Air Force seeks pilots to return to active duty




By Erik Holmes - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Oct 27, 2008 7:11:35 EDT

The Air Force is trying to find out how many Reserve aviators would be willing to return to active duty and become pilots in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance jobs — just two years after some were paid to leave active duty early.
Lt. Gen. Richard Newton, deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel and services, sent a letter Oct. 3 to more than 900 members of the Ready Reserve to gauge volunteer interest.
Some volunteers would likely return to active duty for a limited time, according to the letter, while others could be allowed to serve as unmanned aerial vehicle pilots, manned ISR pilots and rated staff officers in the ISR community until retirement.
According to Air Force spokesman Capt. Mike Andrews, there is no set goal for how many reservists the Air Force wants to come back. “We have a significant shortage in rated officers in the near term, and hope the recall programs will help fill many of those requirements,” he said.
The recall letters were sent to 531 Individual Ready Reservists, 353 Participating Individual Ready Reservists and 31 chief pilots at various airlines. Volunteers are not being offered a financial incentive to return, Andrews said.
The Air Force shed 132 ISR pilots — 16 percent of its inventory — in fiscal 2007, when the bulk of the drawdown occurred. Some of these received voluntary separation pay to leave active duty early, though statistics were unavailable by press time.
Officers who received VSP to leave early are eligible to return to active duty under the recall program, but they would likely have to pay back their VSP, Andrews said. Those details are still being worked out, he said.
The voluntary recall comes at a time when the Air Force is scrambling to get more UAVs and other ISR capability into the war zones.
The service announced in September that at least 300 pilots will head straight from undergraduate pilot training to flying UAVs at Creech Air Force Base, Nev., during the next three years. And a program beginning in January will for the first time train nonrated officers to fly UAVs.
But it will take time to get these pilots through the pipeline, and the Air Force’s need is immediate.
Brig. Gen. Lyn D. Sherlock, director of air operations for operations, plans and requirements, and Brig. Gen. Darrell D. Jones, director of force management for manpower and personnel, told Air Force Times in September that bringing back retired and separated officers could provide a temporary solution while the service ramps up its new career training pipeline." Staff writer Michael Hoffman contributed to this story




- Unfortunately it'll be extremely difficult for the Air Force to get separated/retired/VSP'ers back to active duty without a nice carrot to dangle in front of them. They'll have to change it to say," First, Due to the shortfall of pilots, we've ammended the VSP obligation and will allow the pilots to comeback without having to repay the money. Second, we'll allow everyone who comes back to active duty a chance to sign a 5 year pilot bonus or you can choose the aircraft you'd like to return to" Now, that might spark some interest...especially those furloughed from an airline.
War E