Joking aside, CTT1 nailed it. As an AW, you're looking at about 2 years of training before you even put on auto-E-4... then possibly another 6-8 months before you can take your first look at the E-5 exam depending on testing dates and when you graduate VP-30. This time last year, AWO2 was only 15%, and AWO1 was 0%... as in nobody who took the 1st Class exam advanced. Last fall it went up to 40.5% for 2nd, and 11.7% for 1st. Only AW in my command to make 1st was a former VQ guy who had 6 Air Medals for getting constantly shot at over Libya and Syria.
To put it in another perspective, there was an A-PACT in my bootcamp division who made 2nd class as an AT before I made 3rd class through auto-advancement. That being said, my flight pay and per diem still gave me more take-home pay than her, lol.
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