On Thu, 19 Apr 2007 13:26:44 -0700, Bill Baker
wrote:


An engineering degree would have no bearing on selection for flight training.

In peacetime, when there are few flight school slots available and the
services are being really picky, is that strictly true?

Actually it is true. Degree does not seem to matter. Back in the 80's
when I was working on a masters, I was also a contract simulator
instructor at my old training base (Chase) and did an analysis for my
statistics class of degrees vs completions. What I found was that
there was absolutley no correlation between the type of degree and the
succsess (or failure) of the prospective naval aviator.

This was also a time when there was a relative surplus of pilots, so
they could be choosy. What I found was that while there was an
expectedly high percentage of "hard science" degrees, the recruiters
did not seem to care - there appreared to be something more in the
prospects background that got them selected. However, that was not the
focus of my study and I did not have data to go in that direction.

John Alger USN(ret)
1972-1997 // 1310,1320
TA-4J, A-7E, EC-130Q, P-3B