Stoker

The 11-248 hasn't changed since 2016, but a lot of the maneuvers aren't done anymore (or at least, required in the syllabus).

Question: I'm a reservist at UPT currently living in the dorms, getting BAH for my home location based upon still having a house there while I'm in training. My Guard friend here in the same situation isn't getting BAH, period, much less BAH for where he's paying a mortgage while in training. Does anyone know what reg is allowing me to do this, and if there's any reason it would/wouldn't apply to a Guard student? We're talking something like a $25k difference in pay over the course of UPT, for no reason I can figure.

Solo students are expected to either land the plane via normal overhead, or eject. No ELPs, and we don't practice them in the aircraft. Still have to know the details of an ELP for GK. Instructors and some international students still do ELPs.

We just had the biggest influx of new people to the dorms (Academy folks showing up), so it might be a while. I was given the offer to get out about two months after getting here, but they were trying to clear space for the ring-wearers coming in.

Taxes should be for the purpose of raising revenue to fund government, not to punish people who government decides have too much money.

That's kind of a fundamental misunderstanding of how saving works. Very few people are literally Scrooge McDucking their savings in a giant vault. The estate tax hits productive enterprises that have a monetary value, or stocks that represent capital investments. Even if it's just cash in a bank account, the bank can now lend that money out to people who want to accomplish things with it. The issue with the estate tax is that it's relatively easy to evade, and the incentives to do so are extremely high. People with $100 million estates are paying a smart lawyer to set up trusts and shells to avoid paying much, if anything. Heirs of people with a relatively small family business, say, $10 million, are forced to sell out in order to pay the taxes. You often can't really just sell half of a small company. Even in your farm example, it's not so simple as selling a few hundred acres. Now you don't really have the land to justify that $400k combine you bought, and maybe a fulltime manager just isn't really in the cards... in a few years, your productivity is down so much you sell the rest.

You'll have to go to the UOQs first, even if it's full there's a waitlist to get out, so you'd take someone's room and they'd get to move. They're also intermittently letting single students find a roommate and share a base house, pocketing ~$400 of leftover BAH. YMMV. For the UOQs, the beds are Full XLs in case you want to order sheets that actually fit. Don't listen to the UOQ lady if she tells you different. Casual jobs are much less of a thing than they used to be, you mostly don't get one unless you're in the wrong place at the right time. Instead, expect to be assigned as a casual to a T-6 flight room for at least a few weeks before you start academics. The idea is you can study, ask questions, etc.

Fighter units don't look likely, I'd say you'd have a decent shot at heavy squadrons provided you rushed/interviewed well. PPL will likely do the most to improve your chances, especially as it gives you a talking point about your dedication to this goal.

You should storm through your PPL as fast as humanly possible. If this is something you seriously want to do, spend the $10,000 or so it would take to go to a dedicated pilot mill that can get you done in two weeks. As you said, time is not on your side. There's a 35 year old in my UPT class so not out of the question, but every day you delay puts you further towards the point of no return.

That's not a bad idea. I had horrible grades at the first college I attended, transferred and did better (not great, but a solid 3.something). I didn't just let the numbers speak for themselves though, I made it a talking point about dedication to doing better. You should get your AFOQT done first, this can probably be done easiest by going to the nearest AFROTC detachment. It can also be scheduled through a recruiter, but the less you have to deal with one the better. After that, you take the TBAS which generates your PCSM. I'd probably go to local flight doc and get a first class FAA medical. It doesn't count for anything with the military, but some Guard units require a First Class (vs a Third Class) to apply, and it costs only a few dollars more, usually. Getting your civilian medical will at least ensure you aren't disqualified right off the bat, say, you have no color vision.

Just go to college and have a good time, don't worry about the Air Force in any significant way. Get a PPL in your spare time. You're five years away from when you'd be first eligible to get picked up for a flying slot (and that's if you finish college in four years; you're smarter to do it in six). No telling if you'll still want to be a pilot then, much less a member of the military. People change. Don't commit your life so far from the goal. That said, if you have actual problems paying for a decent state school, enlisting to get that paid for might be a good idea. Given the current hiring environment, enlisting to up your odds of getting hired by a Guard or Reserve squadron is a fool's errand - people are being hired with practically zero flight time and degrees in art.

It's MEPS. Odds are you'll have to go back twice anyways because your paperwork got lost / shredded / eaten by a Marine. While lying might be a little more convenient, I wouldn't put yourself at risk just to save wasting a day.

Your numbers are more than good enough to get an interview with a heavy squadron. From there, it's all on your personality. FYI, the seated height restriction for the T-38 (which is the most restrictive) is 40 inches. Not sure if it's changed since you were told you couldn't fit.

Absent a PPL, you probably have zero shot (at a Guard/Reserve squadron). With one, you have a shot, provided you rush the units, make best buds with the people there, and are just plain good. On the plus side, given your age, you have plenty of time to chase the dream of fighters and still have time to apply for transports and tankers when/if that fails. If you're on the hunt for fighter slots for a year, say, and you don't even get called for an interview, you know you probably aren't competitive and can shift your sights or refocus your future plans. I'd say five letters of rec is too many, pick your best three.

A little late, but if your degree is in engineering as your username implies, you should be able to make the argument that your 2.5 is easily an underwater basketweaving 3. And I say that as an underwater basketweaving major.

The value of a degree is like 80% signalling. It's letting prospective employers know that you were smart enough to get in, and dedicated enough to show up for (enough of the) classes for four years. The more selective / better brand name schools are obviously going to be better at that. In other words, Utah Valley U has a 100% acceptance rate. Maybe that should give you an indication of how others will perceive your attendance there.

You absolutely don't need to be enlisted, especially for Reserve squadrons. More job announcements will come. The hiring boom isn't ceasing anytime soon. Your scores are good enough to be more than competitive at any tanker or airlift squadron out there (even more so if the location is undesirable). Get flight hours, most units will want you to have a least a few to be seriously considered, and a PPL is variously required officially or unofficially.

Why not? We managed for the first hundred and fifty years or so of this country's history, at times when we were a lot smaller geographically. We managed to absorb roughly a million immigrants a year around 1900, at a time when that was about one percent of the population. A country isn't a pie, more people doesn't mean less pie for you. It means there's more people making pies.

For most people who wish to come to the United States, there is simply no option to come here legally. In my opinion, if someone wants to pursue to American dream so badly that they leave everything they've ever known, put their lives into the hands of untrustworthy smugglers, to come here and work in fast food, landscaping, and contracting, I say, let them. That's more American a thing to do than what most of the people in this country have ever done in their lives. More succinctly, "an unjust law is no law at all." Practically, you are never going to be able to "defeat" illegal immigration. The incentives are too great. Migrants are routinely murdered, sold into sex slavery, or left for dead in the desert trying to get here. If that doesn't deter them, what do you think the government can possibly do? People claim to only be against illegal immigrants, legal immigration, but I rarely hear them calling for increased legal immigration (which is the one surefire way to reduce legal immigration, without government spending billions on mostly ineffective border "security").

More specifically, you now do about 20 sims during academics, then go to the flightline. We've been told that Phase II is now scheduled for about three months. You actually track prior to finishing T-6s, with split tracks within T-6s from then on.

Don't know a ton about the unsponsored route, but at the AFRC board that selected me they picked up like 33/36 sponsored applicants and 3/6 unsponsored. So your odds are reduced a fair bit. And some boards just don't accept unsponsored candidates at all. I failed depth perception at MEPS as well. I was sent by my recruiter to the nearest base for a full eye workup with the med group, which I passed. I think that's a waiverable thing though, same for hearing at that level (if you're at 30 then I think you're only 5 away from passing). Ask in the medical questions forum (after searching, of course). You probably do need a PPL to go unsponsored. You probably don't need one to get sponsored by a heavy squadron. The Guard B-1 squadron is hiring people with ~20 hours, heavy squadrons are telling people with 0 hours to get a few and come back next board. If you have the money, get it, it'll save you six weeks at IFT and at least as many more waiting around to go and then waiting for UPT to start after you get back. I would only enlist if your long term life plans are fulfilled by you enlisting. Doing so as a stepping stone to becoming a pilot is a high-risk, low-reward gamble (as there's a good chance you're unhappy, and a small chance you improve your odds of going to UPT).

"Unsponsored boards" are a Reserve thing, every Active Duty board is unsponsored. The Reserve unsponsored board is not going to be helpful with a waiver, you need a squadron that likes/needs you in your corner pushing the paperwork forward (plus, the unsponsored boards come and go depending on needs of the Reserve). Fighters would seem unlikely for you. From what I've seen they are much less likely to do age waivers, and most require a PPL at minimum. Going enlisted ANG and hoping to get picked up for UPT isn't the worst idea ever, it's slightly better than invading Russia in the winter. Really, though, it's a big "risk" (depending on how negative you'd view spending your time enlisted) for not a huge increase in likelihood of being picked up for UPT (as you'd now definitely need a waiver, and one for being 32 or 33, not just 30). My advice is that you should apply for Reserve heavy squadrons. They're hiring tons of people right now and your scores are competitive for them. Given how the Reserves have streamlined the process post squadron hire (AFRC boards every six weeks instead of six months, surplus of dedicated Reserve spots at OTS/UPT), you would have a good chance of getting to UPT before your 30th birthday and thus not require a waiver. That's barring any screwups with your medical at MEPS/FC1, neither of which are guaranteed. For comparison, my time between hire and UPT was 14 months, and that was with four months of delays for medical shenanigans and three months of waiting on the AFRC board.

Not quite. If you're AD with dependents and come to UPT unaccompanied, you lose your BAH if you live in government quarters. So you have to find a house to split, and roommates, at your UPT base, and you only get BAH for the base you're assigned to, not where your family lives. This can be a pretty significant $$$ difference versus the Guard and Reserve folks living in the dorms for free and collecting BAH for their spouse living in Miami, say.

It's not uncommon here. Two people in my class are in that situation (no kids though). Guard you should get BAH for your wife's house, and be able to live in the dorms free. So there's that.

If you mean the shortened course, we're in Week 4 of academics.