<p>Well in the AF that is just not true.</p>
<p>Col Mike Goode who was on the space shuttle last August, did not get to FTU until he was a pinned on Capt. He did one operational tour with the 77th FS and was picked up for test school immediately after that.</p>
<p>Col. Frank Rossi did AFIT and he even made it all the way to Wink King of a FW. </p>
<p>Gen. Mark Graper also went to STAR (sim to AFIT) as a lt. He was so BPZ that he had to be placed in a holding pattern for 4 yrs, because he was too young to pin on General. (He made Col in 16 yrs). He was our 90th FS commander for the F-15E</p>
<p>Col. Ken Byrd also did grad straight out of the AFA. He went onto be the Vice Wing for Mt Home AFB. (F-15E flies there).</p>
<p>I am sure I could add more, but as you can see it is common to also make it in the fighter community even if you come in late. The point is now only were these guys smart academically, but they were also excellent aviators. Yes, some will track differently, but it is more based on their flying skills than the delay of entering UPT. If you are just avg than you won’t continue down that path, but if you are above avg than the door has not shut on you making WIC or Test.</p>
<p>It is not a pick one…grad or UPT. The reason these guys also all made it to their level is they had one other thing in common. BPZ. BPZ is really the make or break issue to decide if you will get a Wing. How do you get BPZ? You have to a career from start to finish that separates you from the pack. As stated earlier your PRF will only have 9 lines for your entire career. When you go up for O4 one of those lines is going to say something akin to selected for fellowship directly out of the AFA. Now if you do great at UPT, the next line is going to say DG out of UPT, and it is just going to continue on. If you are fortunate you will go to a sister school in residence, and now you can start to see how it starts tallying up.</p>
<p>The one problem that you need to be careful of is gate months. This is true for everyone going to UPT, but more so for the people who come in later. You must fly X amount of months to maintain flight pay. The reason this can be an issue for them is they will come up for an O4 position with less months, and if they accept an O4 school in residence that eats into the gate month requirement. Back in Bullet’s day the AF was very cognizant of this, and if you made your first gate they would send you joint right after school, which hurts because now you are 4 yrs out of the cockpit. If you didn’t meet your gate they sent you back operationally and most of them because they came with school in residence slid in as the presumptive next DO, which means they than became CC, that allowed them to be picked up for O5 school, which then brought them back in the wing as Wing Deputy or Wing Asst. Deputy. See the pattern again?</p>