Trying competitive air

[Highlander51]

So heres what I am thinking, in terms of all this: My first score was a 6/4/6 50. Then 6/5/6 51. I didn't do anything different except train on Jantzens and the UAV simultor on the prep app for roughly two weeks. Maintaining my brain cell count should not be a problem, I could even afford to lose a couple. What I really need is time to grind on the x52 HOTAS and get the UAV down to instinct. Thus, I am not really concerned about content overload when I get to TBS, because studying has already taken a backseat. Maybe I'll see if I can take it in the time between OCS and TBS. Also my PFT is 289 as of last week. I was told that also matters.

Your PFT score matters but ultimately what matters most is that you pass the ASTB. If there's competition between you and someone else they may look at PFT scores but more often than not they'll go with whoever has the higher ASTB. Also, something that I found out when I was on the board is that they take your college GPA into account. My ASTB was relatively low 5/7/6 but I graduated college with a 3.9 GPA. Flight school, at least in my experience so far, has a lot more to do with your ability to be a good student rather than how well you did or didn't do on the ASTB, I think that's why they consider GPA because the board wants to know if you're a good student. However, you still need to pass the ASTB to be eligible. It looks like your PFAR score (the 4 and 5) is the lowest so I would definitely get on the simulators more and do as much as you can before TBS because once you check in your time to do anything else, up to and including having a life, will be severly limited. TBS is called the big suck, or time between saturdays, for a good reason.

 

[dav246]

Your PFT score matters but ultimately what matters most is that you pass the ASTB. If there's competition between you and someone else they may look at PFT scores but more often than not they'll go with whoever has the higher ASTB. Also, something that I found out when I was on the board is that they take your college GPA into account. My ASTB was relatively low 5/7/6 but I graduated college with a 3.9 GPA. Flight school, at least in my experience so far, has a lot more to do with your ability to be a good student rather than how well you did or didn't do on the ASTB, I think that's why they consider GPA because the board wants to know if you're a good student. However, you still need to pass the ASTB to be eligible. It looks like your PFAR score (the 4 and 5) is the lowest so I would definitely get on the simulators more and do as much as you can before TBS because once you check in your time to do anything else, up to and including having a life, will be severly limited. TBS is called the big suck, or time between saturdays, for a good reason.

Yuck. I had a 2.8 GPA upon graduating, I started off in engineering, sucked wind, switched majors, and never quite got back up despite good grades after that.

Do you think it would be wise to take my last ASTB before TBS? Or considering my given situation with multiple medical waivers that are due to expire, would it be wise to drop the ground idea and focus entirely on the ASTB and securing that air contract?

The indeciciveness is killing me. I have exactly one more shot at this, and I want to make it count. But I also want to get in the door and get going already.

 

[Highlander51]

Yuck. I had a 2.8 GPA upon graduating, I started off in engineering, sucked wind, switched majors, and never quite got back up despite good grades after that.

Do you think it would be wise to take my last ASTB before TBS? Or considering my given situation with multiple medical waivers that are due to expire, would it be wise to drop the ground idea and focus entirely on the ASTB and securing that air contract?

The indeciciveness is killing me. I have exactly one more shot at this, and I want to make it count. But I also want to get in the door and get going already.

Only you can decide what's best for your specific situation. If it were me I would study as hard as possible and take the ASTB for the final time before going to TBS because you'll have more time to study, plus you won't have to worry about redoing all of your medical waivers. Hopefully this doesn't happen, but, if you do take it and fail for the third time you'll be able to focus solely on TBS and getting whatever ground job you want assuming you do well on the graded events at TBS. If you really still want to be involved in the aviation community at that point you can still do things like ATC, AMO, etc. It's better to walk into TBS either with an air contract or knowing you're gonna go ground and fight as hard as possible to get the ground job you want. The worst thing is to go in not knowing which way you want to go and spend the first month or two of TBS trying to go the pilot route only to fail the ASTB again then be 2 months behind the power curve on everyone else who walked in knowing what they wanted to do.

That's just my opinion, as stated before though, you have the best SA on your situation and only you can decide what to do from here.

 

[dav246]

Only you can decide what's best for your specific situation. If it were me I would study as hard as possible and take the ASTB for the final time before going to TBS because you'll have more time to study, plus you won't have to worry about redoing all of your medical waivers. Hopefully this doesn't happen, but, if you do take it and fail for the third time you'll be able to focus solely on TBS and getting whatever ground job you want assuming you do well on the graded events at TBS. If you really still want to be involved in the aviation community at that point you can still do things like ATC, AMO, etc. It's better to walk into TBS either with an air contract or knowing you're gonna go ground and fight as hard as possible to get the ground job you want. The worst thing is to go in not knowing which way you want to go and spend the first month or two of TBS trying to go the pilot route only to fail the ASTB again then be 2 months behind the power curve on everyone else who walked in knowing what they wanted to do.

That's just my opinion, as stated before though, you have the best SA on your situation and only you can decide what to do from here.

Thanks for answering all my questions man, I really appreciate it. I have exactly one more, but this is more of a timing thing. Should I take it before I ship to OCS, or should I take it in the space inbetween OCS and TBS? I am under the impression that I won't really have that much time for anything in OCS either, so I am thinking I probably wanna see if I can take it shortly before OCS. My thought process being, as you said, A)knowing exactly what I am gonna be doing long before TBS and B) I won't have a large 2 month study/training gap at the end of OCS.

 

[Highlander51]

Thanks for answering all my questions man, I really appreciate it. I have exactly one more, but this is more of a timing thing. Should I take it before I ship to OCS, or should I take it in the space inbetween OCS and TBS? I am under the impression that I won't really have that much time for anything in OCS either, so I am thinking I probably wanna see if I can take it shortly before OCS. My thought process being, as you said, A)knowing exactly what I am gonna be doing long before TBS and B) I won't have a large 2 month study/training gap at the end of OCS.

Assuming you're going directly to TBS after OCS then I would probably take it before OCS however, if you are going to have a substantial amount of time after OCS before starting TBS I would probably wait until after OCS is over depending on when you start OCS, along with the expiration of your medical waivers and everything else.

 

[dav246]

Assuming you're going directly to TBS after OCS then I would probably take it before OCS however, if you are going to have a substantial amount of time after OCS before starting TBS I would probably wait until after OCS is over depending on when you start OCS, along with the expiration of your medical waivers and everything else.

Thanks again man, I really appreciate all the advice. I feel like I have enough information to make a good decision.