Hello to anyone who is reading this thread. I recently returned from OASC. A couple of the guys on here thought it might be nice to detail my accounts for any one who is due to attend. I went for Regiment officer so aptitude testing was not part of my application.
I arrived on a Tuesday and to be honest it was quite a straight forward procedure. Be there before four, sign in at guardroom, go to candidates mess and then await a meal and a chin wag with other candidates prior to head down and early start.
Awake 06:00 for breakfast at 06:30 and then over to the training reception rooms at Cranwell where you will be given your clothes, syndicate and a number. You are told to get conversing as these are your friends for the rest of the day and share ideas prior to the tasks which were about to commence.
My syndicate was named Foxtrot syndicate and there were four syndicates comprising of five people each. Once everyone was ready we were led upstairs and told to wait in a candidates rest room and each syndicate had their own designated task room which when called upon you had to go and wait outside in numerical order. Number one will knock on the door and the boarding officers will shout "COME IN FOXTROT SYNDICATE" and obviously you enter...
The days tasks are;
Group planning exercise. This for me was the hardest of all the days tasks. It was the time scale which I totally did not plan for. Maths wise nothing too out of the ordinary and this thread I found on studentsroom is more than ample for that aspect;- http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=501724. Absolute monster of a thread.
But what I had not planned for is a system for addressing the task. The task was, a neighbouring country had been involved with an earthquake. I was the officer in charge of logistics and I had to make a plan using two/three aircraft and get aid to the relief zone. We had twenty mins to read the text and some thing crazy like three mins to make the plan for which I had not wrote more than three lines when the time ran out and at which point my confidence headed south for the winter. After this time the group discuss all the plans as a group and luckily two of the five candidates had managed a plan between them. For me I was honest as my thinking was better a fool and say my plan was poor and get a working plan from the syndicate than to sit there quiet and not say any thing. This enabled me to take bits from their plan and lucky I did as after a time spell of around another three minutes the officers pick random numbers from the syndicate and ask you explain the joint plan. Then you are asked are you happy any more questions etc etc and back to the communal waiting room. My advice would be - WHO ARE YOU - WHAT IS NEEDED - WHAT EQUIPMENT DO YOU HAVE - WHAT SPECIAL HURDLES ARE THERE E.G plane b is too big to land at runway x etc etc. After which a few of the guys said they manually re draw the map and put where all the components of the task were on it to better visualise which, I copied in the individual planning exercise and it definitely helped me.
Leaderless hangar exercise. Everything is done at pace so straight from the group tasks and in to the freezing hangar ready for your presentation were you are given the rules of the hangar "STEPPING ON....STEPPING OFF". You are then taken to an obstacle and the officers give you a brief.... "All equipment and personnel must go from A to B, no touching the floor" and boom off you go. For this I cant really give advise other than get stuck in and at all times no matter how crazy your idea "MAKE IT HEARD" I caps locked that as it was a statement said to us over and over.
Just for the record let it be noted who ever invented the hangar tasks are on another level. At times you are lifting a box with a piece of string over a seven feet platform looking around thinking please don't touch the red, please don't touch the red (red is out of bounds, white in-bounds - touch the red get a penalty.)
Leader exercise. Quick lunch stop prior of sandwiches and then as above but this time you are in charge. You have two minutes to assess the obstacle whilst your syndicate sit in a booth awaiting your "FOXTROT SYNDICATE" command at which point its double over as fast as you can from your booth to the leader. Then you must "THE OBJECT OF THE EXERCISE IS TO GET FROM A TO B - YOU MUST APPLY TO ALL RULES - THERE HAS BEEN A SPECIAL EXCEPTION IN THIS TASK AND YOU CAN TOUCH THE FLOOR AT POINT B" etc etc all the time whilst being assessed by two to three officers taking notes for the duration. Its quite daunting as I have no military background and the pace and professionalism is quite intimidating. Then when your time limit is up and all five had a go it was over and back upstairs for the final task.
Individual planning exercise. I mentioned the group planning above, this is very similar but this time its all down to you and you must then go present your answers to the board by your self. This task has a numerical speed distance time grid on it so the maths is none existent as you literally use the grid and it tells you. This is what I had miss understood as I believed the individual planning would be the hardest task of the day but the group planning has no grid and that is all from your head so if you thought like me be aware. Basically my task was a friend had let you down, you needed a train before X o'clock - sort it. Not too bad to be honest.
END OF DAY ONE.
Many stayed up had a drink i believe the football was on but I retired to my room as next day was fitness tests and interview so I didn't feel like a drink.
DAY TWO.
The cut - basically after breakfast you are all taken over to candidates reception and quite simply told to sit there or sit there. Those on the left (or back of room actually) are kept for interview and those on the right, sorry not this time. It really is as cut throat as that and you have no idea which half is going or staying for around fifteen minutes. We lost a third of applicants and luckily I was kept.
Then the long wait for interview. The pace of the day in comparison to the day before is a lot slower. The interview for me went OK'ish and the advice of the filter interview being exactly the same I found not to be so true. many questions were not asked in filter and they asked them in different ways such as filter = What current operations are the RAF currently involved in? OASC = who are our current enemies? I know this is trivial but this is one example of a question which I remember. I found they are more interested in what you don't know rather than what you do. If you look savvy on a topic they will move on quickly but if you start to fumble they dig dig dig until the famous " I don't know sir" comes out.
Fitness test. You are then taken by bus to a gym. Then its 2.4 km, max push ups 60 seconds and max situps sixty seconds. Then simply......WELL DONE YOU HAVE COMPLETED OASC. Please go home and sit agonisingly for a month waiting for your letter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which I am now two weeks in to.
Thank you for reading and hope this can be of help to some one.
Nick.
I arrived on a Tuesday and to be honest it was quite a straight forward procedure. Be there before four, sign in at guardroom, go to candidates mess and then await a meal and a chin wag with other candidates prior to head down and early start.
Awake 06:00 for breakfast at 06:30 and then over to the training reception rooms at Cranwell where you will be given your clothes, syndicate and a number. You are told to get conversing as these are your friends for the rest of the day and share ideas prior to the tasks which were about to commence.
My syndicate was named Foxtrot syndicate and there were four syndicates comprising of five people each. Once everyone was ready we were led upstairs and told to wait in a candidates rest room and each syndicate had their own designated task room which when called upon you had to go and wait outside in numerical order. Number one will knock on the door and the boarding officers will shout "COME IN FOXTROT SYNDICATE" and obviously you enter...
The days tasks are;
- GROUP DISCUSSION
- GROUP PLANNING EXERCISE
- NO LEADER HANGAR EXERCISE
- LEADER HANGAR EXERCISE (every one in syndicate gets a turn)
- INDIVIDUAL PLANNING EXERCISE.
- Do prisons in the UK work
- Wind farms yes or no
- Should the national lottery be used to help fund the NHS.
Group planning exercise. This for me was the hardest of all the days tasks. It was the time scale which I totally did not plan for. Maths wise nothing too out of the ordinary and this thread I found on studentsroom is more than ample for that aspect;- http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=501724. Absolute monster of a thread.
But what I had not planned for is a system for addressing the task. The task was, a neighbouring country had been involved with an earthquake. I was the officer in charge of logistics and I had to make a plan using two/three aircraft and get aid to the relief zone. We had twenty mins to read the text and some thing crazy like three mins to make the plan for which I had not wrote more than three lines when the time ran out and at which point my confidence headed south for the winter. After this time the group discuss all the plans as a group and luckily two of the five candidates had managed a plan between them. For me I was honest as my thinking was better a fool and say my plan was poor and get a working plan from the syndicate than to sit there quiet and not say any thing. This enabled me to take bits from their plan and lucky I did as after a time spell of around another three minutes the officers pick random numbers from the syndicate and ask you explain the joint plan. Then you are asked are you happy any more questions etc etc and back to the communal waiting room. My advice would be - WHO ARE YOU - WHAT IS NEEDED - WHAT EQUIPMENT DO YOU HAVE - WHAT SPECIAL HURDLES ARE THERE E.G plane b is too big to land at runway x etc etc. After which a few of the guys said they manually re draw the map and put where all the components of the task were on it to better visualise which, I copied in the individual planning exercise and it definitely helped me.
Leaderless hangar exercise. Everything is done at pace so straight from the group tasks and in to the freezing hangar ready for your presentation were you are given the rules of the hangar "STEPPING ON....STEPPING OFF". You are then taken to an obstacle and the officers give you a brief.... "All equipment and personnel must go from A to B, no touching the floor" and boom off you go. For this I cant really give advise other than get stuck in and at all times no matter how crazy your idea "MAKE IT HEARD" I caps locked that as it was a statement said to us over and over.
Just for the record let it be noted who ever invented the hangar tasks are on another level. At times you are lifting a box with a piece of string over a seven feet platform looking around thinking please don't touch the red, please don't touch the red (red is out of bounds, white in-bounds - touch the red get a penalty.)
Leader exercise. Quick lunch stop prior of sandwiches and then as above but this time you are in charge. You have two minutes to assess the obstacle whilst your syndicate sit in a booth awaiting your "FOXTROT SYNDICATE" command at which point its double over as fast as you can from your booth to the leader. Then you must "THE OBJECT OF THE EXERCISE IS TO GET FROM A TO B - YOU MUST APPLY TO ALL RULES - THERE HAS BEEN A SPECIAL EXCEPTION IN THIS TASK AND YOU CAN TOUCH THE FLOOR AT POINT B" etc etc all the time whilst being assessed by two to three officers taking notes for the duration. Its quite daunting as I have no military background and the pace and professionalism is quite intimidating. Then when your time limit is up and all five had a go it was over and back upstairs for the final task.
Individual planning exercise. I mentioned the group planning above, this is very similar but this time its all down to you and you must then go present your answers to the board by your self. This task has a numerical speed distance time grid on it so the maths is none existent as you literally use the grid and it tells you. This is what I had miss understood as I believed the individual planning would be the hardest task of the day but the group planning has no grid and that is all from your head so if you thought like me be aware. Basically my task was a friend had let you down, you needed a train before X o'clock - sort it. Not too bad to be honest.
END OF DAY ONE.
Many stayed up had a drink i believe the football was on but I retired to my room as next day was fitness tests and interview so I didn't feel like a drink.
DAY TWO.
The cut - basically after breakfast you are all taken over to candidates reception and quite simply told to sit there or sit there. Those on the left (or back of room actually) are kept for interview and those on the right, sorry not this time. It really is as cut throat as that and you have no idea which half is going or staying for around fifteen minutes. We lost a third of applicants and luckily I was kept.
Then the long wait for interview. The pace of the day in comparison to the day before is a lot slower. The interview for me went OK'ish and the advice of the filter interview being exactly the same I found not to be so true. many questions were not asked in filter and they asked them in different ways such as filter = What current operations are the RAF currently involved in? OASC = who are our current enemies? I know this is trivial but this is one example of a question which I remember. I found they are more interested in what you don't know rather than what you do. If you look savvy on a topic they will move on quickly but if you start to fumble they dig dig dig until the famous " I don't know sir" comes out.
Fitness test. You are then taken by bus to a gym. Then its 2.4 km, max push ups 60 seconds and max situps sixty seconds. Then simply......WELL DONE YOU HAVE COMPLETED OASC. Please go home and sit agonisingly for a month waiting for your letter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which I am now two weeks in to.
Thank you for reading and hope this can be of help to some one.
Nick.
