IFT- what is it really like?

[cerealsine]

I'll be heading to IFT in a few months out in Pueblo, CO. I have heard more than one person refer to it as "DOSSchwitz." I have been told that when it was first started it was very rigorous and was a huge "weed out" program, but I've heard others say that this is not true and in more recent years the attitude there has changed slightly and their washout rate has decreased significantly. Has anyone gotten through the training in the last year-ish?

How did you feel it prepared you at UPT compared to your classmates who did not attend IFT?

Whats the lifestyle like there? 10-12hour academics mon-fri, then eat/workout/study in the evening? Is that it? Or is there other parts that I'm missing that make it particularly miserable?

Do you get your PPL while you're there?

[cerealsine]

Dumb question: Whats formal release?

[SurelySerious]

Essentially you’re required to be in the flight room studying from show time until dismissal at the end of the day. 

[cerealsine]

On 2/3/2018 at 6:49 PM, JRBac said:

On 2/3/2018 at 6:49 PM, JRBac said:

How much IFT will help you for UPT kinda depends on how much flying experience you have before you go and how fast of a learner you are. However, even if you have more than a handful of hours, getting exposure on how to do standups and chairfly can be very helpful for UPT. You won't get a PPL there as pilot, probably closer to 16-18 hours. The RPA guys usually get closer to 40 and will usually end up getting their PPLs afterwards.

There are only 4-5 days of academics there, but those are pretty boring. The rest of the suck comes from living in a windowless building for at least a month and Doss itself. When I was there, they had way more students then they could reasonably fly, which led to us sitting around for two weeks until the class before us finally graduated. The UPT bases kept sending huge (80+ student) classes until they cut class sizes and eventually stopped sending RPA students for a while.

 

If you only have 4-5 days of academics, and only fly 16-18 hours, what do the rest of the three weeks consist of?

Maybe I'm overthinking this and getting nervous about this for nothing. I was told the best thing you can do for IFT (and OTS and UPT and certain military things in general) is just have a positive attitude; yes there are sucky, miserable parts, but everyone is going through it. Just commiserate together, cooperate and graduate.