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1,001 questions about the ASTB (post your scores & ask your questions here!)

How far do you think I could get without a flight stick? I'm unsure about putting down money for something I considered for the first time today.
It depends on how much you want it. The money you spend on a hotas is a drop in the bucket compared to the money you'll make as an nfo.

What do you mean you considered it the first time today? You just scheduled and took the astb without wanting to be a pilot/nfo before today?
 

ADP

Member
It depends on how much you want it. The money you spend on a hotas is a drop in the bucket compared to the money you'll make as an nfo.

What do you mean you considered it the first time today? You just scheduled and took the astb without wanting to be a pilot/nfo before today?
Correct, I liked the idea of being an officer in the Navy, assumed I'd be too far behind the curve to think about being a pilot/NFO, but when the recruiter asked if I wanted to take the ASTB part as well I thought it would be worth an hour of my time to see how I could do.
 
Correct, I liked the idea of being an officer in the Navy, assumed I'd be too far behind the curve to think about being a pilot/NFO, but when the recruiter asked if I wanted to take the ASTB part as well I thought it would be worth an hour of my time to see how I could do.
Oh wow. Not bad scores then considering the circumstances. Like i said a 6 can get you selected. It's not close to a guarantee though. If you want to improve your scores then use the method I described. The last number is your FOFAR. That is the biggest factor for nfo selection. Your pfar is the 5, used for pilot selection.

Your oar is good and tbh I don't think you need to worry about improving that.
 

ADP

Member
Oh wow. Not bad scores then considering the circumstances. Like i said a 6 can get you selected. It's not close to a guarantee though. If you want to improve your scores then use the method I described. The last number is your FOFAR. That is the biggest factor for nfo selection. Your pfar is the 5, used for pilot selection.

Your oar is good and tbh I don't think you need to worry about improving that.
Thanks for the words! I'll have to consider if buying a stick would be worth it, but I'll definitely use the resources you posted for the parts I can start studying now.
 

exNavyOffRec

Well-Known Member
I just took my OAR today and scored 58 6/5/6. I didn't have any flight experience and didn't study for the test at all. Being an NFO is very interesting to me, but I don't know if I could improve my score enough to be a competitive candidate (recruiter told me 7/7/7 would make me competitive, 8/8/8 would make me a relatively safe pick). Is there a way to improve your score on the ASTB section? The part of it that involves using actual flight controls doesn't really seem trainable, but could I do enough outside of that to safely get to 8/8/8?
At least your recruiter is upfront with you, that is not too common.
 

msilberg

Member
Hello all,

New to the forum and unfortunately found it after taking the ASTB for the first time.
Just wanted to say thank you for all the good content and share a little about me and my scores and the package I've built and see people's thoughts on my chances of getting a SNA slot.

Scored a 53 6/6/7
I'm a recent graduate from Northwestern University and played Division 1 athletics there for four years. GPA is a 3.2 graduating with a B.S. in Communications and Marketing.
I have some great reference letters (don't know if this matters) from some active duty fighter pilots.
My recruiter said I have good scores and a good overall package but don't know if he's BS'ing me or not.

Please let me know what y'all think,

Thanks again!
 

exNavyOffRec

Well-Known Member
Hello all,

New to the forum and unfortunately found it after taking the ASTB for the first time.
Just wanted to say thank you for all the good content and share a little about me and my scores and the package I've built and see people's thoughts on my chances of getting a SNA slot.

Scored a 53 6/6/7
I'm a recent graduate from Northwestern University and played Division 1 athletics there for four years. GPA is a 3.2 graduating with a B.S. in Communications and Marketing.
I have some great reference letters (don't know if this matters) from some active duty fighter pilots.
My recruiter said I have good scores and a good overall package but don't know if he's BS'ing me or not.

Please let me know what y'all think,

Thanks again!
Take a look at previous comments, those scores are not good as that is what is the most important factor for selection. the rest of what you have listed really doesn't matter.

I would keep studying and retake.
 

skb832

Member
If you have internet issues while taking the ASTB (for me it crashed during the UAV portion multiple times) do they ever let you retake that portion without retaking the whole exam and using up another attempt?
 

chrisv337

New Member
Well, I just took the ASTB for the first time a couple days ago and I scored 7/5/7 61. Not quite the score I was hoping for in the PFAR section...perhaps the other ones will make up for it a little bit? My goal is to be a Naval Aviator. I'm doing STA-21 this year, and every year until I finish my bachelor's, then I'll go the OCS route if I haven't already been picked up for STA-21.

I spent a few days practicing on Jantzen's ASTB simulator right before the test but that didn't seem like it helped me very much. I did good with dichotic listening but I definitely feel like I dropped the ball during the tracking and EP portion of the test, I'd say mostly because the controls were significantly lagged compared to Jantzen's sim. I guess this is understandable if their trying to simulate realistic movements of an aircraft after control inputs are made.

Could this be why my PFAR is contrastingly low against my other scores? Perhaps I should buy a personal HOTAS set to hook up to a flight simulator game? Just looking for a way to bump up that PFAR if/when I decide to take it again!

Regardless, I was decently surprised with my score considering how I felt at the end of the test. I really studied my a** off for this one but I am by no stretch an academic by nature. However, I at least have a rock solid work ethic. NO ONE can deny me that.
 
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exNavyOffRec

Well-Known Member
Well, I just took the ASTB for the first time a couple days ago and I scored 7/5/7 61. Not quite the score I was hoping for in the PFAR section...perhaps the other ones will make up for it a little bit? My goal is to be a Naval Aviator. I'm doing STA-21 this year, and every year until I finish my bachelor's, then I'll go the OCS route if I haven't already been picked up for STA-21. I spent a few days practicing on Jantzen's ASTB simulator right before the test but that didn't seem like it helped me very much. I did good with dichotic listening but I definitely feel like I dropped the ball during the tracking and EP portion of the test, I'd say mostly because the controls were significantly lagged compared to Jantzen's sim. I guess this is understandable if their trying to simulate realistic movements of an aircraft after control inputs are made.

Could this be why my PFAR is contrastingly low against my other scores? Perhaps I should buy a personal HOTAS set to hook up to a flight simulator game? Just looking for a way to bump up that PFAR if/when I decide to take it again!

Regardless, I was decently surprised with my score considering how I felt at the end of the test. I really studied my a** off for this one and I am by no stretch an academic by nature. However, I at least have a rock solid work ethic. No one can deny me that.
Good on you for taking it early to see what you need to do and keep working on that degree, plan for OCS but hope for STA-21 or as it should be called NUKE-21
 

rtpi2000

Surviving NIFE
ROTC Mid here (just finished my junior year), took my second ASTB today. I was hoping for trip 7+, but got a 61 7/6/7 instead. Although I didn't meet my goal, it was still an improvement over my previous score (52 6/5/6). I'm hoping for SNA, and I was wondering if this is a competitive score/ whether I should risk retaking the ASTB again as it will be my final chance. My officers tell me it is a competitive score, but I wanted to ask around just in case.

As far as I'm aware this doesn't really matter, but I have a 3.66 GPA working towards a tier 3 B.S.

Thanks in advance for the insight,

Cheers.
 

exNavyOffRec

Well-Known Member
ROTC Mid here (just finished my junior year), took my second ASTB today. I was hoping for trip 7+, but got a 61 7/6/7 instead. Although I didn't meet my goal, it was still an improvement over my previous score (52 6/5/6). I'm hoping for SNA, and I was wondering if this is a competitive score/ whether I should risk retaking the ASTB again as it will be my final chance. My officers tell me it is a competitive score, but I wanted to ask around just in case.

As far as I'm aware this doesn't really matter, but I have a 3.66 GPA working towards a tier 3 B.S.

Thanks in advance for the insight,

Cheers.
I would talk to your advisor as most on here are going for OCS and while the ASTB is the same their are differences.
 

II Sevv

Member
Thought I would make a quick post as I just took the ASTB-E for the first time yesterday. Because of some computer issues I wasn’t able to do anything but the OAR, and need to come back in 2 days to do all of the PBM stuff and the UAV test. However, with about 2 weeks of studying, I was able to get an 80 (the maximum allowed score) on the OAR, which was honestly a complete surprise. Based on this score I obviously won’t be retaking the test unless I somehow completely bomb the PBM.

About 25% of my math questions were on cube roots, radicals, and fractional exponents, which I hadn’t studied at all for, but instead of just guessing I started plugging each answer into the equation which I assume helped my score quite a bit. The reading was extremely difficult as all of my passages were naval documents with words I had never seen before, and all of the provided answers were extremely similar in wording. It seemed like this portion went on forever and I was given easily 2-3 times as many questions as any other section. The mechanical portion had a few questions I hadn’t even considered to study like “If Jim heats a metal ring with a 4” hole and then cools it back down, how big will the hole be?” And “if there is a strip with two metals side by side and when it it is heated metal A expands faster, which direction will the strip bend?”. I ended up just guessing on those. For the aviation portion, I had one or two extremely simple aviation history questions and the rest were on parts of a plane and principles of aerodynamics with one question on airspace. The nautical portion was also extremely simple with almost all of the questions being about boat terms, and all of the terms were on the flash cards I studied. The aviation/nautical portion was also extremely short and I only got maybe 10 questions max covering both topics.

To study, I studied 3 different people’s gouges (that I’ll post) as well as an FAA handbook I bought on Amazon. This forum has been a great help as this is where I found all of the study materials.
 
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