AFCS_Actuator Posted February 22, 2005 Posted February 22, 2005 AAS does a lot of community service type stuff. It all depends on the squadron you're in. I would encourage it. It will help your OM at your det. If you haven't been to FT yet the candidate program will help too.
Guest AFmotivated07 Posted February 22, 2005 Posted February 22, 2005 I am in AAS at my Det. I agree with Det002cadet in that it does help you with some FT prep. It can definitely help your CR at your Det. I am actually going to NATCON in March in Oklahoma City, OK. It is from March 25-28. It is a great opportunity to meet other cadets from different detachments and explore how each det is different, but yet can learn from one another. It is also an oppportunity to be the voice of your fellow cadets in exploring new avenues and ideas to help make each Det better.
Guest RaptorwannaB Posted February 23, 2005 Posted February 23, 2005 here here its a great organization.. gives you a chance to meet cadets around the country. some AAS squadrons are seen like a frat in the air force but its not like a normal frat (we dont haze and it is centered on becoming a better officer) though you generally get to know the arnies a lot better and im still really good friends with those that were in my arnie candidate class. depending on the squadron.. it could take up a bit of time so if you become a candidate.. i suggest not takin too many hours.
WHAP Posted February 23, 2005 Posted February 23, 2005 Just to add the other side, if AAS isnt for you (it wasnt for me) you can still do well in ROTC. But, if you think its your thing, then ive never heard of it hurting anybody.
Guest mfont Posted February 23, 2005 Posted February 23, 2005 I would definetly encourage it. The cadre really appreciate the Arnies at my det and we do some really cool stuff. Last week we visited a veteran's home and are involved with habitat for humanity (among other things). We usually party together on the weekends and have a conoe/camping trip every year. ARCON and NATCON are yearly events you might participate in which are a lot of fun as well. Its basically a brotherhood of cadets that have fun together and do stuff for the better of the community. Great way for you to stand out among your peers and partipate within the Det. Hope to see you guys at MemorialCon!
Guest FangsOut Posted February 23, 2005 Posted February 23, 2005 c17...you are in college for the grades???? All kidding aside, training for AAS was the best thing I could have done at my det. Got to know some SH cadets and love every bit of it. I'm mad I can't go to Natcon this year, so all of you arnies will have to party it up without me. You better watch out for the Paul T. Suttle Squadron!
sky_king Posted February 23, 2005 Posted February 23, 2005 I'll play the devil's advocate... AAS is not for me. If you are high speed and self motivated, you won't need the program to excell in the corps. To me, AAS is basically a positive tie breaker that would be looked at between two identical cadets. Of the 15 or so cadets that finished the Tiger program (I dropped out due to class loads), probably 8 or so are no longer in the corps. Half of the remaining AAS members are average cadets. So if you don't join AAS, don't worry about it. It may help you out or it may just take time from your studies. Your call
Guest elroy Posted February 23, 2005 Posted February 23, 2005 Det002Cadet, "It will help your OM" ? Are you serious? I think that you have been severly mislead. The OM formula is just that a formula and AAS is not included in it, at all. But it might help get the PAS's attention to you, especially if you have a significant position (e.g. squadron commander). -Elroy
Container STS Posted February 23, 2005 Posted February 23, 2005 well i happen to differ from all of your viewpoints on AAS the most imature and unprofessional cadets i have seen were arnies from various det's. that doesnt mean all AAS sq's are like that, but its often considerd the AF's Co-ED frat which is part of the reason why i have seen what i have seen from arnies. AAS can be a magnet for frat-mentality cadets. have fun!
Guest Birdie Posted February 23, 2005 Posted February 23, 2005 Basically, if you can handle a huge load on your shoulders for one semester, than I would advise joining AAS. I wouldn't say that all arnies are great or all great cadets are arnies, but if you want to be the best than why not do it? There are tons of benefits as you have read here. If you are struggling in school, then forget it. Otherwise, plan on not having any life outside of candidate training and academics. Some (most even) in my class have horrific GPAs from last semester. On the other hand, I ended up doing really well along with a few others because we busted our asses. The difficulty in becoming a member alone has potential to make you better. I still have tons of respect for those who are not arnies though, don't get me wrong.
AFCS_Actuator Posted February 27, 2005 Posted February 27, 2005 Candidate class doesn't necessarily equate to a horrible GPA, even with a heavy load. The academics for the candidate class at my squadron consists of studying for the national exam and warrior knowledge (WK is something you have to study anyway). There's always going to be some extra stuff to do, but I would say that it is about the same as a one unit class. If you're taking 18 units in a tech degree, then maybe you should wait until you have a lighter load. However, if you have 15 units or less, then it shouldn't be a problem unless you're totally lazy. AAS is worth it. The bonds you build with your fellow candidates will last forever.
Guest Dirt Beater Posted March 2, 2005 Posted March 2, 2005 Whatever happened to volunteering for the candidate class, passing some piddly quizzes, getting an 80 on the national test, then graduating and getting the fouregerre (sp)?
AFCS_Actuator Posted March 2, 2005 Posted March 2, 2005 Originally posted by FalconXtreme: this years AAS line just crossed over this morning in LeLab it was pretty cute. i must say i'm a little bitter cause i applied and didnt get accepted :( You had to apply for AAS and they rejected you?! I'm pretty sure that isn't kosher. You usually fill out an application, go to candidate class, pass the NE, and you're good to go. If your AAS squadron has some screwed up leadership that won't allow everyone to try and get in then you might just say screw AAS. If you really want to pursue it, find out which cadre member is the AAS advisor and talk to him about it. There are pros and cons to that though and I think you can figure out what they are. [ 02. March 2005, 13:34: Message edited by: Det002cadet ]
Guest FangsOut Posted March 2, 2005 Posted March 2, 2005 every squadron has variations of how people join. As for: "Whatever happened to volunteering for the candidate class, passing some piddly quizzes, getting an 80 on the national test, then graduating and getting the fouregerre (sp)?" If thats how it was where you are from, I'm sorry, because in my experience it was hard as hell to get in. I wouldn't have wanted to join if it was that easy.
Guest Birdie Posted March 3, 2005 Posted March 3, 2005 No kidding. I had to get over 70 signautres from a bunch of power-crazed actives that would give you crap all of the time. We had to pile in cars looking for these people's houses or search all over campus, and then when you find them you would spend half an hr trying to get their signature and something wouldn't be right so you would have to try again the next day. Candidate training was at least four hours long (Saturday around 0300). Sure, only an hour was PT, but everytime you made a mistake throughout the rest of training you were back on the ground doing more push-ups or flutter kicks. By the time PT started you were so exhausted you could hardly hold yourself up. Candidate training was hell and that's why a lot of us new actives are proud to be Arnies. We took lot from that and generally have a lot of respect for all of the acives who put us through hell, especially our CTOs. Sincerely, Blue Devils class of 2004; Steven M. Scherp SQ (LBJ Cup baby)
Scooter14 Posted March 3, 2005 Posted March 3, 2005 Granted, we all went through some degree of hardship to get into AAS, but I don't think we ever turned anyone away. If they wanted to join, we put 'em through the semester o' fun, and then we accepted them. Then we took 'em to NATCON New Orleans, 1995, baby! I don't care how many planes CAVOK had flown by then, I had a blast!
Guest flecth033 Posted March 3, 2005 Posted March 3, 2005 Dude, That's messed up if you didn't get picked. As far as I know Arnies don't deny people if they did everything they had to do. I was in AAS, I know that ours and othersdidn't pull stupid stuff like that. Sounds like your AAS dudes have their heads up their A$$ or something. It definitely wouldn't be cool to be in their squadron. I would bring it up just to make a point how stupid it is. Arnies helps out and stuff but it sounds like you would be better off not being apart of that dumb a$$ group.
AFCS_Actuator Posted March 3, 2005 Posted March 3, 2005 Originally posted by Birdie: No kidding. I had to get over 70 signautres from a bunch of power-crazed actives that would give you crap all of the time. We had to pile in cars looking for these people's houses or search all over campus, and then when you find them you would spend half an hr trying to get their signature and something wouldn't be right so you would have to try again the next day. Candidate training was at least four hours long (Saturday around 0300). Sure, only an hour was PT, but everytime you made a mistake throughout the rest of training you were back on the ground doing more push-ups or flutter kicks. By the time PT started you were so exhausted you could hardly hold yourself up. Candidate training was hell and that's why a lot of us new actives are proud to be Arnies. We took lot from that and generally have a lot of respect for all of the acives who put us through hell, especially our CTOs. Sincerely, Blue Devils class of 2004; Steven M. Scherp SQ (LBJ Cup baby) Hehe... Sounds like the candidate classes at my squadron. I'm a CTO right now and it is fun. We have our classes on Friday nights and they last 3-4 hours too. We have a pretty small squadron, only about 20 members or so, so there aren't too many signitures. We PT throughout the whole class. Everytime they mess up we're PTing. We also do the matchbooks. Each candidate gets a matchbook with 20 matches at the beginning of the quarter. If they do something really dumb or repeatedly do the same dumb thing we burn a match. If they run out of matches they're out of the program and have to try again next quarter.
Guest Boricu@2 Posted March 3, 2005 Posted March 3, 2005 I am currently in Active Duty, when I was in ROTC I was in AAS. One thing that AAS will help you in is in getting a full Scholarship. I know in my det, AAS, SO, and Red Rope were huge if you wanted to get a scholarship. Also, like other people have said in this thread, it will help you big time when you apply for a pilot/nav slot. The only thing that sucks is all the community service you have to do! But its worth it!
Guest Dirt Beater Posted March 3, 2005 Posted March 3, 2005 Well you guys are lucky...my PAS shudders at the thought of PT and PD. We had done the ETE about 4 times before, where we take them up in the hills for half-day GLP, complete with CTA-style screaming, PT, etc, but that got shot down because apparently it wasn't "necessary" WTF has ROTC come to these days? Oh well, 100 days until ROTC will be a distant memory.
AFCS_Actuator Posted March 4, 2005 Posted March 4, 2005 We go full CTA style for the duration of candidate class. We never have them do PD, but we'll do "motivational" PT when they screw around. The whole class and all the CTOs do the PT together. It's a good work out. Our ETEs are freakin cool too. Last class we set up a whole scenario where the candidates became a "spec ops" team and had to rescue a downed pilot behind enemy lines. It included about 3 miles of overland navigation at night in semi-mountainous terrain. The active members played the OPFOR. We taught the candidates the stuff they needed to know to get through it, from land nav to survival to small unit tactics. It was fun as hell. The best part was the drive up the mountain (heavily rutted dirt road) in 4x4s. The poor candidates were blindfolded the whole way up.
Guest Dirt Beater Posted March 4, 2005 Posted March 4, 2005 Yeah, we did the EXACT same thing...blindfolds, downed pilot, crappy logging road, everything. Apparently it's not necessary though. I hate ROTC.
Vandal Posted March 4, 2005 Posted March 4, 2005 The best advice I have is to try it. If you don't like it, get out. The group at Det. 905 is really community service oriented this semester. I am a 100 so I don't know how it was in the past but we manage to have a lot of fun too. My Candidate class was really easy. We met before LLab and then had an initiation night where there was PT and recitaion at the same time, this after Combat Dining In. Good Times
Guest TPeters422 Posted March 28, 2007 Posted March 28, 2007 It seems that every person at my det that recieved a pilot slot last year and this year was a member of Arnold Air Society. Is it like that at other dets as well? Does anyone have a pilot slot that wasn't in AAS? Obviously I don't get to see what it's like at other dets so I'm just trying to find out. Thanks.
Goblin Posted March 28, 2007 Posted March 28, 2007 AAS does not factor into the ranking at all. Granted, most AAS cadets are more active in their det, meaning more face time, higher commander ranking, etc....but being an AAS member does not make you have a higher ranking for a rated slot. A lot of the cadets that categorized here (Det 157) aren't AAS/SW members I hope to be one of them soon Hope that helped!
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