you do. The odds on sneaking something past them are about zero.
The service’s demand for new pilots changes from year to year. Some years when demand is very low the Academy produces enough grads to use up all the training slots.
ROTC is the second source for pilots. In years with typical demand the Academy + ROTC use up 80-90% of the available slots.
OTS graduates fill the remaining pilot slots. In years where pilot demand is high, OTS may represent 30-50% of all slots, but 10-15% is more typical and some years there are zero OTS pilot slots. Given that you’re already out of college, OTS is the only route for you becoming a USAF Officer. So the next (3rd) hurdle is to find out if there are OTS slots being given for pilots these days.
If so, time for the fourth & fifth hurdles: You will compete for the right to get into OTS & separately for the right to a pilot slot. This is based on testing, grades, resume, interviews, etc. USAF simply puts everybody in a pool, rank orders them by quality & takes the top however-many they need. The rest get a “No thanks, but thanks for playing” letter. Rejectees have spent their one and only shot at it.
Flying experience has ZERO impact on this, other than perhaps being able to score a smidgen better on some parts of the aptitude tests since you’d already be a little familiar with the subject matter. Your lack here is not material. Former enlisted folks (i.e. those with some military training) get a couple extra points, but again not a decisive amount. So your lack here is probably not material unless you are a borderline candidate anyhow.
You will know whether you get the pilot slot prior to becoming committed to joining the USAF. So you have nothing much to lose by trying. The process takes a couple of months & is usually worked 3 to 9 months out in the future, so applicants becoming obligated to OTS this week probably got serious with their recruiter in February & will probably be beginning OTS in Dec 2007 or Jan 2008.
Assuming you are accepted, it’s time for hurdle 6: Once you enter OTS you are committed to serve. If you flunk out of OTS or quit, expect to spend the next 2-5 years as an enlisted man. Again the rules change from year to year, so the numbers I recall from my time are probably wrong today, but the idea is basically correct.
Once you graduate OTS (a three month school) you are an Officer, a 2nd Lieutenant to be precise. Time for hurdle 7: You then go to pilot training. if you flunk out or quit pilot training you will serve the USAF as an Officer in a non-pilot job for 3-5 years.
At about 4 months into the 1-year pilot training program comes hurdle 8: the class will be split into two groups: the top ~1/3rd and the others. The top group (size varies from 15-35% depending on USAF’s needs du jour) go on to training for high performance jets; fighters, attack, reconnaisance, & trainers. The rest go on to train for flying transports, tankers, and bombers.
Whichever way you go, the next (9th) hurdle is the second segment of pilot training. Pass that & you get your wings, an accomplishment that will make you think your undergraduate college & Masters work was kid stuff. Mine sure felt that way.
Now it’s time for hurdle 10: Learning to fly your new mission. For fighter and attack, we’re talking two more schools (hurdles 10 & 11) totalling another 1.5 years-ish, while for slow-movers it’s just one school of 8-11 months. Failures at this level are comparatively rare, just a few percent, but quite disgraceful.
There are also two survival schools and a couple of other dogs & cats thrown in to further round out your life.
Pass all that and you too can join the tens of thousands of men and women who’ve flown fast jets for the USAF. I’ve met a lot of those folks, Hell, I are one! (well, was one nowadays) and we’re not that special. But we are a pretty finely filtered group compared to the public at large.
And assuming you do pass all those hurdles, you’re now obligated to work for Uncle Sam, living where told & killing bad guys on command for something on the order of 7 to, more realistically, 11 additional years. Oh yeah, bad guys shoot back from time to time.
Rewinding back to the beginning, …
Of all the folks who take the initial recruiting physical, the attrition rate to becoming a fighter / attack pilot is about 99 out of 100. Backing up a step, of all the folks who get up the nerve to visit the recruiter to learn the baseline standards & whether they fill all the squares, the attrition rate is more like 499 out of 500. Of all those who start OTS as pilot candidates and are committed to serve, about 8% become fighter / attack pilots, another 50% become pilots of some sort, and the remaining 40-ish% fail or quit training at some stage.
Good luck. It’s a fine way of life in the company of many fine people, a decade-plus adventure not for the weak nor the faint.
LSLGuy, Captain, USAF
Inactive Reserve
p.s. My brother flew fast attack for the Navy. All the terminology is utterly different, the details vary, but the overall process is substantially the same for USN as for USAF. There is no material difference in the objective standards, physical, IQ, etc., of the two services. Their respective candidate supply vs pilot demand situations vary from year to year and sometimes the odds are more in your favor one place than the other.
