[Music] uh [Music] welcome back to today's episode of commission ed reid what are we going to talk about today today we're talking about how to become a pilot so there i was there you were there i was so when people think about the air force when people think about the air force they think about being a pilot and as we've talked about before pilots only make up four percent of the air force but they make up a pretty darn important part of the air force absolutely being a pilot flying aircraft dropping bombs putting warheads on foreheads that is the family business we are the air force absolutely and in order to help us understand how to get there that's what we're going to talk about today we're going to talk about what the rated officer career fields are and how you can apply for them so that you if that is your goal we can help you get there so let's start with what rated officers are versus non-rated because that's a pretty big division and it's important to understand that yes absolutely rated officers to begin with are line officers and a line officer is someone who has the authority to conduct combat operations rated within line officer is this very special category within the air force that is made up of four career fields that is pilot combat systems officer air battle manager and remotely piloted aircraft pilot yep and these four positions are make up what we think of as our front-line troops the folks that are bringing the fight to the enemy they are conducting the primary family business pilot fairly self-explanatory they are the ones piloting aircraft sizzo combat systems officers those are a little bit more complicated we'll get in depth in those in some future videos and some in some of our other podcast episodes but there are other air crew that help support the pilots in conducting the primary mission then you have remotely piloted aircraft which as it says they pilot aircraft via remote so we're talking our mq-9 our rq-4 and other remotely piloted aircrafts where there's not a person in the aircraft itself they're driving that from someplace else the last one is the air battle manager and you can think of this as like a command and control position in the sky so instead of being at one physical location and directing aircraft they're in an aircraft directing other aircraft yeah they're responsible for orchestrating the air battle telling all of those other pilots combat systems officers remotely piloted aircraft pilots where to take their aircraft in order to deliver the effects that the air force needs in order to accomplish the mission so depending on your session source your ability to select one of these career fields is slightly different if you go to usafa you're going to get that option about the end of your second year beginning you know towards the end of your program you're going to apply to become one of these positions colin how is it at rotc yeah it's very similar that at the end of your third year in air force rotc you will put in an application stating that you volunteer to be a rated officer now one thing that's really important both for air force academy and for air force rotc is that if you volunteer for one meaning you say i want to be a pilot that also means that you are volunteering to be potentially selected for any of the other career fields that's really important to know that if you volunteer for one you volunteer for all of them that's slightly different from ots at ots when you apply again you have to work through a recruiter but when you put in your package you get to list the specific career fields you are applying for and some if they don't want to do those other career fields simply won't list them now most recruiters will most often give you the advice that if you want to get in the air force you need to give them more options to choose from because depending on where your package falls you may not get anything if you only put down one career field yeah and something else to consider is over the course of your career if you get selected into being a sizzo or an abm but you always wanted to be a pilot there will be an opportunity potentially later on for you to cross train from the career field that you're in whether rated non-rated maybe even non-line to become a rated officer in that pilot that you always wanted to be but if pilots what you want to do that's what we're going to cover today we're going to talk about first all the stuff that goes into your application to be a rated officer we're going to start off with tea bass colin what is tbas yeah the tbas is the test of basic aviation skills this is a joystick and a screen where you go through a series of different exercises demonstrating your your capability your competency your aptitude for maintaining control of a stick while in a simulated aircraft the next thing that you have to know is your air force officer qualifying test something all officers have to take irrespective of what they're going to do there are specific parts of that test that examine your ability and competence pilot navigation and verbal quantitative and some other things but those pilot and nav scores really play a big role in your ability to get selected to be a rated officer yeah more information about the air force officer qualifying test is included in the description there are minimum scores that you have to achieve in order to qualify to be a pilot or a combat system combat systems officer or an air battle manager then the combination of your scores in the afo qt and in the tbas are put together into what is called the pixem the pilot candidate selection method but that those aren't the only things that are part of the pixel that also includes some flight hours the more hours you have the more the higher your score on the pixel will be and this is something that is really a wide range for especially ots i remember when i went through some of my fellow students had multiple thousands of hours in aircraft and some had none it's a really hard thing but bottom line with all of these tests and scores and everything is you need to do as well as you can in all of the areas but it is a whole airman concept and that's a really important thing to remember yeah we talked about the tea bass the afoqt the pixem but what it really comes down to is all the things that we've talked about previously which is how what what kind of person are you what's your character how well do you connect with others and can you demonstrate the minimum level of competence necessary to eventually meet the requirements of being a pilot or other rated officer that have been established by the air force we want good people flying our aircraft not just people who not just those who can fly well we want good officers leading the fight taking the the hurt to the enemy and making sure that we do it in a moral and ethical way now what we've talked about today pretty much does a good job of describing the active duty selection for pilot we haven't covered the garden reserve because those are slightly different primarily those units pick the people they want to fly the aircraft they want and so those are even more and all-encompassing when it comes to you as an entire person but really that's kind of it i know it it sounds like a lot and it is but if this is something you want to do you're going to have to get after it you're going to have to pursue it last thing before we wrap up today colin we have not covered any of the medical stuff because not doctors if you need some advice on the medical qualifications we'll provide some links in the description below absolutely we would like to hear from you what has been your experience being selected as a pilot or other rated officer we want to know what the where you are in the process other questions that you might have join us in the heritage room at air force officerpodcast.com you can also reach out to us air force officer podcast gmail.com or through any of the social media outlets we ask that you continue to like and subscribe and follow us wherever you get your podcasts and your information and continue to engage with us in that way that'll wrap it up for us today thanks for joining us on commissioned