Magic, you are already 80% of the way there since you have been given the ok for further selection as Nav aircrew, do have a personality, and can spell !
If you want to be a military pilot though, you need to show a big big motivation level for
that during the selection process. It qualitatively adds to your overall rating regardless of your test results. The reason is that if you hit hard times on Course then that may be all that carries you through regardless of how well your test/interview/profile results were at the start.
For that reason you shouldn't join as something else to get your foot in the door as there are other ways, or be wavey about career streams.
So, if you get offered Nav, EngO, ATC, or anything else just treat it like an offer to join Army Catering and tell them politely thanks but you will reapply later for Pilot after you learn and do a few more things to raise your suitability, then go out and do just that.
On your application form, write 'Pilot', then draw a line to the bottom of the page !
If your written tests let you down, then get hold of similar tests and practice or get someone to make up some (a lot) based on what you have seen, and practice them.
Apply for non Government jobs that may have similar tests and use their selection procedure as more practice.
Find out which Uni's etc run HR and psychology courses that may include this type of selection/testing then go through their libraries to see what you can find.
Stay in contact with people going through the selection process (too late now this time ?) and get your own little syndicate of like-minded people so you can compare notes - everyone will pick up separate ideas. Some people want to run their own race on the belief they will grease in so good luck to them.
The Internet would be a good info source if you do enough searching.
The best source of information will be the Recruiting Officer who is handling your application. I would preface any enquiry by telling him its now Pilot or nothing (except civvy pilot once you are too old to reapply).
On that point, you should find out if you can have 'too many' civvy flying hours, if success takes a while and you plunge into a civvy flying career. If you do and go bush, you will rack up 500 hours with a couple of years.
Remember that the Recruiting Officer is employed by the ADF to fill slots on training courses with people who will pass and then rip into the job, not to get everyone into the job they really want. If he/she needs (eg.) Navy Observers more than RAAF Pilots and thinks you wouldn't mind and could do it, then expect the big sales pitch.
Don't go IntelO if you want to be aircrew.
Trash n'Navs has his own view <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> on Spooks, based on being receiving intel products so that he can safely go out and about in his Herc ! The other parts of the intel process are a lot more interesting than assessments of the % chance of some disaffected local digging a concealed C130-nosewheel width hole to a certain depth, before Friday 1300Z, in some airfield in a foreign land !
The actual reason to avoid Int is that the ADF may be unwilling to later send you in harms way (ever..) if you have a head full of Int training and material. If you get captured you will end up telling them the lot - its not TV.
In your reply to Cougar you mentioned stress as an ATC - it shouldn't be a consideration since an ATC can hand over to some else if everyone is talking to him at once, whereas a pilot can hand over nothing when everyone is shooting at him !
Stress and patience during the selection process ? Lets just say that not everything will be all that it seems... this is so that they get to see you at no notice under big personal stress or perhaps under none at all, and rightly so. Cups of tea and biscuits will end at some point. Its 'depth' not 'technique' that will get you past this - and that means life experience - enough said and you work out the rest.
Surditas's five year path through the Army Reserve and back to the RAAF is a good example of the time frame and content of a Plan B (!) to make your self a
very good bet for a Wings Parade.
At the moment you are looking at 12 months to the next selection and regard that as some sort of timeframe, so perhaps you are trying to fit everything into those 12 months. Don't.
What is the real objective - to be a RAAF pilot or to hammer away, year by year, at the selection process ? Remember that 50% of people who get on Course don't pass it - you have to have what it takes to pass the selection process AND the Pilots Course AND OCU. Take your time and pack in enough
content to overkill any barriers, both internal and external, to these objectives. Maybe years not months but what do you want ?
Reserve service is excellent because you see the Military, and it sees you and writes eval reports about you. You also get to know people who can help you along later, but no, don't become Rudolf the Brown Nosed Reindeer - that
won't help...
Get into a proper Reserve unit with proper roles and tasks - and the indicators of that will be the unit telling you that they need to see you for X number of days per year which will be a lot more than the advertised minimum, plus that they will expect you to do some full time unit courses with no days away. The more courses the better - that all produce course reports that will follow you forever and testify to your abilities.
What other contact can you have with the RAAF ? I did a lot of gliding at a RAAF Gliding Club, and the things I learned there about selection, courses, plus the refs from the RAAF guys who were instructors were invaluable., eg., other applicants had refs from KFC; I had a ref from a RAAF Pilot who had done a tour as a senior instructor at Pearce. The point though, is that I genuinely wanted to be in a RAAF Gliding Club, not to be in a position to have someone slide a good reference into my hand.
The key point here is that you don't want to leave
anything to chance or luck in the selection and training process. Don't confuse "giving it your best shot" with
comprehensively positioning and configuring yourself to get into a Squadron. "Giving it your best shot" is ok for the Under 18's school footy team but it ends there.
Ten years down the track would you expect to leave the lives of the people under your command, or mission success, up to chance or luck, or accept the same from people above you ? No. Start now.
THAT is really the what this is all about, since that will be what is evaluated in the step that you haven't seen yet - the Board interview. Its this that you want to find out the most about, from the Recruiting Officer.
The selection process you have seen so far is really there only to provide a short list for the Board. You will get to front up to a couple of Pilots of Squadron Leader / Wing Commander rank.
Their job is to see if they want you working for them. They are visualising you in the units they run / used to run. Do you fit ? If you get selected then it means that you will.
As well, there will be a pysch, and Education Officer and maybe someone else. They are specialists who will look at you from their own technical points of view, for any odd bits poking out that may get in the way later.
Treat the Board as the opportunity to enter a group of people that you genuinely and confidently know are doing the things that you should be doing and living the life you should be living, not as some stressful interrogation to find all your hidden flaws and thus pronounce you a complete dud !
Regard it as being Day One in the RAAF because when you walk in that door that's where you'll be ! Remember that in the end, the job is to get rid of the other side's ORBAT and/or willingness to use it, and to have great Dining In nights, and not get military training for an airline career.
All the above posts are great, but copy down and laminate the last line in Trashy's post above.
My background ? I did/learned all the above, applied for RAAF Pilot, passed every selection test, got a Board Interview on my first go, go in, passed every ground school exam, every flying test, and gave it away half way through Peace because my fiancé was spitting the dummy and walking. In the end she was more important. Regrets ? Only about what I don't know. Army Infantry was great, after, and I did more hard yards there than I could have ever done as a knuck.
By the way, did you see the Army nurse too and do you think she compared you more favorably than the Indian's <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> ?
------------------------
Regards Rene
<a href="http://www.insider_trading_is_a_bitch.com.au" target="_blank">www.insider_trading_is_a_bitch.com.au</a>