Student Publication Test (SPT) 1
I showed up at OTS with a brief understanding of the academic requirements and I knew I had to march, but I had no idea about the others things such as Project X, LRC, BELPS, etc. SPT fell into this I had no idea category. Our syllabus told us there would be two SPT tests, and it described them as:
Cadets are tested on their knowledge of the OTSMAN 36-2604 and HAWK aircraft knowledge. There are two tests. Minimum passing score is 80 percent.
This really is all you really need to know, but because I love you guys I will go into more details.
Our SPT was administered en masse like our CWT. I think our test was 50 questions, 40 multiple choice from the OTSMAN and 10 from the HAWK. We were given an answer sheet and the questions were put up on a PowerPoint slide. As they flashed from slide to slide we read the questions and wrote down our answer. In order to ace the OTSMAN portion, we needed to know every line of the OTSMAN. Keep in mind there are two SPT tests so it may benefit you to think about which questions are more relevant to the point you are in with training. Either way, the questions were from very in the weeds parts of the OTSMAN so we really had to know our stuff. For the HAWK portion they flashed a picture from the HAWK air and space craft section and we had to write down either the alphanumeric designation or the name/nickname. For example, if they showed a picture of a F-15 the responses they would accept were “F-15” or “Eagle”. For us if we wrote “F-15 Talon” or “F-16 Eagle” it was wrong, so only write down what you know. The satellites, missiles, and helicopters were all fair game as well so know the entire section. We passed our answer sheets to a person next to us and knew our scores before we left. I think those who failed received an OTMR. From what I gathered, the main impact of the OTMR was the student ranking in the middle and end of the course.
Academics, Combatives, and LANES
The rest of the week was filled with more classes which would be testable for CWT 2, Combatives, and Lanes. Like I said before I had a blast sparring during Combatives. We were divided into weight classes and they made us do exercises which would exhaust us. Then we would pick a partner and spar. On the last day we were all in giant circles and three sets of partners would have little mini death matches. Have fun but don’t get hurt.
LANES was essentially an introductory course to field tactics. Our class was divided into four groups and we cycled through stations. In the Land Navigation taught us how to get our pace count and how to use a compass. Small Unit Tactics was about the low crawl, high crawl, and some patrolling formations the AF adapted from the Army. Tactical comm was about hand and arm signals, and Patient transport was about how to move a dead or injured comrade from Point A to B. It was essentially a course designed to teach us tactics which we would be expected to use the following week during BELPS. We did ours in the field next to the volleyball courts so we all got soaked because the grass was wet from the rain. It was also fun trying to clean the dorms after we were all covered in grass clippings.
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