So, how much extra are we going to pay the pilotless airplane airplane pilots again?

The Navy doesn't really have a culture problem (other than the usual DoD mandated political distractions), so they don't have a pilot shortage YET. That might change, but it looks like they're trying to lead the problem.

The hell you say... they’re gapping DH billets in the VFA community because they physically don’t have anyone to put in them. I’m sure PERS-43 will have some elegant spin to put on it at Hook this year.

Will they take old fat retired guys back who stretch the limits of the velcro on the sides of the flight suits??? :D

That's more of a pipeline management thing. DH candidates are at the sweet spot to get out, with the airlines hiring, and they FOSed all those guys a few years ago. And it would probably show up first at VFA, hard lifestyle, good airline candidates.

I don't think the other communities are in trouble, but that's not my lane right now so I could be wrong.

Yes they will have more attrition in this climate, but I don't think it's like the AF with guys desperate to get out and just need a job to enable it.

Didn't the Navy just finish crapping over a lot of 0-3s in the promotion cycle, guys who had done multiple combat cruises and filled in all the squares?

Yes but it's complicated. That was not directly a community management issue, since Navy promotion boards are staffed by officers from all warfare backgrounds. For whatever reason (might even have been personality driven) that board selected more officers from other specialties.

The community management aspect comes in where the aviation community has to prepare it's people to compete at a promotion board against other designators, so that largely depends on the bar the rest of the navy is setting with schools, degrees, joint quals, etc.

If the Navy got in big trouble with pilot staffing they could direct the boards to screen more aviators, but the boards don't to that proactively... they use the screening criteria specifically handed down by big Navy (mandatory by law).

If this sort of thing happened consistently over multiple years, then somebody should have done something about it.

Worth noting... the Navy is notoriously not appreciative towards "quitters", so they are not worried about taking care of outward bound personnel or those who have not selected for promotion. But that doesn't really impact the folks in the front half of the pack, culture-wise.

2010/11/12 got rid of a bunch, then the pendulum swung back and then back to crapping out a bunch of guys again.

Those of us who got cut in 10/11 didn't have the current hiring wave at full strength yet, so it was an interesting couple years trying to put food on the table.

I had 3 years left on my contract and was shown the door with six months notice, as were many others.

Of course, I was gone and underway for 4 of those 6 months, so job hunting/career transition prep was "interesting".

Your turn Army.