nolifepilot

37th! There've been some not too chill times like early wakeups and late days, but I have genuinely enjoyed every single moment of it and even sitting in a class where I'm about to fall asleep and bored out of my mind I'm still like "damn this is the coolest thing ever." For SA purposes for y'all, I was prior RPA and already had a medical clearance and a PPL so I wasn't required to go back for anymore medical testing or to IFT again. If anyone has questions about URT feel free to reach out. Last year I found out my RNTLD and base 30 Jan which was about two weeks after we heard the selection results. I originally had a RNLTD of 6 May to Columbus with a 6 Jun class start date. I worked as the person who sent out RIPs to people as my casual job, and at least at Columbus, all of our RNTLDs were exactly one month prior to the projected start date. I moved my PCS date up to 1 April because I wanted to escape my last base as quickly as possible and so I got to Columbus 6 Apr. Once I got to CAFB, I was given about a month without any type of casual job to get settled and in-processed. During this time, my only responsibility was to go in and sign a piece of paper at 0800 on Tuesdays. After that month, I started my casual job of working as a transition manager which are the people that in-process all the students who get to base. It was super chill, our schedule was to work 2-3 days a week for a 4 hr shift. For a casual job, you could be a TM like me, or do anything else the base needed like being a sqdn/group/wing exec, working SF, doing drug tests, being a scheduler in a flight room, working the pharmacy, etc, it all depended on manning numbers when you arrived. If you showed up and told the trans flt/cc that you had a casual job in mind then they normally put you in that role. People that showed up with either a class start date or IFT within a month generally didn't get casual jobs since they wouldn't have the time to get spun up/spun down before they left. Most casual jobs let their people go 1 month prior to start dates so you just kind of hang out, and then class activities start 10-days out before your class date. My 6 June class start date got moved back to 11 Sep but I think these days people's dates are generally staying the same and not moving. We were in preflight (academics and sims) from 11 Sep to 13 Dec during which you generally have classes and sims most days out of the week. The schedule isn't terrible at all, we'd have maybe 3-4 hrs of class 3/5 days a week and a sim 2-3 days a week as well. When you didn't have a class or a sim, you were free to do whatever you wanted and be wherever you wanted. I did most of my CBTs from at home plopped on my couch. It's very self-paced and self-guided but the sim IPs and classmates are always available if you need them. I've heard one thing that differed CAFB from the other UPT bases was that as soon as you finished preflight you hit the flightline, i.e. the class ahead of me finished preflight and then the next day had their dollar rides. Because the flightline was so backed up though, my class finished preflight and then had 6 weeks of nothing before we had our dollar rides. But the class behind me only had a few days, so it apparently is really dependent on your squadron and how backed up the flightline is. Now that we're on the flightline, we're on formal release and have been told to expect to be on formal until at least we all pass our trans check which I think is a month or 2? With formal, expect to be in the flightroom for 12 hrs a day before getting released. This past week our schedule was 0530-1730. I never thought I'd say it but those 12 hrs go by fast. We're flying normally 3 times a week and have a USEM event (emergency procedures standup, shotgun questions for the room, classes, etc) generally every day. We have a pretty generous "be able to get back within 15 mins" so we're cleared to go to the gym, study elsewhere, lunch, etc as long as you're able to get back quickly. Again, this stuff is all pretty CAFB and sqdn dependent, but I know that when I was in y'all's shoes last year I was hungry for every bit of info I could get my hands on.

Congrats to everyone who got selected, I recognize a lot of names from last year!!! I'm so happy for yall! To those who didn't get the news they wanted, keep pushing and never take no for an answer! Y'all got this!! I was selected for UPT on the last board and after starting class in Sept, I finally had my T6 dollar ride this past week. All I could think the entire time was "this was so so so worth everything it took to get here. All the effort for the board, all the anxiety of waiting, literally whatever it took to get to this moment here was worth it." Feel free to message me if you have any questions about UPT or Columbus! Congrats!!

What wing are you at with 15 applicants? Your stats look fantastic too, your wing must have had to really stretch to place you #11. We've got a former army officer in my class who's now in the AF Guard so it definitely is a possible route! It seems like such an odd and arbitrary restriction to have.

That's your "expected class date" but it appears that most likely won't be your actual class start date. After talking with Columbus, they said to expect to wait at least a few months for you to actually start UPT. The 2Lt I spoke with said she was supposed to start August 22' and she was hoping to make it into the July 23' class. I asked if it was a similar timeline for the "late to rate" folk and she said it seemed like they weren't waiting years like other people, but the wait still was at least a few months.

You can work with AFPC to change your IFT/PCS dates as needed. You can also request a RNLTD change via vMPF, your losing/gaining commanders will crosschat and are the ones to approve it. What's been the trend for all my friends so far is that the expected class start date is exactly 1 month after the RNLTD, so for a 26 June RNLTD I'd expect a 26 July class start date (If you check your SURF via AMS on vMPF it should have a section about expected training with expected dates). When I spoke with Columbus, they said that the Guard/Reserve folk normally show up about 10 days before their class start date and have zero problems so that shouldn't be an issue to show up later!

https://www.columbus.af.mil/New-Students/ This site has a welcome packet that has numbers and contact info in it, super useful info regarding UPT and IFT and everything to get you situated and ready! I called the Transition Office (the people that'll be responsible for you while you await UPT). Their number is (662) 434-7618. I attached the portion of the welcome packet that deals with leave, casual seems like it's gonna be a super chill time tbh

Columbus was my #1! I've got my orders already and I'm PCS'ing from my current base on 1 Apr. I have a 6 May RNLTD with a 6 Jun class date. The other guy in my sqdn that got picked up got Laughlin (his #1) with the same PDD, RNLTD, and class date as I have. I talked with the Transition flight folk at Columbus and they said that even though AFPC told me I'm in the 6 Jun class, I'm not currently on that class's roster and it's pretty common to sit and wait at least a few months as your class date will keep getting delayed since they're pretty backed up. For Columbus, they said the first month you arrive they let you get settled and then after that you'll be assigned a casual job where you'll work about 4 hrs a day. My dream of being a casual captain is coming true 🥰

I emailed the board and asked them how the PCS orders thing would affect UPT dates and assignments. This is the response I got back:

Got my dates this morning, RNLTD of 6 May to Columbus!

Check your 2808, the stamp will either say "Medically Qualified for FC1 pending MFS" or "Medically Qualified for FC1." You'll only need to attend MFS if it's the former, otherwise you're cleared hot! It depends on where you did your initial flight physical too - if you did it at either USAFA or Wright-Patt then you won't need to attend MFS, but if you got it done anywhere else then you'll need to attend MFS to be fully cleared for FC1. I got mine done at USAFA in 2016, got DQ'd there in 2018, then redid my FC1 locally at my base (Grand Forks AFB) in 2022. When I did my FC1 physical here, the flight doc said that I'd only need to go to Wright Patt if they needed more info about my waiver, otherwise I'd be good to go. My 2808 stamp says "Medically Cleared for: FC1 (w/waiver), FC1A (w/waiver)."

Yessir! I've got my PPL and I'm also already rated so I don't have to go to either IFT or MFS.

Just used the EFMP trick to find out I'm headed to Columbus!! Not sure of dates yet though. EFMP Trick (from @Arkbird last year) - Log into vMPF and click under self-service actions - Click on Assignments (while in self-service) and go down to the EFMP section - In the new tab, click on the "apply to change/cancel assignment - If this doesn't kick back with "MILPDS doesn't reflect an assignment loaded, click on next and choose any of the options then next again. This next screen will tell you what unit and base you will be going to.

Ayyyy congrats!! That's wayyyyyyyyyyy sooner than anyone expected!

Have any other selects been notified by MPF or FSS? My interpretation of the PDSM is that we should have gotten some sort of notification from them but no one in my wing has heard anything. Also, do they take more than 1 person per squadron? Looking at the names lists for the past 2 years there aren't any repeated squadrons and so we've been wondering if there's a limit of only 1 person per sqdn. Out of our 4 sqdn applicants, only 2 of us got picked up, but the other guy moved from my sqdn to the OSS right around when the board was meeting and he shows on the selection PDSM as being a part of the OSS, not the squadron that we both were in when we applied.

I don’t mind sharing my package, toss me your AF email via dm and I can send it your way!