Fellow Naval aviator here (though an NFO, not a pilot). You don’t need to be top of your class in high school or college but you do need to perform well enough to be accepted into a commissioning program, whether that be OCS, ROTC, or the Academy. The competitiveness of each of those varies. When I was accepted in the late 90s, it was during the Clinton drawdown and not a lot of people were applying. During the period following the recession of 2008, the military seemed like solid reliable employment to a lot more people so it got more competitive because more people were applying.
As for flight school and the FRS, the competitiveness of that is also cyclical depending on the Navy’s manning needs. When I went through, it was all based on what the Navy called your NSS, or Navy Standard Score. It was a cumulative average of your performance in the classroom and the aircraft. (u/AmericasNavy can tell you if they still use that system.) Again, when I went through, the Navy was really short on NFOs so a lower NSS would get you through. Just 5 or 6 years later they had over corrected and now had too many. At that point, failing one exam could get you booted from flight training altogether.
Right now, from what I understand, both the Navy and Air Force are having a really hard time retaining aviators. I would suspect that this would mean a greater demand from the Navy side which would mean the standards are not as cutthroat as they might be at other times.
sloowhand70 karma
Fellow Naval aviator here (though an NFO, not a pilot). You don’t need to be top of your class in high school or college but you do need to perform well enough to be accepted into a commissioning program, whether that be OCS, ROTC, or the Academy. The competitiveness of each of those varies. When I was accepted in the late 90s, it was during the Clinton drawdown and not a lot of people were applying. During the period following the recession of 2008, the military seemed like solid reliable employment to a lot more people so it got more competitive because more people were applying.
As for flight school and the FRS, the competitiveness of that is also cyclical depending on the Navy’s manning needs. When I went through, it was all based on what the Navy called your NSS, or Navy Standard Score. It was a cumulative average of your performance in the classroom and the aircraft. (u/AmericasNavy can tell you if they still use that system.) Again, when I went through, the Navy was really short on NFOs so a lower NSS would get you through. Just 5 or 6 years later they had over corrected and now had too many. At that point, failing one exam could get you booted from flight training altogether.
Right now, from what I understand, both the Navy and Air Force are having a really hard time retaining aviators. I would suspect that this would mean a greater demand from the Navy side which would mean the standards are not as cutthroat as they might be at other times.
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