Any AF January COT hopefuls out there?

carolinapooh, BSN, RN · Oct 16, 2009

Making major depends on the number of slots available. The AF is small compared to the other services and thus promotes slow. Making major is also competitive, whereas O2 and O3 are "gimme" ranks, so to speak.

I've never met a major (who wasn't a JAG or an MD) who made it in six years, unless they went in as either an O2 or an O3 already.

Your sign on bonus comes once you in-process at your base, not at COT. I've heard it takes about sixty days to get your bonus once you get to your base.

DrCOVID, DNP · Oct 18, 2009

Making major depends on the number of slots available. The AF is small compared to the other services and thus promotes slow.

Where did you hear the AF is small?

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/promotions/l/blofficerprom.htm

One of the charts in that link says that there are more officers in the AF than any other military branch. Could you have a slower promotion rate due to too many people trying to make their next rank?

carolinapooh, BSN, RN · Oct 18, 2009

Experience tells me the Air Force is small - and she's quite top heavy. More officers = harder to get promoted. Smaller force numbers = smaller number of slots available.

Look at how many personnel are in the Navy. The Navy has faster promotion rates because they have more officer billets (i.e., more jobs requiring a commission). Therefore, they have more places to fill even if their commissioned numbers are fewer. You have 3000 personnel on an aircraft carrier, and only a tiny number of them are commissioned. Not so in the USAF.

(It's also the same for the Army - ask any enlisted personnel in either of those branches how fast they get promoted, and you'd be stunned when you compared the numbers for our E5 and up promotion rates - and the same with the commissioned billets.)

The Air Force is top heavy because we're pilot heavy - it's what we do. So of course we have more officers, but we still have only a certain number of O4 slots, and O5 slots, command positions, staff positions, etc. The number of available billets is mandated by Congress. Because the AF is relatively small force wise (meaning the number of enlisteds and officers), we have lower numbers for higher level positions - so it's harder to get promoted.

DrCOVID, DNP · Oct 19, 2009

Thanks, makes much more sense now!

mt_nurse · Nov 4, 2009

it's so nerve-wracking waiting for the boards. my recruiter told me that results won't be out until the first week of december even though the actual date for getting results out is november 20. what has anyone's experience been? i'm excited and ready for COT!