Originally Posted by
rickair7777
There's a reason the AF and Navy do it the way they do.
Aviation is THE mission for the USAF. It is the large preponderance of the conventional power projection capability for the Navy. Both services need aviation to be very well-represented in staff and key leadership positions all the way up the chain of command. So they need aviation experienced officers who can punch at the appropriate weight (rank) relative to other branches and services. Especially in the joint and coalition contexts.
In the Army aviation is an enabler mostly for the Army itself. It only needs representation relative to other Army branches, which it has with a relatively small cadre of commissioned officers. Not that Army aviation doesn't need officer representaton, it just doesn't need as much, or in as many places.
The issue isn't compensation, don't need a particular O vs. E pay scale, bonuses can take care of that. Some enlisted SEALs have gotten retention bonuses at least as generous as pilots.
From a recruiting perspective, bright shiny military jets allows the AF and Navy to attract people who they hope will make good senior staff officers and leaders down the road. The want a large inventory of those to start with to account for attrition (airlines are an aggravating factor).
Fair enough, BUT... At least when I left a decade ago, there were a mind boggling number of staff and deployed staff positions that
had to be filled by rated officers. After spending years of watching the AF advance the careers of guys who planned Christmas parties and change of command ceremonies, deployed into completely superfluous billets, rode the coattails of mediocre (at best) leaders, and generally spent a ludicrous number of man-hours doing work that was exactly zero value added for the Air Force, I knew it was time to go. The airlines hadn't started hiring yet and my career was still on an upward trajectory, but the BS level was more than I wanted to continue to endure. Best decision I ever made. I can't even imagine the calculus AF personnel planners are up against in today's environment. While losing a majority of aviators to the airlines is probably an inevitability for the foreseeable future, Big Blue could go a long way towards keeping the people who actually want to be leaders around by doing a deep, deep dive on cutting out extraneous bull$h!t. That and significantly increasing and rethinking the bonus (think year to year opt in options) should be the minimum that's on the table. Outlook for meaningful changes like these: doubtful at best.