After two and a half years of testing and being poked and prodded in various orifices, flying planes for them and going through 4 or 5 nasty interviews, I finally got the call today from the RAAF that my last outstanding medical issue has been reviewed and given the all clear, so I leave sunday for officer training school down in Point Cook victoria, then onto combat survival and then onto flying.

will be sad to leave everyone in brissy behind, but ive dreamed of this and worked very hard to get it so im stoked!

keep up the qgl goodness :)

ps w00t!

have fun!, don't fly into any skyscrapers now!

wow you must be uber smart with fantastic eyesite

the testing has been harder than any other exam or aptitude tests ive done before, including all through university (though 1st year chem came close...) But going to tamworth and getting to fly planes with them for two weeks was awesome.. talk about throwing you in the deep end...

As for the physical side of it,well... they pretty much want you perfect. I've had three major issues to pass onto specialists from them and im a fit healthy (now 24 year old) who never gets sick.

had to have an MRI of my ankle (old injury),a cardiac stress test at 23 because they thought i 'Might possibly maybe' of had a heart attack... imstill puzzled by that one.. and the recent drama has been breathing restriction investigation. I can understand why they need to do it all,but its bloody annoying and expensive.

Plus certain, height, weight,leg measurements, hearing, movement, eyesight etc etc etc

its all worth it now though

Now Remember!

1: Don't camp the airfield waiting for a plane to respawn
2: If one of your guys gets to the aircrafy before you do DON'T shoot at the plane in frustration
3: Kamikaze is a cheap way too get kills an show's complete lack of skills.
4: Don't be too surprised if someone punishes you for dropping a friendly bomb on them (even if they are completely obscurred on your radar by red blips)
5: Always ensure your Traffic Controller has just been handed a scalding hot cup of coffee before you do your low level super sonic flyby !

Awesome stuff Avarice, sounds like this has been a while coming!

I'm curious though, obviously they start all the pilots together flying small light planes, but how do they specialise you from there ? Do you get to choose if you want to be a fighter pilot or a cargo plane pilot?

Congrats dude, i'm sure you'll do the RAAF proud.

thats pretty f***en awesome avarice. well done.

come back to brissy for a dump & burn :D

avarice, what sort of apititude testing do they put you through?
Is it all like high level maths and physics? If so, how did you prepare for it? What sort of marks did you get at high school?

Just remnember there is no respawn irl.

A friend of mine is doing this as well, He's at Amberly at the moment i think...

Congrats, I would appreciate (like others) if you could give us a brief history of how you went about it / what they told you; the skills that were needed etc.

ta

Wow. Top Job Avarice

Its good to see you following your dreams, pursuing what you want to do

Nice one mang.

Congratz matey :D
I have a friend they failed the last physical for being allergic to peanuts, he was crushed and had to endure civil aviation instead :/

Thanks for the support guys :)

I'll answer any questions you've got.. here goes a few

korbs - You start off flying in Tamworth doing your basic course in a little CT4B aerobatic trainer - its a side by side sitting plane - student in the left, pilot in the right. Its the plane they use when you go down to tamworth to do your final test for them which is called FSP (flight selection program). I'll go into more detail on that in a minute..

So you do your 6 months basic flight training in tamworth, then onto Pearce in WA for advanced flying - in a PC 9/A - probably more widely known as the planes the Roulettes use (how frikkin sweet is that gonna be!) 9 months there, where you basically do everything you did in basic, but in a more complex, higher power aircraft. After this course you get your 'wings' and are officially a pilot.

Say you wanted to go onto jets (who doesnt) you then spend another 6 months in pearce learning how a jet flies in a Hawk 127 - trainer jet fighter with HUD the same as an F/A 18. Then another 6 months in Williamtown learning fighter tactics, again in a Hawk. You then either stay at williamtown and convert to F/A 18's for another 6 months, or head up to amberely to convert to F111's.

If not you go straight from advanced flying to wherever you aircraft is located - say richmond for Hercs and begin your conversion to type straight away - this can take anywhere from 6-18 months depending on aircraft type.

You do get a choice - kinda like for uni degree's, you can put your preferences, but you basically go where the airforce tells you to. If your good enough you get your choice though. BTW - the fail rate at every stage of training is roughly 50% - the last course to graduate from 2FTS (advanced flying) only 8 out of 21 students passed... ouch.

applor - cant go into too much detail on the testing (classified - lame i know) but you basically go in your first day called a JOES day - which entails an aptitude test (read IQ test) and a brief interview to make sure your not a psycho.

If you pass that its onto pilot testing which is a whole bunch of tests with extremely severe timelimits that test your ability to take in large amounts of information quickly and accurately, your spatial ability (rotating s*** in your head - easy at first, then they mix it up nasty like), maths questions (fractions times 7 digit numbers etc) and complex math questions - you know, the written type.

If you pass that, you then go on to have an evaluation day - write an essay on why you want to be a 'blah', have an interview with a psych who picks apart your essay and goes over everything in your past (and i mean everything), a full medical (turn your heads and cough boys) which includes all those sight, hearing etc tests. After that you have an interview with an officer who uses all this information to try and find a hole in your application adn pick at it - you better be ready to stand up for yourself and know your s*** back-to-front.

IF you pass all that, that officer will then recommend you to FSP down in tamworth - this consists of a Paper Board - all they get is your Dossier from recruiting, so you better have impressed them. They review your file down in tamworth and rank you with ALL applicants from the whole country. You can sit in this pool for twelve months until they either pick you to come down and do FSP or get kicked back to recruiting.

About 200-250 applicants per year get to FSP (out of 3500 ish or so) and about half of those 250ish get recommended after that. FSP is basically you flying for them for 2 weeks, having group activities to test your leadership, communication etc and one ass rape of an interview called the OSB (officer selection board) not nice... not nice at all...

IF they recommend you at FSP, you then get put into a pool of successful applicants recommended to be pilots, but that doesnt mean s*** yet - again you can sit in this pool for 12 months and its all based on your rank in the pool whether or not you get a job offer.

You cant really prepare for any of the tests - they are aptitude tests and you can kinda do them or you cant. I got a decent OP of 5, did my science degree unspectacularly and kicked about for 6 months before i started all of this process. You do need maths and all that, but that can be learnt I guess.

What they want is someone who is passionate about flying (utmost importance here - you wont get anywhere with them if they think your just goin for a ride), a good leader (your an officer afterall), communication skills and all that jazz plus teh ability to process large amounts of information quickly. Good hand-eye helps as well..

half of you have probably swithced off by now, and the other half probably want to know some more.

again thanks for your support adn i'll keep you updated about my progress as I trundle along.

last edited by Avarice at 23:39:14 26/Oct/05

Anymore info on the OSB?

Well done! I was hell-bent on going to ADFA at one stage - didn't happen though cos my eyesight wasn't good enough. I applied for Army not Air Force but sounds like the testing is similar with the Selection Board and all - you probably had more Maths/physics exams though.

Best of luck with your training, I can't believe the pass rates.. so if you don't pass one thing, they boot you out?

OSB is similar to the interview you have with the officer at recruiting after all your testing, except instead of one person interviewing you, they have 4 - Army,Airforce and Navy officer, as well as a psychologist. They sit up at a big table and you get a little chair.

They will ask you a series of questions to test your knowledge of the force you are applying for, how well you know the training, the aircraft, personal issues etc - pretty much everything you have been asked before, just more intense and under much more scrutiny.

These four guys do this everyweek with a new bunch of kids,so they've heard it all and will know when your bulls***ting, so dont. They will throw in maths questions out of nowhere to do in your head.. quite complex ones to see how you do.

I wouldnt say they are nasty, but they are there to make the final decision so they are very tough and will pick apart and use your answers against you sometimes.

Its pretty much the most intense 40ish minutes of my life, and ive never known anyone to come out happy and confident with how they went.

If you fail during training, then they have the right to kick your arse out, but you may be able to stay and do something else - say navigate or some other job, buy until you pass 2FTS, your not a pilot and cant fly. Army goes straight from basic flying to Rotor conversion,so they dont have to worry bout 2FTS.