Its true what aus111c says; knowing whether dogs is on the cards before you fly is essential prep.
As for the 6 week course, they are trialling it at the moment apparently to save money (ie, because of the decent scrub-rate at pilot's course, they'd rather not put you all the way through OTS if they're going to lose you). You do the initial 6 week block which is the first (introductory) of the three OTS phases, do BFTS, then finish OTS off before 2FTS. lesnak, the most recent course at BFTS when you were here was the one with the first batch of 6-week OTS guys so its a pretty recent thing.
I don't envy that route, it was good to get it all out of the way in one go!
