Originally Posted by BeatNavy

First of all, LTs (as PLs) have 12-24 months to fly and make PC before they have to go to staff, at which point they will fly mins if they are lucky and certainly will not progress from there skill/proficiency wise. So while you may see it as selfish, it's actually their only real shot of making PC prior to commanding while you guys stay in the company most of your career. Then when those guys step into a command a few years later, they have 6 months to make PC by regulation. If they never made it before, then are out of the cockpit for a year or more (usually several years of low flying while on staff/CCC/staff again), they won't have a great opportunity to be worth a damn as a commander (flying wise).

You guys always wanna bash RLOs for being bad pilots, then you wanna bash them when they take the one slim opportunity they have to progress and become assets to the ATP. As a PL, my CO told us (and our SP) we had to put ourselves on as much or more than the WOs. I didn't have a choice. The other PL in my company was the flight schedule guy, but the SP ended up taking it over from him, and he continued with the commander's instruction. And if a "selfish" PL is putting himself on the flight schedule too much, don't you think the company and battalion commander would stop it since they are the approval for it? I hope since you are complaining on APC, you took your same complaints to your company and battalion commanders when the "selfish" LTs flew too much for your liking.

Despite trying to fly us as much or more than the WOs, with all the other stuff we PLs had on our plates, we ended up flying about the same or less than the W1/W2s on the same timeline to the unit. Then downrange it was pretty much all equal. Then I went to staff and barely flew. Fortunately I made PC 9 months after showing up to my unit and got to fly a lot as a PC/AMC over the next year I had left as a PL, and my old company flew me as much as I could get away while on staff since I was an asset to them when they were short PCs/AMCs, but I saw a lot of other LTs get hosed by the warrants who controlled the flight schedule. Sometimes it was their own fault for sucking at flying or not being in the books enough, but most of the times they just never had an opportunity to fly because they weren't a priority. As one SP told me, "we are hired help and will be gone in a year so we don't matter."

Those LTs are your leaders and future commanders/staff officers. If you want them to be good aviators, it benefits you to ensure they fly a lot as a PL. 2-3 PLs being stick pigs while they are fresh out of flight school trying to make PC won't affect any WOs in the long run. But those guys getting very little flight time as PLs will affect their ability to be good aviators as staff guys and commanders later, which will affect everyone in the unit. RLOs who got hosed by warrants flying-wise early on tended to be the WO-hating commanders later. I'm sure you loved having commanders/S3s who were WO haters. Also, don't you want your leaders to lead by example? If they flew very little and focused on admin stuff, are they really going to be good leaders in a flight platoon or flight company?

This whole discussion is one reason why I left the army and went to the Air Force, where this problem doesn't exist. Rant off.