A long-time Air Force Journey follower reached out and provided the following insights about his experience so far with TFOT 18-05. Today is May 19th and he will be graduating on May 24th.
I should note the following is written in my words after a little Q&A about how the course is going, but from his perspective.
Detachment 12 Differences
It is difficult to do a week by week perspective of the course, because it seems like they change it from class to class. We actually did combatives during Week 7 and have two combatives sessions during graduation week. There also seems to be huge differences between Det 12 and 24 TRS. I’m a Det 12 cadet so I can’t really speak for the 24th, but it seems like they’re a lot stricter in certain areas.
Knowing more about the cadet squadron structure would have been helpful. I saw your post about Differing OTS Experiences but the Det 12 cadet leadership changes every week, so it works a little different. For Week 0 and Week 1 the MTIs chose the leadership team. For Weeks 2 – 6, Flight Commander’s picked the leadership team for the week based on peer feedbacks. The Week 6 team remained in place for the rest of the course, all the way to graduation.
Cadet Leadership Team
The cadet leadership team consists of the following positions. We didn’t have a Warthog squadron. The 1 and 2 TRSS were basically made up positions for all the additional duty personnel to report to such as Wing Academic Officer, Wing Protocol, Wing PT positions, etc.
- Cadet Wing Commander
- Cadet Vice Wing Commander
- Cadet Operations Group Commander
- Cadet Mission Support Group Commander
- Cadet Squadron Commander, Mustangs
- Cadet Squadron Commander, Wolfpack
- Cadet Squadron Commander, Phantoms
- Cadet Support Squadron Commander, 1 TRSS
- Cadet Support Squadron Commander, 2 TRSS
Det 12 Flight Organization
Det 12 Leadership Positions (Rotates Weekly)
We started with around 268 cadets but now we have around 248 maybe? We lost a few to SEI, PT, a few due to “failure to adapt,” one cadet was booted for failing the PFA by one push-up.
We have a COT class arriving tomorrow with 350, and also a ROTC class, so the dorms are at max capacity. There are 3-4 people per room and our flight has 17 people.
The Physical Fitness Baseline (PFB) was Friday of Week 1. (TFOT started 28 Mar 18, PFB 6 Apr 18). It really sucked having to wait that long to test, but I have heard that is fairly common. The food here sucks too.
There is no more phase program, all privileges require an MFR. It’s contingent reward based and really depends on the Flight/CC’s personality.
Graduation Week
Monday (21 May 18)
is the final feedback/end of course survey followed by combatives, AOPs, SNCO briefing, critical thinking tank, then dining in in the evening.
Tuesday (22 May 18)
Combatives, Commander’s Call, Commissioning Ceremony Practice, and Parade Practice.
Wednesday (23 May 18)
Parade Practice, Spouses Orientation, Open House, Awards Ceremony
Thursday (24 May 18)
Commissioning Ceremony and Parade.
pclar09
Only one issue…
The FLT numbers for Wolfpack and Phantoms were EVEN numbers (ex. 2-10, 2-12, 4-12, etc.)
-Member of Wolfpack FLT 2-20
airforceotsguy
Fixed, thank you!
Appreciative
I appreciate the info, but for those of us who are not prior-military it’s difficult to read when acronyms are not defined before first use. Sentences using things like SEI or MFR lose their meaning because a major component is misunderstood. Thank you again!
airforceotsguy
Thanks for the feedback. This post was actually written by someone else and for some reason when I posed it I decided to post it 100% as-is instead of translating it. I’ll go back through and update these.