Originally Posted by
rickair7777
We could do something like that in a war, IF we had more planes than pilots.
Our current pilot shortage is mid/senior officers for leadership/staff billets... too many of those were leaving earlier than usual for airlines, but that problem looks solved for a few years at least. Those guys cannot be replaced by civilian pilots, they need years of military organizational experience, not just stick and rudder skills.
Never in recent decades has there been a shortage of military pilot new-hires (shortages were for grunts), and a bad economy will give the military their pick of the litter now.
true... they’d need to put these individuals in flying units and move many of the career rated officers into the staff billets that are woefully understaffed for rated officers. When I worked in the Pentagon 6-9 years ago I was one of a handful of Fighter Pilots on the A3/5 staff... all the rated staff billets were filled by GS civilians who flew F4s, F111s, and F-15A models in the early 80s! It would be refreshing to have more recently qualified rated pilots filling these staff billets at MAJCOMs and Air Staff.