Feasibility of Developing a Common U.S. Army Helicopter Pilot Candidate Selection System: Analysis of U.S. Air Force Data

Abstract

Abstract : The U.S. Army's aviator candidate pool, unlike the pools for the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and U.S. Navy (USN), includes military enlisted personnel and civilians, many of whom do not have a 4-year college degree. Existing tests, such as the Air Force Officer Qualifying Test (AFOQT), may be too difficult for a substantial subset of Army aviator candidates, failing to produce a sufficient spread of scores at selection points. The analyses evaluated the difficulty of the AFOQT for a sample of USAF personnel that should be similar in education to the U.S. Army aviator applicant populations. The analyses compared score distributions of the AFOQT subtest and composite scores for different sample sources. The AFOQT was more difficult for the Air Force enlisted personnel than for other commissioning source applicants. However, the subtest and composite score distributions are sufficient to discriminate well between enlisted personnel if the AFOQT or a similar aptitude test is used for selection. On the highly timed subtests of the Pilot Composite, such as the Instrument Comprehension and Table Reading tests, there is almost no difference between the examinee subpopulations.