Originally Posted by
hindsight2020
Ah, this canard again. Plenty of warrants would be happy to dispel that myth for you. Further, your assessment of "organic" enlisted conformism is straight up an unscorable, range KIO --somebody call the county sheriff we got blivets off the fence.
Here's what you're missing, and it's pretty Occam's Razor in nature: The enlisted cadre would have a BIGGER incentive for turnover compared to the higher paid commissioned officer cadre because the pay delta between them and a major airline FO is even more egregious. Same training, higher pay differential == bigger opportunity cost not to throw dueces after the free training. Done.
As to the notion enlisted are nazi youth and gluttons for punishment, Jesus Christ man. The QOL drivers we complain about are just as important to the enlisted cadre as the commissioned folk. I don't know what enlisted you hang out with, but they exercise the same umbrage to the focus on qweep, of which they presently do plenty of as well. Lifer SNCOs stick around because outside of ATC, their income and retirement prospects in the civilian world are horrible compared to officers, and they punk their junior enlisted into believing they don't have what it takes to become a white collar civilian. If they had a mainline FO seat for the price of their military sponsored OJT, no contest. You might as well open up the aviation equivalent of the Merchant Marine Academy, because that's what AF UPT would become in a NY minute with an enlisted pay grade.
BL, the warrant/enlisted solution to pilot retention is DOA when the pay gap is more insane between a DL FO and an E-4 vs an O-4. Thanks for playing though, you should pitch it to AFSO-21, they'd be happy to make another climate survey out of it to waste us rated pilot's time.
The reason military services use officers as pilots is two-fold...
1) So the leadership cadre is centrally involved in core mission accomplishment...otherwise leadership has no credibility with troops and is so disconnected from operational reality as to be a danger to force and mission. For AF, aviation is the mission. For Navy, power-projection is the mission and carrier-based strike is the bulk of that capability. For USMC, aviation is one of three legs of their central MAGTF structure (air, ground, fires).
2) As a carrot to attract and retain people with high potential when they're young, so that at least some percent of them stick around to lead later. It would be a harder sell to young folks if you let the enlisted have all the fun and started them as office workers/middle managers from the get-go...I think you'd find many of the most talented people would enlist, have some fun, and then quickly move on to other things in life. Leaving the officer corps full of mediocre career bureaucrats.
Army is the outlier, for good reason...aviation is an enabler, important but not central to their mission function. They don't need their generals to have helo or king air pilot experience.
Drone pilots have no credibility, don't need any, and are in a support role (at least for now).
Where the Navy has toyed with enlisted aviators in recent times, it has been in support flying, not pointy nose.
The amount of money you save is negligible. Benefits cost the same, you'd still need some winged officers to eventually fill O5/6 leadership billets (like the army). There would be a delta in base pay, but that would be offset by intangible benefits of what fundamentally comes down to having the leadership involved in what's really going (as opposed to revolving around the axles of staff politics, PME, and collateral duties).