The military is a physical and mental marathon, especially in the ops world. It's a great life for the young'ns, but as you get older it wears on you. Especially being a line pilot/crew dog. I'm in my 40's and I couldn't see myself wanting to start that type of lifestyle in my 40's. I'm at the point in my guard career I can manage it a little better than the average active duty O-2/O-3, but I was definitely more resilient to the BS when I was in my 20's. Not to say there wouldn't be some 40 something year olds out there that would want to try it.

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I think this answers the question best. The military is needing the mentors to stay. They don’t necessarily need pilots with no or little previous combat experience.

Thx

Correction, fighter pilots for desk jobs.

We have a few former airline dudes who go through UPT and become military aviators. While most of them have excellent basic airmanship and instrument knowledge, they are no different than a brand new straight out of college type UPT grad when it comes to the more advanced tactical flying.

Also, the problem, as stated, is not a lack or young volunteers to become pilots, it’s getting the experienced ones to stay around and run the enterprise not to mention mentor and teach the young guys.

It's much broader than that, they need to administrators and leaders who have warfighting skills and experience to run the military services. The alternative is non-warfighters in charge, ie tail wagging dog.

I used to say it took 90% of my brain to make 10% of my income (flying C-17’s in the Reserves) my airline job took 10% of my brain to make 90% of my income. Until you’ve flown a military mission stuffed with TOT’s, ARCT’s, low level timing, and of course the inevitable screw ups that cause your initial plan to get ****-canned after takeoff, you’ll never understand military flying. Multiply this by 10 for fighter ops and you’ll quickly realize not all pilots are cut out to fly in the military. My IP at UPT summed it up best, he told me one time,

I’m not here to teach you to fly, I’m here to wash your sorry ass out! If you can get through me you’ll earn your wings”.

It’s all about pressure and how well you react to it..flying the jet is a very small part of the equation.

That's a painfully ironic example to use. We in-lieu-of-FEB'd a guy who couldn't fly his way out of a UPT trainer if his life depended on it. And that guy was a prior tanker guy mind you. That guy is an Allegiant CA.

The answer to your question is yes, they need the full monte and many are not cut out for military flying in the best of circumstances.

As has been highlighted, the military is short of experienced aviators willing to ride a desk. There's no shortage of line flying fodder, which is what 99% of mil pilots want to do. Of course the AF is not that worried, the NDAA for FY19 locked in the bonus at 35K again, which doesn't even account for inflation. So it's not that big of a problem apparently. No stop loss either, so what gives?