Spaceballs

Awesome thanks. I'm kind of expecting just to wait for the list to pop up on mypers somewhere and then we'll know. I called the board a couple weeks ago to make sure my package made it to them and the captain I talked to said the results should be released within two weeks. Hopefully that's true.

Does anyone know how the process works for the AD board? The board met yesterday and I heard it usually takes a couple weeks for them to release the results. Do the squadron commanders call us in to let us know if we got picked up or turned down? Or just if we get picked up? Or do we just have to check mypers to find out? Thanks!

Any rumors on what the board is looking for this time around? I've heard some years the rankings are the big thing and other years it's the PCSM/AFOQT scores.

I feel like I have a very strong package. My AFOQT scores and PCSM score are almost maxed. I've got my PPL, lots of combat hours, good pushes, and nothing negative on there. I've had a couple guys look over it who got picked up before and said it looks really strong. Is not having any letters going to look bad enough that I would get passed over against someone with a weaker package but has letters?

Are letters of recommendation required or do they hold an exuberant amount of weight? I was given a call today saying they didn't think I had a chance to get picked up without any letters.

Is it odd that the board still has not been announced for Jan 2015? I thought I read before that they have to announce the board at least 6 months prior the board meeting. Last year it was announced on 14 August and the year before was in June or July. It's almost September and still no board. Is that a sign it might not happen?

That's an incredible drop. I wish ours would have been nearly that good. The first few classes that went through Pensacola had hoooorrrible drops. If the guy who got U-28s has any questions, he can e-mail or pm me anytime.

Any of the other hundred guys in the squadron who don't deploy could do it. Plus that gives those of us who deploy 4 on, 4 off for years a chance to stay home rather than fly a desk.

I wonder how many bronze stars these finance guys have...

Cannon isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be, but it is pretty miserable. The only halfway decent thing about it is the people. You have to drive at least a couple hours to eat or do anything decent. I would take pretty much any base in the States other than Minot over Cannon.

I just finished mine at Cannon a couple weeks ago. It is extremely low key and not difficult at all. You'll get blood taken for about 20 different things, which isn't as bad as it sounds. Just make sure you drink plenty of water to stay hydrated and keep your blood cells at the right levels. You'll also do vision tests, hearing tests, x-rays, an EKG, and then a doctor will probe around your body for a bit. It doesn't take that long to do the tests and get the results back. The most painful part is waiting on AETC, or whoever the approval board people are, to approve it.

So I tried calling Mr. Peterson's replacement multiple times over the past couple days and I can't get anything. He has a voicemail that says something about AFPC is working summer assignments, so quit asking. I also tried to e-mail the listed e-mail on the board announcements from the past couple years, but it immediately gets rejected saying the e-mail is no longer in use.

So would the best way to do this probably be to go ahead and write up a memorandum asking for the waiver and start pushing it up my chain? It doesn't seem like there is really any other way around it. I guess I can put down that it was a counseling error when I was told I could not apply while I was in an FTU, even though technically I think I could have. I just read through a reg on writing memorandums. Does anyone know what type of letterhead they want? Maybe it's best just to use my Majcom's letterhead since it's going up and being approved by them or should I just use my squadron's letterhead? There doesn't seem to be any hard guidance on this and no one I've contacted in my squadron has any idea.

Lots of new reports have been coming out from people that served with him saying he was a traitor. The "secret" documents that were leaked a couple days ago claim he started a jihad against the US. Even before that he made statements about hating the US and the Army. He needs to go to a court martial and face the proper punishment if he did willingly desert his unit. Obviously none of us were there so we don't know the real story, but from what I've seen it appears that he is a deserter at best and a traitor at worst.

I've been digging through the AFI for a while this morning and it is waiverable. I would have to submit an etp waiver request up my chain and it goes really high. It says it is only for rare circumstances. The waiver requires you to submit the reason for the error (clinical, medical, etc), but in my case it's just that I've never been able to before. I'll call mr Peterson on Monday and see what he says, but it looks like I will need it.

The only time I've ever applied for pilot was in ROTC when I applied for everything and got CSO. I wanted to apply last year, but I was cross-training aircraft and didn't get to put in while I was in the FTU.

Hey guys, I was looking at the past couple PSDM announcements for the UFT boards. On last year's PSDM, it said this: B. All applicants who meet eligibility requirements as defined in AFI 36-2205 may apply. However, opportunities may be limited or restricted for some rated applicants in critical weapon systems in order to maintain acceptable operational manning levels. Applicants must meet all other eligibility criteria to apply for UFT. Pilot, CSO, ABM and RPA Pilot Training Applicants: Date of Birth after 1 Apr 1984 (max age 30). Total Federal Commissioned Service Date (TFCSD) after 1 Apr 2009. Does that mean for the last board you had to commission after 1 Apr 2009 and is that waiverable? I'm assuming this year they will move it forward another year, making it a requirement to commission after 1 Apr 2010. I commissioned in May 2009. Thanks.

What the last guy said. I retook it last year and got a 99 on the pilot section. I studied for all the sections, but I spent the majority of the time on the pilot sections. The hardest part for me was trying to remember how to do weird math problems that I had not seen since high school or freshman year in college. If you really want to do well, I suggest buying a book or two that focus on the afoqt and study those.

I'll definitely be deploying. That's the issue I'm running into now preventing me from doing any further testing. I'm going to stop by the clinic in the morning to check my last cbc results and see what the plan is. If it is still high, the best I'm hoping for is that they can explain the altitude issue and that they couldn't find anything wrong with me. Maybe the guys on the flying medical board will be cool with it. Only time will tell I guess. Thanks for the responses.

I've just took another CBC test last week, so we'll see how that one turns out. I drank tons and tons of water for about 10 days or so prior and tried to exercise a lot. Unfortunately I'm on a really short timeline due to a deployment coming up in a few weeks. They tested my iron, liver, polycythemia, and some other stuff I didn't understand. They can't find anything wrong with me. The doc wanted me to go see a hematologist, but unfortunately the closet one is just over 200 miles from the base and there are a bunch of issues with going there and dealing with Tricare since they aren't in the buildings anymore. The timeline just doesn't work in my favor since I'll be gone until about a month before expected deadline for application submissions. No one at the clinic that I've talked to has any clue how it will work since they can't find any explanation other than the altitude. The doc told me they always find something to request a waiver on, but they only have a couple weeks and it sounds like they can't think of anything else to do other than see a hematologist or do some kind of crazy painful bone marrow test that I won't do. So basically, if they can't find anything wrong with me do they just send my medical package up to the board with a note that says they tested me for a bunch of different blood stuff and couldn't find anything? That was the general idea I got from the clinic and they sounded pretty pessimistic about it. One of them threw out a number that 90% of applications get denied if they don't find the cause behind a number out of limits.

Has anyone had issues with blood tests before that have been approved or dq'd? I recently moved to a new base with high elevation and I'm pretty sure that it why my hemoglobin is testing barely too high. I'm a cso now and have never had any health issues. The clinic here has been running a ton of tests on me and can't find anything wrong. They keep trying to find something to explain the high level even though the doc said it's probably because I've always lived at sea level and just moved to a high elevation. Is this something I should expect a DQ from?

It's just because leadership will hang you on what is written even if they give verbal guidance in a different direction.

That's the way I see it as well and had a talk with my flt/cc yesterday about it. Apparently nothing is official on paper yet, so my sq/cc still expects us all to have it done and will not send us to SOS in-residence unless we have it done. Two '07 guys won't be going in-residence at all since they don't have it done by now. I'm an '09 guy and my flt/cc told me I'm way behind the curve for not having it done. I'm 1 class away from being done with my masters, but I'm behind the curve because I'm not done with SOS. I figured it was smart with all the force-shaping going on to prioritize my masters over a few useless SOS classes, but it apparently that puts me below guys who haven't even started their masters, but finished SOS.

Is there any kind of pre-test available to study before taking the tests? I'm working on the first class right now and so much of it is "this person you've never heard of said this, but oh yeah this other person you've never heard of said this". I'm afraid the test is going to be a bunch of questions about the first commander's opinion of an unheard of AETC wing on critical thinking...just stuff that no one really cares about.

Thanks for the reply. None of my leadership could find anything. I think I'll still try to get a class 1 done just in case.