Pilot Lateral Transfer

[Willy W]

All,

Currently a SWO on deployment (first tour still an ensign) looking to lat transfer to pilot when I return to home port. Does anyone know or have experience with this? For example how hard is it to get selected? My ASTB scores are 6/7/6 53 with a 3.89GPA. Do the lateral transfer boards take that into consideration? What is the selection rate? I know by looking at the quotas they usually only take one or pilots each board and saw that last board JUN 2015 no one was selected, is that because no one applied or they were super selective and did not want to accept any candidates?

V/r,

Wil

 

[AllAmerican75]

I actually went through your shoes about a year ago. The big questions right now are: 1) Do you have your pin? 2) Have you served at least two years in the Navy? These are huge. After that you need to get a flight physical now! ASAP! Also, I highly recommend visiting the NAVPERS website and looking through the Lateral Transfer webpages. Also, contact the community manager for aviation, he's a really helpful guy. If you have any more specific questions feel free to contact me.

EDIT: I re-read your question. Lateral Transferring is entirely a numbers game. The SWO community can only let so many people go and still make their manpower quotas for Department Heads, XOs, COs, etc., and the Aviation community only has so many bodies they can take. It is EXTREMELY competitive and sustained superior performance (FITREPs) is usually the big deciding factor. Remember, you're not the bubbas coming off of the street, you're already in the Navy and a somewhat known quantity. I will say this, it is highly unlikely that they will select you as an Ensign. Most of the guys (and gals) I know who have made the jump were pulled as LTJGs and LTs, since that's where most communities start losing people and that's when the community managers start to see some room open up.