Coast Guard Promotion Rates

[Clux4]

Hello gents(ladies too)

I have looked at the selection criteria for FY10, and noticed that the TIS waivers are considered, and I can only hope that it holds for FY12 when I am eligible for seperation. I have read, although unofficially, that the 10 years federal service applies only as 10 years or less as a warrant/commissioned officer and enlisted time did not count. Can anybody verify this? Also, has anyone had a conditional release approved if they were still in their initial flight school ADSO? My obligation is up in April of 2012, and my total time in service will be just a couple months over 10 years (warrant and enlisted). Just out of curiosity, what are they main points that the board looks at when selecting applicants?

Here is the explanation per a Marine Corps manual. It will be pretty much the same if the Coast Guard uses Title 10.

For enlisted Marines, periods of creditable active Federal service can normally be obtained from the enlistment contract/application for enlistment. For officers, it will be necessary to view other supporting documents (i.e., DD Forms 214, orders, etc.) in addition to the Appointment Acceptance and Record.

Essentially, Federal service begins on your ARMED FORCES ACTIVE DUTY BASE DATE (AFADBD). From what I am reading, this will include your Enlisted and Warrant time.

 

[AH64Daviator]

It makes too much sense that it is total time regarless of rank/status. Again, I have found no official proof to back it up, just a post I have seen before. Unfortunately I think this waiver thing is going to bite me in the ass and I won't get the opportunity to switch. Even if I could put in a conditional release, with the deployments, etc., I seriously doubt the army would let me go Bummers!

 

[AH64Daviator]

Has anyone in here, or does anybody know any former Army DCA's that used a conditional release to get out of their flight school ADSO?

 

[Clux4]

Has anyone in here, or does anybody know any former Army DCA's that used a conditional release to get out of their flight school ADSO?

Go to APTAP.org. They have a ton of DCA folks on that forum.

 

[sardaddy]

I'm a DCA and I have yet to meet anyone that has been allowed a conditional release from the Army to enter the CG in the last 15 years. In 1995, I knew three pilots that received conditional releases to go into the AF programs but I haven't heard of a conditional release since then, especially in the Apache community. The Army's thought seems to have gone to "you signed the line, you do the time no matter what." I am on APTAP too and haven't seen a conditional release over there either.

As far as the time in service question goes, I think you are mixing two things up. When you apply for the CG DCA program and they talk about 10 years of service, they mean 10 years of service no matter if it is as an enlisted member, a warrant officer, or a commissioned officer. The thing about 10 years of service as a warrant officer/commissioned officer applies when you retire. there is an odd stipulation in the personnel manual that states something along the line of, you must have 10 years as a warrant officer or a commissioned officer to be allowed to retire as an officer from the service. It is weird, I have read it multiple times to figure why that would be in the books and if they really hold people to that and I still don't know.

Good luck though.

 

[AH64Daviator]

How does this 10 year stipulation apply. Like I said in a recent post, if I was to take no terminal leave, etc., my walk out date in the army is April 12,2012. That will put me at 10 yrs, 8months of service. Is it 10 years or less from the time I walk into the coast guard, or 10 years or less by the time my packet gets submitted and goes before the board?

 

[sardaddy]

It is 10 years when you start. The CG wants to be able to get 10 years out of you before you can retire. There have been some waivers granted for that though. All you can do is try.

On another note, how will terminal leave affect your departure date? It isn't added to you time. If you have 60 days of leave on the books, you just don't have to go to work for two months. Your ETS date will still be April 12. Additionally, they won't reduce your ETS date by 60 days if you don't take terminal leave. Your ETS date will still be April 12th whether you take terminal leave, get money for selling your leave or don't have any leave at all.

 

[AH64Daviator]

I was under the impression that once you sign out on terminal leave, you were able to obtain your DD214. I take it that's not correct, but i'll look into further. On the other hand, can anybody tell me what the average statistics were for DCA rotor head selections? (i.e. flight hours, education, PIC, etc.) Sardaddy might be able to get a litle insight on this being a former 64 guy. Does the amount of goggle hours play a significant part in the selection? The majority of my time is night, however we fly FLIR, so goggle time is much lower compared to the other airframes.

 

[slug]

AH64Daviator, although I didn't take terminal leave, I am pretty sure that you are on active duty on terminal leave until your ETS date, no different than taking regular leave.

I don't have all the DCA stats, but I can say with some confidence that the CG doesn't care about goggle time, compared to overall time and PIC status. The min is 500 total flight hours after flight school. A lot of CG pilots I have flown with don't even like NVGs and would rather fly unaided, unless, as an old IP once said, it's "darker than a sack full of butt-holes."

The most important factor in being selected, IMO, is a slam-dunk in your interview. I didn't study instruments, bombed my first interview and was not selected the first time. I had 850 hours, 200 NVGs and was not a PIC.

I think the CG just wants to know that you are a competent and safe pilot that meets the requirements and will be a line CG pilot for 10 years. You don't need to be Chuck Yeager in helos (random tangent--who is the Chuck Yeager of helo pilots?). In fact, CG pilots have had issues with cocky DCAs who want to change the CG RW world and don't understand their place as junior CPs.

 

[AH64Daviator]

I couldn't tell you who the "CHUCK YEAGER" is in the helo arena, but I can tell you I know quite a bit of wannabe's. They can have fun at that, I'm much more conservative, that's why I'm a safety officer I suppose. I've looked through APTAP, but unless i'm not diggin in far enough, I can't find any interview gouges. Does anybody have a better link? I assume most DCA's are making the transition with no gap between service. On average, how difficult, or how lengthy of a process was it to get the conditional release submitted/approved?

 

[sardaddy]

There is a ton of interview gouge in APTAP because I put it there. They changed format about a year ago and a lot was lost but most was brought over in some of the original threads on the new format. Just look at the first few original threads in the transition area and you should find what you are looking for. If you have specific questions, let me know.

Slug, as far as people not wanting to use NVGs, that was certainly the case 10 years ago but most want to use goggles for just about everything now. In fact, the last standardization conference for the H-65 had multiple discussions about getting rid of night mininums and making them all NVG minimums. It didn't fly as knowing how to some stuff without goggles is helpful.

 

[AH64Daviator]

Gents,

Maybe you can give a little more insight with this. Here is a small clip from a posting made by HawkDoc:

H.R.5658 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009 (passed) http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtex ... =h110-5658 Portions specifically mentioning warrant officers; see H.R.5658 for details: "SEC. 501. MANDATORY SEPARATION REQUIREMENTS FOR REGULAR WARRANT OFFICERS FOR LENGTH OF SERVICE. Section 1305(a) of title 10, United States Code, is amended-- (1) by striking `A regular warrant officer who has at least 30 years of active service as a warrant officer that could be credited to him' and inserting `(1) A regular warrant officer (other than a regular Army warrant officer) who has at least 30 years of active service that could be credited to the officer'; and (2) by adding at the end the following new paragraph: `(2) In the case of a regular Army warrant officer, the calculation of years of active service under paragraph (1) shall include only years of active service as a warrant officer.'

This was brought to the forum because folks were talking about pay and cuts, etc. However, from my perspective, this also relates to Active TIS. If you ask me, it sounds like my enlisted time is not counting towards Active Federal Service, and I will be good to go when my Army ADSO is up. Ponder on it for awhile, and let me know what you think.

 

[highside7r]

I'm still going with total federal service time. In any case, just do what sardaddy said and try for the wavier worst case. Not sure how your command will feel if you try the early release, or how bad manning is for -64 guys, do you guys still have a bonus for everything(MTP, IP) that we don't in -60 land?

My experience after switching from the Navy to green, I researched this to transfer to the Guard/Reserves through the ANG liaison at Rucker, I was told he could do nothing until my IERW ADSO was up in 6yrs.

 

[AH64Daviator]

The only bonus in the 64 arena is for TACOPS. Apparantly they figured that we met our manning power for the maintenance side and ultimately decided to rescind their bonus for this fiscal year. Maybe it will be back into effect next time. I might just have to accept the waiver option. Even with any bonus, I don't think the Big Army can convince me to stay. If the CG can not be an option, I hear they are bringing a program back for army guys to make an AF transition.

 

[highside7r]

Had a thread on Hawkdriver.com about the program 5yrs ago, but looks to be gone for now. I believe that it's probably not coming back, even the AF has met manning levels.