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Aircrew Selection/ACS (Merged)

2011Applicant said:
What is there to spend money on?

Nothing, if you do it right.  If you're old enough to drink, maybe a beverage...
 
2011Applicant said:
What is there to spend money on?

If you don't want the mess food, there's a few restaurants in town. There's also a Tim Horton's if you want a coffee or something  :P
 
a.schamb said:
If you don't want the mess food, there's a few restaurants in town. There's also a Tim Horton's if you want a coffee or something  :P
From the sound of it the food's pretty good, so I don't think that will be necessary :p
 
2011Applicant said:
From the sound of it the food's pretty good, so I don't think that will be necessary :p

Yep, I agree with that  :P If you have time while you're there, I recommend the Air Force museum. It's pretty good  :)
 
*UPDATE*

Talked to my file manager today, and he had received word last week that I did not need to attend.
Time to hurry up and wait to hear back from RMC! ;)
 
I recently completed ASC in Trenton and the medical process at DRDC in Toronto over a month ago.  I have been in contact with my recruiters office and file manager but they were unable to give me a rough timeline of when they should receive the results from the medical.  I was just wondering if anyone could shed some light on the rough amount of time it takes from personal experience for the medical to be signed off at DRDC and sent back to the recruiters so that the process can move on to the next phase?
 
When exactly did you do your medical at DRDC?  I finished aircrew selection in Trenton, followed by two days of medical at DRDC from May 28 to June 1st and I still haven't been awarded my air factor yet.  The last DEO pilot hiring is July 25th...
 
Take a look through the thread below and you can find some timings for the Air Factor. It wil always vary depending on your file and the workload at the time, but mine took about month in 2010.

http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/threads/13064.3100.html
 
I think it all depends on how busy they are, how much they need pilots, and what the training backlog looks like.  For example, I did my DRDC medicals on April 19, and on April 27 I got an offer to attend BMOQ beginning April 30.  So 8 days in my case.  3 people from my aircrew group swore in on the 27th and are on BMOQ right now.
 
skrob said:
I think it all depends on how busy they are, how much they need pilots, and what the training backlog looks like.  For example, I did my DRDC medicals on April 19, and on April 27 I got an offer to attend BMOQ beginning April 30.  So 8 days in my case.  3 people from my aircrew group swore in on the 27th and are on BMOQ right now.

I'd like to add:
It can also depend heavily on how your medical went.  If you're V1, zero medical concerns, everything else meeting the standard then you may get your air factor rather quickly.  Then it's simply a matter of the paper work getting to the right place at the right time.

The "last" selection is July 24th, but if they don't meet their recruiting quotas, I would expect other selections to be scheduled.

A fact you can always count on is:
Process is different for everyone.
My advice, which I have followed thus far:
Inquire briefly every 2 weeks and try to forget about it.  That way I won't be going nuts waiting for a phone call that may never come.
 
Thanks for the replies.  I actually just got the call today with an offer for Pilot and I did my medical during ASC June 18-22, so apparently I managed to get my Air Factor after about a month.  I never got a call saying I was merit listed though so I do not know exactly how long it took to get my Air Factor.
 
Congratulations!

You don't get a call for being merit listed hehe.  And they can still offer you the position without your air factor, its simply a "conditional" offer, where they would take it away if your air factor isn't 1.
 
Just passed my aircrew selection course today and wanted to post here half out of excitement and half with my impressions. I haven't gone through the medical yet since our week is a little different as the med center is closed this week so those of us that passed will be attending that part 2 weeks from now.

First of all - our course was relatively small and consisted of 5 people doing pilot and 1 doing AEC only. 1 of the pilot candidates was PPL. After the first day, the AEC candidate left. Also, after doing the first hour of the simulator on day 1, 1 candidate was immediately told it was unlikely they would succeed in the following sessions based on hour 1 and was recommended to withdraw, which they did. In the end, 3/4 remaining passed. While I thought the atmosphere would be competitive, the 4 of us that remained were very friendly and we were sad to see that 1 of us had failed.

My impressions:
I found that the first session was not difficult and was more about getting a feel for the sim than actual manouevering. It was not overly stressful and most of us felt we did alright. The 2nd session was a little more complex but I feel I really nailed that one. The 3rd session was a little more difficult and most of us seemed to have trouble with it, even the PPL. The final session we all found to be very, very difficult. I practiced it over and over in my head and was very nervous after coming out because my results were definitely not ideal. On the other hand, I cannot picture anyone flying the final hour perfectly and I think that algorithm has been designed with that in mind. Keep your cool, yell at the machine all you need to, talk it over in your head before you begin and be as accurate as possible in everything and you will likely be successful. I found the sims were definitely a test of aptitude, information, and stress management. We all found it very frustrating to not know what the parameters of the machine were. I liken it to writing a test you've studied for but the questions are abstract and you cannot see the answer key - you know relatively how you did but you do not know what could have improved your score. That said, I feel the test was fair and that it was a good indicator of whether a person has the right skills to be trained to fly.

Tips:
These are just things I found helped and while some is the same as what others have posted, some is different.
-DO NOT throw the AEC test. It's not just for AECs and some of those tests are pilot specific, although they don't tell you which. If you think it's just an AEC test, that's wrong. Speaking to Captain Larose (the officer in charge of the CFASC and who you deal with when you get here), the cognitive and mathematical tests are now worked into your overall application to determine your MP when you are merit listed. This means if you decide to do badly on them, it hurts your chances. Cpt. Larose could be wrong, but a) what are the chances, b) why risk it?
-Study the guide but don't over analyze it. Everything is reviewed in the simulator before you begin each exercise. We stopped bringing our books to the sims after the first session because we realized we didn't need them.
-Spend some time on microsoft flight sim flying the Cessna 172 focusing on your instruments. It doesn't matter if you have a fancy flying set up because it will definitely be different than CAPSS. I used a playstation controller and it was way too sensitive but it helped me a lot as it let me see how the individual instruments reacted in different manoeuvres, which is the most important thing in CAPSS.
-Personally, I found that not having flight experience in a real plane was definitely not a detriment, and may even have been beneficial because I didn't expect the controls to react in a certain way and therefore was not surprised at how CAPSS acted. The other candidates all had some flight hours and said that CAPSS was very different than what they were used to. Not previously flying might not be good for some people if you are slow to pick things up, but my point here is that if you do not get flight hours prior to CAPSS, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Flight sim X is more important because of the ability to demonstrate the instruments without confusing your muscle memory.

So there you have it - my experiences for the past 3 days here. What an experience it was, I have never been that nervous to hear a result about anything in my life and I would have been crushed if I had failed. Sorry if this was too long or was a restatement of previous information, it's hard not to be excited. Good luck everyone!


P.S. the museum is fantastic and the staff are very friendly older folks.
 
Hi everyone,

Earlier this year I was sent to Trenton for capss and failed with a ppl. I applied for ACSO instead, and I have received an offer! I'm going into second year university at UBC and I was wondering, if I can get my cpl during next summer and I accept the ACSO offer, would I be allowed to attend aircrew for a second time?

Thanks for your help.

Phil
 
If you accept the ACSO offer, your MOSID is that of an ACSO. Once you are fully qualified and have served at least one operational tour, you may ask to re-tread to another trade.  Since this would be your second attempt at ASC, you will need to get that Commerical license.
 
Zoomie said:
If you accept the ACSO offer, your MOSID is that of an ACSO. Once you are fully qualified and have served at least one operational tour, you may ask to re-tread to another trade.  Since this would be your second attempt at ASC, you will need to get that Commerical license.

I'll add to this.  The time it takes to get fully qualified and finished one tour could take years, with training delays and OJT time factored in.  While I won't discourage you from doing it, just understand that it won't happen within the first few (or 4 or 5) years of joining as an ACSO.
 
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