I would like to fly for the coast guard yet cannot qualify for the Blue21 Flight Initiative, meaning I have to go through Officer Candidate School and request flight assignment, however; the CG assigns duties according the their needs first. I was hoping someone could give me insight to the possibility of going to Flight School vs being assigned somewhere else.
This year’s flight school selection for general solication can be found here:
http://www.uscg.mil/announcements/alcgoff/ALCGOFF03109.txt
As you can see, 27 people applied, they selected 8.
Roughly a 1 in 3.5 shot, on any given selection opportunity, if only talking about the numbers. Of course, all candidates are not created equal, and if you perform very well prior to flight school application, you’ll surely get picked. And if you don’t – you surely won’t.
If you apply and don’t get picked, you can always apply again.
#1 by Tyler on September 2nd, 2009
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0%, because the Coast Guard only takes pilots with prior military flight experience. There are enough people that want to fly for them, why should they train you to fly when they can find someone already trained up to MILITARY standards?
References :
#2 by Malruhn on September 2nd, 2009
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Once you got your commission and entered the fleet, you would have to wait for a solicitation for the Flight Program – and then apply and pray to get picked up for a slot.
Unfortunately, I don’t know what percentage of folks get picked up. A recruiter would probably have better information on that part. You can find one at http://www.gocoastguard.com
References :
I’m a Coast Guard Master Chief.
#3 by Bill B on September 2nd, 2009
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The first answer is totally wrong, and Malrun is almost correct. You can apply to flight school in OCS, and go to flight training right after graduation. You need to perform well in OCS to get a recommendation from your Platoon Commander, and you also need to do well on the entrance exam that you’ll take while in OCS. You’ll also write a narrative why you want to go to flight school. If you do well, and they have the openings, your orders out of OCS will be flight school. In my situation, we had many take the exam, and 6 of us got scores high enough to get into flight school. Out of us 6, 3 were selected to go right to flight school. 2 of us made it through. FYI, the 3 guys that didn’t get selected to go right out of OCS did end up getting selected at their first units, and are all now pilots.
References :
CG pilot
#4 by crnd on September 2nd, 2009
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This year’s flight school selection for general solication can be found here:
http://www.uscg.mil/announcements/alcgoff/ALCGOFF03109.txt
As you can see, 27 people applied, they selected 8.
Roughly a 1 in 3.5 shot, on any given selection opportunity, if only talking about the numbers. Of course, all candidates are not created equal, and if you perform very well prior to flight school application, you’ll surely get picked. And if you don’t – you surely won’t.
If you apply and don’t get picked, you can always apply again.
References :
I’m a CG officer.