All this talk of pilot shortage...
 

I keep hearing that the military is short on pilots. If that is true why wouldn’t they consider creating a program for older and experienced airline pilots? Surely you can teach a 40 year old airline guy to fly a tanker or transport. Coupled with some sort of officers program tailored to people who won’t/can’t go full time do you think it’s viable?

No.

40 y/o going through UPT. Yikes

The military is not short of entry level pilots, plenty of applicants.

The military system builds experience FAST... a pilot who completes his initial ten-year obligation is vastly more experienced and capable than a noob. A 20-year vet even more so. The issue isn't replacing the ones who leave faster, it's retaining MORE of the experienced pilots for flying and non-flying leadership jobs, as well as non-flying staff jobs.

They don't need 40 year-old O1's. A a 40 year old will most likely be too old and worn out for senior leadership roles at age 60, especially involving tactical flying. There are so people who can do military tactical ops over age 50, but the majority can't.

As Sputnik said, older people don't learn as fast and military training tends to push you to your max.

That was my point, to come up with a system that draws on the experience pool in the airlines. Do you really need to send an Allegiant capt. through upt or could you simply do a 6mo transition course and put him in the reserves?

You probably are not a prior service pilot. Even the simplest mission is more complicated than an Allegiant PIE-BUF flight. C-130s do a great deal of formation, low level, airdrop, NVG work. Hurricane Hunters, anyone. C-17s refuel relatively frequently and do NVG missions into hostile fire areas. Leading a cell of tankers to a flight of fighters in mid-ocean. It’s rarely like airlines.

GF

We already have that for the type of flying for which airline experience is directly relevant, it's called CRAF. Except you don't join the reserves, you just do it while working for your airline employer. The military typically contracts out most "airline style" flying missions.

Tactical flying, as GF described, is quite a bit more involved. Point A-to-B airline flying is probably only about 5% of what a fighter pilot needs to concern himself with (especially since all fighter pilots today are actually multi-mission fighter/attack pilots). Mobility pilots have a closer correlation to airline flying but it's still a big delta.

Where is the greatest need currently? What type of flying?

Fighters.
.......

And considering the considerable learning curve, it will be ever thus. Add in the fact that mobility pilots can’t be sent over to become tacair pilots, your idea won’t solve the problem by freeing up mobility crew dogs.

I’ve done everything from bank checks at night, tactical air, mobility air, airline, corporate. Airline was the simplest and most organized for success. As it should be, but the experience doesn’t transfer to more, shall we say, demanding or disorganized ops. There’s also the whole “Officer” thing going on, which isn’t remotely like being a captain.

GF

There isn't one.
It is a team getting the job done.