Prior service

[luckynumber27]

Good day all,

I am a prior enlisted Navy veteran looking to fly fixed wing of some kind, branch isn't as important to me as flying on AD. I was an aviation electronics technician for four years before getting out honorably with a favorable RE code. I have knocked out my bachelor's degree and will be graduating this December with my masters, GPAs were 3.73 and 3.77 respectively. No prior flying experience.

I initially was interested in flying for the Navy since that would feel the most familiar to me and went so far as to start the commissioning process, but two weeks in, my recruiter contacted me about an email he'd received from upstairs that the Navy has met it's quota of Aviators for the fiscal year and they won't start boards for the next fiscal year until the middle of 21. That was really disheartening to me, especially after doing entirely better on the ASTB than I thought I would after taking it with only about a week of minimal prep (scores were 61, 7/7/8), I felt like I would've had a competitive package.

In spite of all that, I still want to fly and have contacted the AF officer hotline and they have assured me that aviators are still very much in demand on their side of the house right now. Joining the AF is very foreign to me so I have been combing these boards trying to gain as much insight into what they consider and how much they weight everything when they are selecting aviators. For the Navy, GPA and ASTB appear to be the two most significant factors. Is flight experience a big factor for the AF and if so how significant is it when considering your overall package? Would having a pilot's license help significantly more or would just having flight hours hit that check mark that they're looking for? Or is AFOQT and GPA the meat and potatoes and the flight experience is more of a pleasant but unnecessary addition. I'm trying to discern what aspects of a package carry the most weight so I can throw the maximum amount of resources into that area. 

Any and all advice is welcome.