The problem for the AF as I see it, is that it is overmanned in new folks and quickly losing all its experienced folks. You don't take a 2Lt and make an evaluator over night. This could lead to quicker and potentially unsafe upgrades. Look at AFSOCs crash in Albania, one of the factors cited was a young crew.

When I arrived at the 61st at LR in 2003, the "old heads" were 6000 EPs, when I left for the FTU in 2006, the "experienced" IPs were my former COPILOTs!!

You also have a trend in Tac Airlift where all we do is the desert, and as such very little mission planning is taught or experienced. I saw that trend while teaching at the schoolhouse, the guys coming through for AC school lacked a lot of non desert experience.