Originally Posted by
Vincent Chase
This is what I'm talking about...you seem to think because you haven't been there, you know how to fix the problem. You also seem to think that because I've been there, I'm unqualified to explain. In your view, I'm the one who made the problem in the first place. Not sure you'll ever understand, so I'll stop trying to help.
The Air Force, and all of the services certainly shoulder a lot of the blame for this problem. We’ve already established that the Air Force doesn’t have a shortage of people that want to fly, they have a shortage of people who want to stay in. Most of that is due to the self induced ass pain placed on pilots, and all officers for that matter. There are thousands of pilots sitting in staff positions right now that could be flying airplanes. Most of those staff positions are redundant and useless and really only serve as a block to be checked before the next promotion. They add virtually zero value to the warfighting ability of the service. I could walk into any JOC, Combatant Command or higher headquarters right now and find 8 field grades out of 10 that serve no function whatsoever other than arguing over the color and font of their power point slides.
The deployment cycle, while part of the problem, only plays a small role in the current shortage of pilots.