I made no assertion as to the real numbers only as to my impression of their attitudes.
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What happens if you don't pass flight school?
- Thread starter swampertness
- Start date
Back in 2010, they were offering to let anyone in A-Pool walk to the IRR, no questions asked, no payback for school if you were a Boat School or ROTC grad. I know a few that took it and ran, mostly of the Boat School type.
Random13
Member
How does all of the information from this thread stand as of 2025? I am in no way wanting to fail/ attrite out if given the opportunity to attend Naval Flight School, but obviously there's still a chance. If you fail/attrite out of flight school, can you redesignate to a different career field within the Navy or are you forced out entirely?
FormerRecruitingGuru
Making Recruiting Great Again
Why are you commenting on a thread that was dead several years ago?
Random13
Member
I didn't want to start a new thread on a topic that had already been talked about in detail in a different thread. Felt it might waste space on the forum, and I was genuinely curious as to how the information may have changed since the last post.
To my knowledge it hasn’t changed a bit (current CI in NFO primary). Depends on needs of the navy; sometimes there are plenty of options, sometimes not. The manner in which you fail matters also. Airsickness attrites, and those that put in the work but couldn’t hack the stick skills (or mental skills in NFO-land) are generally given much higher preference than those that DOR or soft quit/don’t show up prepared.
For future folks wondering, this likely won’t be changing anytime soon.
exNavyOffRec
Well-Known Member
Over my time as an OR it varied depending on what the USN needed, just talking about those who failed or were medical disquals in flight school sometimes almost everyone was able to redesignate and sometimes almost no one was able to redesignate, they were just sent home.
Depends… don’t fuck it up.
FormerRecruitingGuru
Making Recruiting Great Again
From what I’ve heard and seen, in addition to the recent comments… no, nothing has changed.
They used the search function?
Not much to add to whats above/already written on this forum.
I've had multiple friends DOR/attrite/med/legal out of various stages in the pipeline. Two were separated. One for extenuating health reasons. The other was due to extreme personal life circumstances. The rest stayed....whether they wanted to or not.
In short, you DOR or they attrite you. You do some research then submit a "POCR" (redesignation) package a couple of months later. Then a couple months after that, your new community contacts you. Detailers start writing orders and you'll head out to whatever is next.
I had a slightly differing observation than Fink, unless it was a legal issue, how someone was removed from the pipeline seemed irrelevant when it came to opportunity. Plenty of performance attrites/DORs moved into competitive designators. Just because flight school wasn't a fit doesn't mean you're a bad officer.
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Random13
Member
@FinkUFreaky, @exNavyOffRec ,@Brett327, @FormerRecruitingGuru @Mouselovr.
Thank you all for your responses. I am in no way planning on failing flight school if given the opportunity to attend, and would be giving it my all during flight school. With that said, I don't want to go in blind not knowing what the future could entail if failing flight school would occur.
Thank you all for your responses. I am in no way planning on failing flight school if given the opportunity to attend, and would be giving it my all during flight school. With that said, I don't want to go in blind not knowing what the future could entail if failing flight school would occur.
Piggy-backing off of this statement, if an individual were to fail out of flight school, does it hurt their competitiveness for advancement and promotion in their new communities? I ask as personally if failing out of flight school were to occur, I would still like to serve potentially for an entire 20+ year career if given the opportunity....probably something to not worry about now but I thought I'd at least put the question out here.
FormerRecruitingGuru
Making Recruiting Great Again
I can answer this one.
Short answer: No.
Longer answer: If you had no potential future service and growth, it makes no sense for another community to take you for re-designation.
Random13
Member
Got it. That makes sense that another community wouldn't want to take someone that had no future service and growth. Thanks!