Forum: Future F-16 crew

I am 25 soon to be 26 and getting ready to head to Embry Riddle to finish off about 90 credit hours for my BS in Aviation Maintenance, I already had 4 years active duty as a 16 crew chief and have been out for 3 working as an A&P. What kind of time frame do I have to get my degree finished and get into OTS? And what kind of oultook is there for getting a pilot slot? ( i will fly anything that gets off the ground but being a 16 guy that is the ultimate dream)

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I believe you have to start UPT before your 30th birthday. I'm not 100% sure, but a friend asked me the same thing a month or so ago after which I looked it up. I'll go reference that email and if its not 29 I'll post it. Not many OTS slots and even fewer pilot slots but sounds like you have a pretty competitive resumé!

UPT by 30

I'm pretty sure age waivers can be had, but are hard.

You're lookin at 2 years of school if you go through summer and take 16 credits. Puts you at 28 when you graduate. 28 can be a hurdle though:

Got this from here

Quote:

Be not more than 30 years old when you start pilot training and/or have no more
than 5 years of commissioned services (normally you will start pilot training
approximately one and a half years after the date of the board). Because of the
processing lead times, we will not normally interview a candidate who is older than
28 years old. The cut-off is a birthday after July of the interviewing year.

Thanks for the info. I am going to go to wall with this until they tell me to stop trying. I still have not had my CCAF credits accounted for towards my degree yet so I hope that will knock some time down. Thanks again.

Yep, you must be in UPT by the age of 30, and waivers are pretty much non-existent right now. The cutoff used to be 27 1/2, so with the raise to 30 they pretty much quit issuing age waivers. We have a similar rule to the one above, we will not interview anyone who is older than 28, even if they have their degree in hand. There is just too much risk with getting someone to UPT in less than 2 years to risk losing a UPT slot for the unit.

Every ANG unit is different. For Active Duty Applicants, you must be no older than 28 when the board convenes. Being that you will be 28 makes you "age critical". This means the board has to make the executive decision to take you and speed you through the process in order to get you to UPT by age 30. Im in the same boat next year if they dont scoop me up this year.

Forum: Future F-16 crew

What is the cutoff