WOCS Selection Board

[Ian_J]

I have the opportunity to serve as a board member for a WOCS selection board. My fellow board members and I will be interviewing and selecting future warrant officers and Army rotary-wing aviators. We've had a little interest in the past about what these boards are like and how to prepare, so if anyone is interested I'd be willing to post a write-up after the board concludes.

 

[Nick2024]

If Mr. Ayres is still there Tell him a fellow Stetson Crew Dog said hello!! Probably will not remember me since I only served in his troop for a bit before he left, but I started my crew dog progression with him.


Sgt Lambert . now Civilian!

He will know and remember John Martin a good friend of mine.

 

[Blackhawk]

That would be great. I have people ask me on a regular basis what things help and I have to tell them I don't have a clue.

 

[Ian_J]

That would be great. I have people ask me on a regular basis what things help and I have to tell them I don't have a clue.

Just finished up with it. Will tackle a write up this weekend.

If Mr. Ayres is still there Tell him a fellow Stetson Crew Dog said hello!! Probably will not remember me since I only served in his troop for a bit before he left, but I started my crew dog progression with him.


Sgt Lambert . now Civilian!

He will know and remember John Martin a good friend of mine.

Don't know him... he was in the CTARNG?

 

[Ian_J]

Turns out I have a little time this evening so here it goes:

For reference, this was a board for selecting aviation warrant officer candidates for the National Guard, not a central DA Warrant Officer Board.

The board was comprised of five members; two warrant officers and three commissioned officers. There was a Battalion Commander, Company Commander, Unit SP, Unit MTP, and a staff officer. Three were master aviators, one was a senior aviator, and one basic aviator. Had one IP (instructor pilot), one MTP (maintenance test pilot), one IE (instrument examiner), one UT (unit trainer), and one PI (pilot). (The staff officer/PI was originally supposed to be a junior warrant but the scheduling got screwed up.)

The main focus of the board was to determine the candidates leadership experience, aptitude for aviation service, dedication, and personality. There were three candidates competing for two slots. All candidates were current National Guard Soldiers. One was an Infantry sergeant, one was a UH-60 crewchief and non-rated crewmember instructor, and one was a supply specialist.

The broad areas we were evaluating were aviation experience (military, civil, general interest, etc.), leadership experience, professionalism & image, dedication, family support, AFAST score, and physical fitness score. The AFAST and physical fitness scores just had to be passing with the actual only used as tie-breakers.

The overall most important thing the board was looking for was professionalism and personality followed by leadership abilities. We spoke with each candidate for about 45 minutes. We were not looking for rote-style robot responses like one might find on a Soldier of the Month board (for those familiar), we were looking for confidence, creativity, and something that would give us the sense they were responsible and mature enough to eventually command a multi-million dollar government owned helicopter. We also wanted to know that they could be leaders and didn't think their possible future jobs would begin and end at the cockpit. To do this we asked why they would prefer being a warrant officer over a commissioned officer. One poor candidate fell for the trap by saying that essentially warrant officers "just fly" and that's what he wants to do. Our WO board members were none to pleased with that.

The questions ranged from "tell me a time when you" types to the ridiculous "if you could be any car what would it be" types. (The latter was partially to gauge quick thinking abilities but mostly to amuse us.) I was assigned leadership oriented questions so I focused on TMATY questions. The WO assigned technical questions kept them basic and not aviation related and tended to tailor them towards the candidates experience. I would have asked basic helicopter questions to see if their interest in aviation was real instead of just "being a pilot is cool and better than what I'm doing now." I would have asked simple things like "why do we have tail rotors" and "what does a collective do."

The UH-60 crew chief didn't get a pass - he was grilled and rated just like the other two. His aviation knowledge certainly helped him, and he was also an FAA PPL which helped as well. But prior flight crew experience, while valuable, turned out not to be a deal breaker.

Advice for future candidates: if in the service make sure you're uniform is correct. One candidate when asked what reference he used to put together his uniform answered correctly with AR 670-1. Another board member asked if following Army regulations is important, to which the candidate answered yes. It was then pointed out that his special skill badges were not attached per AR 670-1, so how could we know he would follow aviation Army Regulations. Plus, the uniform makes a first impression. One candidate's looked like it was just pulled out of a duffel bag. Be confident and personable. This is probably the most important piece of advice. We didn't want a robot or someone who was overly nervous. One candidate mentioned when asked about his hobbies that he was a nerd and played D&D. We liked that. Another when asked the same questions said he enjoyed hosting barbecues. We liked that too. They seemed genuinely like they had interests outside of work. One couldn't really think of anything. Another piece of advice - talk to a warrant officer or two prior to the board. Learn a little about the job and the profession. Don't want the job just because it's better than the infantry or it's "cool." Learn the basics about a helicopter. If you want to fly one so badly it would make common sense you would do a little reading about them.

And that's about it - a mix between a job interview, Army board, and BS session, really. I really enjoyed being on the board and am pretty excited for the guys who were selected.

 

[Nick2024]

Just finished up with it. Will tackle a write up this weekend.



Don't know him... he was in the CTARNG?

Not sure exactly were he was, Just herd he was either part of the board selection process or he may have moved on already. Oh well!

 

[Blackhawk]

Good to hear about concentrating on leadership. I always found it annoying when WOs would ditch their CEs after a mission to go stuff their own pie holes- and the CEs would end up missing hot chow and get stuck with an MRE.

 

[Ian_J]

Good to hear about concentrating on leadership. I always found it annoying when WOs would ditch their CEs after a mission to go stuff their own pie holes- and the CEs would end up missing hot chow and get stuck with an MRE.

Amen to that. Personal pet peeve.

 

[Nark]

Thanks a bunch for that!

Cheers.

 

[MikeD]

i still think it's funny/interesting that the Army has separate instrument examiners from normal checkride examiners.

 

[Blackhawk]

i still think it's funny/interesting that the Army has separate instrument examiners from normal checkride examiners.

Yeah, and the course can be kind of silly. It's assumed you will get pink slips and it ends up turning out examiners who are often more interested in minutia than real instrument flying. There is no requirement for an examiner to go through a refresher course so I often found IEs teaching things that were not correct- such as one who insisted it was illegal to depart IFR from a non-towered airport, that a pilot had to maintain VFR until radar contact was established. There was a brief span of about three weeks probably in the early 90s when a change to the AIM was interpreted this way, he happened to be going through the IE course when this was taught, and years later he still insisted this was the case.
Also, since the Army does have an IE course some FSDOs insist that Army IPs show an IE graduation certificate prior to getting their CFII-H. Air Force, Navy, Marines don't have a distinction so they don't have to show such a certificate. As an IP I could train instruments, evaluate instruments, I just could not do the annual instrument evaluation.

 

[Blackhawk]

Oh, my other favorite was IEs insisting instrument climbs had to be done at 500'/minute.

 

[MikeD]

In the USAF, when we became examiners, we did all checkrides.....mission checks, instrument checks, etc. So it's just interesting to see it done differently in the Army, as if instruments is some sort of special advanced deal that one needs to be a dedicated examiner for.

Whats funny is that you mention minutia. As you know, at my CBP air branch, the majority of the pilots we have are former Army, both commissioned as well as warrant, but far more WOs. Anyhow, our SFE there (yes, we use the Army model of positional names within the unit) is a former commissioned Army type. His checkrides are painful. Ground eval of at least 3 or 4 hours going over ALL kinds of bullcrap minutia thats more "nice to know" than it is "need to know". And unlike most "big picture" examiners who, when you answer a few questions correct on a given subject and it's obvious you know it that they move on to the next subject, this guy asks the full gamut of minutia, whether you're getting them right or wrong; IMO needlessly prolonging the checks.

I noticed the same kind of thing with SFEs at Rucker, so I figured it was an Army thing of some sort.

 

[Ian_J]

Yeah, and the course can be kind of silly. It's assumed you will get pink slips and it ends up turning out examiners who are often more interested in minutia than real instrument flying.

Yes, yes... A thousand times yes.

As an example, the meaningless detail put into the DD 175 (army flight plan form) is comically absurd. The form never leaves ops so what's the point?

The minutia IEs think is important would never, ever fly doing real world IFR 5 days a week. Ironically, I'll have to be an IE for my job. The other IEs suggested I challenge the course based on my instrument experience but that would mean a DES check ride without the benefit of going through the course to learn the minutia. Plus it seems way to arrogant to try with a DES IP.

 

[MikeD]

Yes, yes... A thousand times yes.

The meaningless detail put into the DD 175 (army flight plan form) is comically absurd. The form never leaves ops so what's the point?

Give an average Army guy......or even any helo or fighter guy, anyone besides a heavy airlift or tanker guy........a DD 1801 (international flightplan) form to fill out, and watch their head explode.

And yes, the DOD flight plan form 175......the 10,000 "tech-cedures" people have in how to fill it out, what to abbreviate, etc.....ALL part and parcel from the FLIP GP, is amazing!

The minutia IEs think is important would never, ever fly doing real world IFR 5 days a week. Ironically, I'll have to be an IE for my job. The other IEs suggested I challenge the course based on my instrument experience but that would mean a DES check ride without the benefit of going through the course to learn the minutia.

So I do this whole ground eval covering a full UH-60 IFR flight from KSAF to KDMN. Questions all along the way on departure procedures, climb gradients, ATC procedures, Low enroute charts, sectional charts, (symbology, etc), approach procedures, etc etc. Finally, which runway will you land on at DMN? And why? Winds, etc, don't want to land on ramp due to FOD, etc, etc. Then of the two runways, I get downgraded because even though I picked the correct one....I didn't know it was correct because I didn't check the runway wheel weight bearing capacities in the IFR Supp and know positively which one would support the weight of the UH-60 at our operating weight.

 

[MikeD]

Oh, and don't get me started on the Army background SFE who came from D.C. to give checkrides to our unit, and downgraded one of our OH-6 pilots because the OH-6 pilot couldn't remember what altitude the top of Class A airspace was at. Really?!?!? The guy flies day to day at 300 AGL tops, and normally works at 50 AGL doing sigh cutting (tracking). He's never going to reach the goddamn BOTTOM of Class A airspace, much less the freaking TOP! And the guy was being asked too the service volumes of H-Class VORTACs and the like.......the OH-6 only has an ADF!

 

[Blackhawk]

Give an average Army guy......or even any helo or fighter guy, anyone besides a heavy airlift or tanker guy........a DD 1801 (international flightplan) form to fill out, and watch their head explode.

And yes, the DOD flight plan form 175......the 10,000 "tech-cedures" people have in how to fill it out, what to abbreviate, etc.....ALL part and parcel from the FLIP GP, is amazing!



So I do this whole ground eval covering a full UH-60 IFR flight from KSAF to KDMN. Questions all along the way on departure procedures, climb gradients, ATC procedures, Low enroute charts, sectional charts, (symbology, etc), approach procedures, etc etc. Finally, which runway will you land on at DMN? And why? Winds, etc, don't want to land on ramp due to FOD, etc, etc. Then of the two runways, I get downgraded because even though I picked the correct one....I didn't know it was correct because I didn't check the runway wheel weight bearing capacities in the IFR Supp and know positively which one would support the weight of the UH-60 at our operating weight.

My wife had the same thing happen on an instrument ride because she did not look up the weight bearing capacity of the runway at Osan AB. Mind you she was flying a UH-1 and knew that C-5s landed at Osan, but did not check.
Yeah, the stupidity on the flight plans is legendary. Takes more time to get that crap right than the flight.

 

[BravoHotel]

Thank you for the write up. I want to prepare and complete as much as possible while I am out here. When I go back to the world in 4 months, I want to knock out the AFAST, the flight physical, APFT, and submit everything.