AFPC story reminds me of when my wife (who has never had any interest in financial markets) called me at work to see if I was worried about the DOW being near 7,000...I knew it was time to start buying.
In my career the AF has always been fairly shorted sighted especially with pilot manning. Chief of Staff spoke to our graduating class and said that all qualified would go to pilot training--not a month or two later they limited it to 250 slots. Of course that was the same Chief who said in the same speech that he just couldn't see women as combat fighter pilots and that of course all changed within the following 2 years.
Next few years should be interesting to watch if economy continues to improve/doesn't go south and pilot industry picks up. We've had some of the greatest rentention rates the past few years at all ranks. Somebody will get promoted because they will have to fix these "unexpected" problems.
6-9 years is a fairly small aperature for complex macro level events.