How to Become an Air Force Pilot via OTS

Air Force OTS Basics – What is it, why is it, and is it for you? OTS is Officer Training School – a 12-week boot-camp style program that exists to graduate commissioned officers in a fast, flexible manner. (Fast, you say? Then why does the application/selection process take so long? It’s “fast” from the Air Force perspective, when compared to the four-year pipeline of the Academy and ROTC). The Air Force commissions most of its officers (and pilots) from the Academy and ROTC. OTS is more flexible (boards can be added or cancelled easily) and exists to meet the remaining needs of the Air Force after ROTC and Academy graduates have been accounted for. Thus, if the number of Academy and ROTC pilot-selects is sufficient, or if the need for pilots has decreased, there will be fewer OTS pilot slots, and vice versa (the same concept holds for OTS slots in general). According to the Air Force Recruiting Service, OTS selects 100-120 of the 800-1000 Air Force pilot candidates each year. Bottom line: The Air Force pilot selection process for OTS can be very competitive, and in some years may be impossible (few/no boards). For more information on Air Force OTS in general, visit the OTS website here.

What does this mean for you if you want a pilot slot? First, if you have at least two years remaining in your college education – consider ROTC! You may get some $$$ for your college expenses, you can usually stay at your current institution, and (though you have to participate in ROTC activities) you’ll essentially continue on as you have been. Your chances of getting a pilot slot (and a commission in general) out of ROTC are much better than OTS. For more information, compare the scores of ROTC and OTS pilot-selects on our pilot slot stats page. If you’re interested in seeing what the ROTC pilot slot process is like, check out our ROTC pilot slot page. Second, you need to decide which is more important to you – becoming an Air Force pilot or becoming an Air Force officer? There are other flying career fields, such as the navigator career field, that may offer you better chances. However, if you have your sights set on becoming an Air Force pilot and ROTC isn’t an option don’t give up! If you're qualified and can put together an awesome application package, you could be one of those 100 or so pilot candidates selected each year- on your way to Maxwell and UPT! GOOD LUCK!

TOPIC OUTLINE

I. The Air Force Pilot Selection Process Via OTS
II. Making Your Air Force OTS Application Competitive
III. Just How Competitive? OTS Requirements - Selection Statistics
IV. The Results Are Out - Now What?

The Air Force Pilot Selection Process for OTS

Getting Started
First, review the information on this page, on AirForceOTS.com (a great site for posting questions and communicating with others going through the same process) and on the links to the left. (The AF Recruiting Service link has a lot of good information – look for information related to “BOT” (Basic Officer Training – aka OTS) – but most of the info is written in bureaucratic-speak). Once you’ve armed yourself with information, it’s time to talk to a recruiter (OR, if you’re currently active duty enlisted, your base education office). Click here to find an officer recruiter or click here to chat online with an “advisor” from AF recruiting (you have to login). You will have to submit your application package via a recruiter (civilian) or your base education office (active duty enlisted). NOTE: If you’re a member of the guard or reserve, you must submit your application package via a recruiter.

OTS Application Requirements
The OTS application package for pilot candidates is fairly involved and lengthy. There will likely be additional forms, depending on your situation (e.g. if you do not yet have your degree you must submit a form to substantiate your expected graduation date), but listed below are the key pieces of any rated application. The listing below contains only short descriptions of each element, for more information on maximizing your application see “Making Your Application Competitive” below.

• Age: Currently you must be under 29 as of the day the selection board convenes. Beginning with board 08OT03 (12 May 2008), you must be under 28 as of the day the selection board convenes. With this change, waivers will only be considered for individuals who have initiated or completed the proper physical (e.g. FC1 for pilot candidates) and can enter BOT NLT age 29 and one month. Click here for more info on the change. The age requirement is in place to give you enough time to meet the board, get an OTS class date, complete OTS, and enter a UPT class prior to your 30th birthday.
• Degree: Completed degree or within at least 270 days (enlisted) or 365 days (civilian) of degree completion; your academic major does not matter (for rated applications).
• Dependents: Single parents or applicants married to military with dependents require a waiver to apply; see AFRSI 36-2001, para 3.5. (Civilian applicants only)
• AFOQT: Pilot Score 25; Nav Score 10; Pilot + Nav Score 50; Verbal 15; Quantitative 10 (not waiverable)
• GPA: 2.5 (waiverable if combined AFOQT Verbal, Quantitative, and Academic Aptitude score exceeds 150)
• PCSM: No minimum at this time. (Minimums will be reinstated once more data is gathered on the TBAS-based PCSMs).
• Medical: There are a lot of medical requirements for commissioning and flying, but here are the highlights – and almost everything is waiverable:
  • Physicals required: All applicants (including pilot applicants) must complete a commissioning physical at MEPS (or, if active duty, at the clinic), a copy of which is submitted with the application. Most applicants will complete their Flying Class I physical after being selected for a pilot slot, but applicants nearing the age cutoff (and those seeking age waivers) should at least start their physicals prior to the board.
  • Vision: For pilot applicants, only PRK is waiverable (must be at least one year from the date of the operation). LASIK is disqualifying for pilot applicants. Distant vision must be 20/70, correctable to 20/20. Near vision must be 20/20. Pilot applicants must pass depth perception and color vision tests.
  • Height: Standing height 64-77 inches, sitting height 34-40 inches.
  • Other: There’s a host of other requirements for hearing, for vision, and other general medical requirements. But the good news is that a lot is waiverable these days. For more on the Flying Class I physical and standards, check out Attachment 7 from AFI 48-123, Medical Examinations and Standards. Also see our page on medical qualifications for pilot training!

Making Your Air Force OTS Application Competitive

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It’s a Competitive World Out There But we didn’t have to tell you that. What can you do to put your application into the “select” stack? First, focus on things you can control. If you already have your degree, it’s probably too late to bemoan that GPA. There’s nothing you can do about it now, so move on to the things you can change. Second, (another obvious one) is this: proofread, proofread, proofread. Sure, the recruiter or education office counselor will be quality-checking your application also – but it’s your future as a pilot on the line. Third, although you’re specifically competing for a pilot slot, you’re also being chosen based on your potential as an Air Force officer – make sure you emphasize leadership across your application (your profile/resume, comments on the application form, work experience, etc). See below for more specific tips on individual parts of the application, listed in a very general and unofficial most-to-least important order. We have pulled some of these tips from the OTS Board Results Release Messages, which used to be posted on the Hill AFB Education Office site but are unfortunately no longer available (click here for an archived version of the page).

• Item 22 and continuation section: This is your “personal statement” as well as your opportunity to explain anything that is remotely negative or unclear in your application. For the personal statement portion, make sure you use all the space available and address your objectives with respect to officership and flying duty. It should be concise and well-crafted – try to get one or two people you know who are good writers to edit it. Make sure you take the opportunity to address any potential negatives, too. You can use the space in Item 22 or use the continuation space to explain other items on the form (such as low GPA, law violation, etc). Whatever you do, don’t let there be any unanswered questions in the board’s mind! If you can, spin the event in a positive way – from that one bad semester, you turned it around and developed focus OR what you learned from that underage drinking bust – etc. According to the Announcement, unanswered questions “cause board members to be concerned, which often lowers a board score” – don’t let that happen to you! The need to explain/address negative information was an emphasis item from several previous boards.
• Interview: Unfortunately, this is a very important item that’s only partially within your control. What you can’t control is whether your interviewer takes the time and care to write up a good interview profile. What you CAN control is making a good enough impression that your interviewer will take the necessary time with your application. If you’re enlisted and being interviewed by your unit commander, hopefully your commander will care enough about your career and the (presumably good) work you’ve done for your unit to take the time. Your unit commander will also have more data to work with for writing up the interview. Civilian or enlisted, if you do end up interviewing with someone who doesn’t know you at all, watch out for these common pitfalls:
  • Interviewers ‘cut and paste’ bullets, either overlooking name/pronoun changes or using the same bullets on a number of applications for the same board
  • Bullets written are weak and do not stratify (above average, top applicant, etc). This was an emphasis item on several previous boards.
  • Interviewers don’t write enough bullets - they should fill up the available space!
  • A special note for enlisted applicants – Another emphasis item from previous boards was that interviewer bullets need to cover “new ground” and should not be cut and paste from EPRs (or other documents already available in your application package).
  • What can you do if this happens to you? Not much, unfortunately. But if you make a good enough impression on your interviewer, he/she should take the necessary time to write a good evaluation.
  • The official application guides recommend that you get a major or higher to conduct the interview.

• When you look up your PCSM (which can only be done once you’ve taken the AFOQT and TBAS), you are given a scale indicating what your PCSM would be with additional flight hours. Flying hours are a good way to increase your PCSM score if you have the money and time. 
• If you’re truly concerned about your PCSM (but don’t have the $$$ or time for a ton of flight hours) you might want to look at re-taking the AFOQT if your AFOQT pilot score is low. If you have a relatively high AFOQT but low PCSM, the problem MAY be your TBAS score. You should be able to take the TBAS twice in your lifetime. There has to be a six-month interval between tests. Click here for more information on the TBAS!

• You can take the AFOQT twice with a 180-day minimum interval between tests. You can get a waiver to take the test a third time. According to AFI 36-2605 (Air Force Testing Program) Attachment 2, candidates “must have completed (since the previous AFOQT administration) at least two college courses in subjects relevant to the AFOQT, gained significant flying experience, or improved other skills and abilities measured by the AFOQT. Waiver requests must include documentation of all education and experience with grades achieved and other relevant measures.” NOTE: Your most recent scores are the ones that matter, so if you retake, make sure you improve!
• Make sure to concentrate on the sections that are used to determine the Pilot composite score. You can find out which sections those are, as well as great AFOQT preparation tools and strategy on our AFOQT page!

• Take advantage of the full two pages if you have significant experience, but don’t fill up two pages with ‘fluff.’ As with anything you submit, a clean writing style and flawless proofreading are critical. If you have the ‘numbers,’ you don’t want to give them any reason NOT to select you – and if you don’t have the ‘numbers’ you need to highlight your work/life experience and other ‘whole person’ factors even more.
• If you’re stumped for how to structure work experience bullets, check out these resume resources. Each bullet should be limited to one line (if possible) and relate to a specific accomplishment – don’t just list typical responsibilities on a typical day. (These links are for traditional employment resumes; obviously you’ll have a format dictated to you so you should ignore the advice on format).
  • List of action verbs (best for the beginning of your bullets)
  • Sample resumes
  • A collection of resume articles

• Even though you wouldn’t be penalized for the writing abilities of your recommender, try to choose someone you know writes well – after all, the better the writer, the better they’ll be able to convey the message that the Air Force would be crazy not to give you a pilot slot.
• Do not choose someone famous/high-ranking who does not know you well. A generic letter – which is all you’re likely to get from Senator so-and-so – is, at best, a wasted piece of the application package. Don’t shy away from high-ranking types if they know you well – a general who has had many people under his command would be an excellent recommender if he knows you well and is going to say “the top person in my organization.”
• Provide plenty of information to help the recommender out – provide a copy of your resume/profile, advance notice on all deadlines, and inputs on what you’d like to convey with the letter if the recommender is amenable to such advice.
• Only provide more than the three required letters if the additional letters have something substantial to add. If it’s ‘more of the same’ you risk cluttering up your package with paper that doesn’t help you much.

Just How Competitive?

What Are Your Chances?
No one can predict what “it will take” to get selected for a pilot slot on any given board. Additionally, because the boards follow the “whole person concept,” you can’t tell the entire story solely by looking at applicants’ numbers. All the same, colleges use the “whole person concept” too, but you still probably had an idea of what SAT score was ‘in the ballpark’ for any given college when you applied, right? You can use these tools to get an idea of what the ballpark looks like for OTS pilot selections.

Pilot Slot Stats
A great place to check to see whether or not your numbers are ‘competitive’ is our Pilot Slot Stats page. Our data is based on users who enter their ‘vitals’ – AFOQT, PCSM, GPA, etc. You can view all the individual records or choose from a number of different charts to display the data. Our data only gets better as more users enter their information – if you are selected for a pilot slot from OTS, enter your numbers here!

AF OTS Selection Statistics
Lucky for you, the AF Recruiting Service releases average statistics on those selected for OTS for each board. For reference (because you get two rated program choices, even though you’re only looked at for your second choice on your second board) we’ve compiled pilot, navigator and air battle manager selection data here. Because the statistics were reported differently for different boards, there may not be a ‘data point’ for each category for each year. We have taken the data from OTS selection messages that used to be posted on the Hill AFB Education Office website. Unfortunately they are no longer posted (click here for an archived version of the page) and we don't know of any source for more current messages/data, but we thought this data was still recent enough to be useful. CLICK HERE FOR CHARTSshowing AFOQT scores and GPAs or click here to download the OTS selection data in excel format.

Here are some additional statistics gleaned from the OTS selection messages

The Results Are Out – Now What?

1. Complete Your Flying Class I Physical (initial), unless you completed it prior to the board due to your age.
2. Complete and submit security clearance paperwork.
3. Go to OTS – You will be scheduled for an OTS class as soon as copies of the flight physical are received by the Air Force Recruiting Service. For a listing of OTS class dates, click here.
4. Complete more medical screening (at Brooks AFB, Texas). Note: You must remove your contact lenses 30 days (soft) or 90 days (hard) prior to your initial physical and continue not to wear them until after the medical screening at Brooks.
5. Complete Initial Flight Screening (IFS) (formerly IFT - Initial Flight Training). This used to be 50 hours of civilian flight instruction, including a solo flight but beginning in October 2006 will be a standard-curriculum flight training program run by civilian contractors in Colorado.
6. Enter Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) at one of five bases: Laughlin AFB, TX; Vance AFB, OK; Columbus AFB, MS; NAS Pensacola; Sheppard AFB, TX (ENJJPT Application and Selection Board at OTS)