Senior (MS4) Year

The senior year doesn't count a lot toward your accessions process or your branch choice, however, you will be responsible for training your cadets for THEIR accessions process. Most of what you are doing for yourself is related to preparing for commissioning and heading off to BOLC followed by your branch training.You will find out, usually during the middle of the fall semester, what branch you received and whether you were selected for active or reserve duty. You generally won't get your orders till near graduation. Don't stop a job or anything like that till you have orders, but be prepared to leave within as little as a week of getting your orders. As soon as you get your orders go to the move.mil site and start getting your move to your new duty station scheduled. The Army moves like molasses and will take a MINIMUM of three weeks to get it processed. It stinks being at your new duty station without any of your stuff. Trust me, I speak from experience! Prior to commissioning you will need a new ASU outfit. The best placed to get it from is Marlow White. They have packages specially designed for new commissionees. Something else worth mentioning; you can get your CAC card while you are still back at your school or you can get it when you reach your first duty station which will be Fort Rucker. There are a lot of other nuances but trying to cover them exhaustively would be nearly impossible. The areas mentioned here will at least get you started on the right path and may keep you from some of the areas I had trouble with.

Physical Requirements

All cadets wishing to branch into Aviation must pass a class one flight physical. This will be completed at LDAC. The standards can be found in AR 40-501 chapter 4. There are two areas of concern that I had to work my way through that may be of concern for others. First, vision requirements are laid out in paragraph 4-12. The standard for visual acuity for pilots is 20/50 far vision and 20/20 near vision. I personally did not meet this standard so I looked into the requirements for corrective surgery. PRK has long been permitted by the Army and LASIK is now being approved as well. There may be an extensive recovery period  so it is advisable that you get the surgery done early. I had mine done in December which did not leave me an option to get a second correction done if necessary. The second concern of mine was size requirements. I'm a big guy and people had told me I would be too big to meet size requirements. I read the size requirements in paragraph 4-16 and thought they were right; I certainly exceeded the arm reach max of 5' 4", sitting height max of 3' 4", and crotch height of 29 inches. Come to find out, these sizes are the requirements for the smallest of the Army helicopters, the Kiowa. It is still possible to fly other airframes. There are many other physical requirements listed in the AR. They all boil down to one basic requirement, you must be in great health and in top physical condition if you want to get into aviation.

AFAST

All cadets wishing to branch Aviation are required to take the AFAST. The AFAST is the Army Flight Aptitude Selection Test which is taken during the junior year before going to LDAC. The test is like no other test you have ever taken. The Army provides DA Pam 611–256–2 to all test takers to help familiarize them with the test but it is a limited overview. The AFAST is composed of a number of subtests. The first subtest is instrument comprehension. Given an artificial horizon gauge and a compass, the test taker must select which of the five plane silhouettes matches the readings on the gauges. The practice tests have very crude drawings, the silhouettes on the actual AFAST are much clearer. The second subtest is the complex movements test. You will be shown a dot in a circle and a point indicating where it originated. Using curved lines of varying widths you must indicate how far and in what direction the dot was moved to bring it into the circle. You MUST practice this ahead of time. The movement designators can be confusing and you only have ten seconds to answer each question! The third subtest you will be given is basic helicopter and flight knowledge. You need to know your stuff but it is pretty basic. To prepare for my AFAST I read the free FAA Rotorcraft Flying Handbook. Another recommended resource is the Principles of Helicopter Flight. The fourth subtest is the cyclic orientation test. You will be given a series of three views from a helicopter cockpit and must choose which cyclic orientation would cause a helicopter to move in that direction. The fifth and final subtest is called the mechanical functions test. This evaluates your knowledge of basic physics via a wide variety of problems. It is highly recommended that you obtain a AFAST study guide and complete a practice test or two before you take your AFAST. Probably the best study book is Peterson's. You can get the 6th edition on Amazon or get the newer edition for 1/3 the price directly from Peterson's. You  must obtain a 90 to pass your AFAST and can score up to 170. Once you have passed you are not allowed to retake the test for a better score. If you fail there is a six month wait for one, and only one, re-test opportunity. Once you pass the AFAST you will be put in the system for a flight physical when you attend LDAC the coming summer.

RECONDO

Getting RECONDO at LDAC is significant. It is something you can specifically prepare for ahead of time that will set you above your fellow cadets. What does RECONDO entail? The first and, for many, most difficult aspect of RECONDO is the LDAC PT test. The grading at LDAC is likely much harder than any college and most cadets can expect to score significantly fewer pushups than they usually get. RECONDO requires that you get 90 points or more on each portion of the PT test for a total score greater than 270. The second hurdle is to score 80% or better on each portion of the land navigation test. That means a 16/20 on the written test, 6/8 on the daytime land navigation course, and 4/5 points in the nighttime land navigation course. Throughout LDAC, RECONDO cadets must not get an overall N on any STX lane or any overall dimensional Ns. Note that it is possible to get an N or two on an evaluation and still get RECONDO. Finally, many people forget that cadets will lose RECONDO if they have any failures to train. This means no falling out of marches; no refusals to do any of the training; and on all of the tested medical events, obstacle course, etc, there is only one retry. It may sound difficult or even impossible to get RECONDO but it is achievable and the extra half point on the OML is worth it when the accessions process is completed!

Accessions Process

The whole branching process and how cadets are chosen for a particular branch is complicated. No worries, you will go over it twice; once before and once after LDAC. According to the 2011 ROTC accessions OML model; 40% of a cadet's OML score came from cumulative GPA, 4% from on campus physical fitness, and 1.5% from extracurriculars. That leaves nearly 55% of the OML to be calculated from junior year performance alone. About 32% will come from performance at LDAC and around 23% will come from your leadership performance at school. What is important to know is that the top 10% of cadets are given their first branch choice. Make sure you are in that 10%! Being in the top 20% will probably get you your first branch choice by using what is called an ADSO, Additional Service Obligation. You will have to apply for it and, assuming you get it, will commit an additional two years to the Army in exchange for getting your first branch choice. If Aviation is what you really want this option may be your golden ticket. Additionally, when you are at LDAC try very hard to qualify for RECONDO. Getting RECONDO adds half a point to your overall OML and can move you anywhere from 50 to 200 places on the OML which may make the difference between Aviation or not. Also, you don't have quite as much control over it, but being in the top 5 in your platoon will add an additional full point to the OML. Getting both RECONDO and top five will set you well on your way to Aviation!