Excargodog

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2021/06/22/air-force-grapples-with-enduring-pilot-shortage-as-airlines-begin-to-rehire/

Beech Dude

No one ever batted an eye. Everyone either extended, that they offered, or had their eyes getting out regardless...and those extensions were less than 90 days, haha.

HeyHairWoYaGoin

As a civilian ATP interested in the air force reserves… why is the air force so unpopular? This is a common theme I keep hearing over and over again - pilots leaving the military for the airlines. There are so many articles about this.

But why? Why is there a shortage?

Beech Dude

If you want to serve, don't let any of it sway you; especially if you're going to be a Reservist. The bulk of articles you read or voices you hear, present company included, were guys/gals that were on active duty. Serving purely as a Reservist is a completely different experience than being an active duty bubba. If you want to do it, do it. PM if you need help or have questions. I was 13 yrs active and am now a Reservist. Good luck.

flyinthrew

I’ll echo…If you have an eye on getting a reserve pilot spot, do it. Most of our bitterness comes from years of poor work/life balance, office politics, and pay that is not competitive with civilian jobs. Frankly, pay is not a very big worry, but it’s what many focus on. It’s the soul crushing work tempo, and the bureaucracy. 121 seems like a great place to escape much of it.

Also, literally (yes, literally in the literal sense) every one of my friends who left active duty without an active duty retirement got picked up by the Guard or Reserve. They love it.

I retired, but I think going to a Guard unit to fly almost anything would be a hoot.

Excargodog

Why is there a shortage? Well, a number of personnel and policy reasons, most of which don’t apply to the Reserve. The active duty retains this farce that everyone should be in competition to be a future Chief of Staff, while the mathematical reality is that - since the person is generally in that job for three years, only one person is going to make it out of three years (or approx 20,000) newbie accessions. Nor do the vast majority of those people even desire that job, but for a variety of reasons the system compels them to act like they do. Maybe you’d have to experience it to really understand.

The other issues that are more general are that the USAF lacks the capacity to train more pilots - at least in traditional ways. Many of the old primary training bases that once existed have been shut down, their training airspace given up, and the base itself handed over for civilian uses. And generally these were the more desirable bases - like Williams in Tempe - that would minimally impact the local economy because…well, there WAS a local economy, while retaining bases that were sort of on the @$$ end of nowhere (think Laughlin, AFB in Del Rio Tx) but would devastate the region if they were closed down because there was nothing else there.

It was entirely possible for people to do a year in UPT at someplace like Wichita Falls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wichita_Falls,_Texas , and then a 3 year tour in another desert UPT base like Laughlin as a FAIP (the military equivalent of CFI) before you even saw an operational squadron (which then sent you off to a different desert for unaccompanied tours at nontrivial cost to your family QOL if you actually had one). All the while trying to get you to prepare yourself to be Chief of Staff by prolonged TDYs to places like Squadron Officer School and Air Command and Staff.

Like I said, maybe you’d have to experience it. But like the others have posted, the Reserve is better.

rickair7777

The (active duty) military is a COMPLETELY different lifestyle than airlines. Almost night and day.

1. Officers exist to be officers, flying is secondary in the grand scheme. There will be non-flying tours and after 15-20 years the vast majority are done flying... that last causes people to have a tendency to bail while they're still flight current.

2. Up or out. Nobody can stay in the military forever, only a 3-4 star officer could reasonably retire for good upon retiring from the military. If you don't get promoted, you're out so there's a fair bit of competitive pressure along the way.

3. Deployments are hard on the family.

4. The military lifestyle model is based on a 1950's stay-at-home spouse... it's lethal for a spouse's career in most cases, and most spouses today expect to do something other than housewife.

Guard/Reserves of course is vastly different. You can be closer to "just a pilot" with less non-flying duties and assignments.



There's no entry-level shortage, unless the training pipeline can't keep up. The problem is retention of mid/senior grade officers... unlike an airline new-hire right off IOE, a newly-winged O2 cannot substitute for an O3/O4 flight lead, an O5 squadron CO, or an O6 wing commander. Also need a lot of experienced people for staff jobs to ensure that high-level planning and execution is properly informed and influenced by the voice of operational experience (as opposed to say war-planning by career civil servants )

With the airlines hiring gang-busters, there's no way the mil can retain people... even big short-term retention bonuses pale in comparison to long-term airline pay. And QOL is of course a huge factor... you just have to be really motivated with the family on board to gut it out for 30+.

HeyHairWoYaGoin

Just wanted to say how much I appreciate the response from everyone (I'm the OP).
I read through every response very carefully, I REALLY appreciate the detail in the responses, appreciate everyone taking time out, and just wanted to let you know I don't take that lightly!

I'm still evaluating all my options, and I'm definitely looking into guard/reserve especially if things start to 'open up' with all the airline hiring. Thank you so much.

HeyHair

jaxsurf

I’d wager that not a single one of those people regrets joining the Air Force in the first place, even if they were ready to get out at the end.

If you have the chance/opportunity to fly fighters, it’s a no-brainer: do it. Flying fighters is an incomparable experience that only a fraction of the earth’s population will ever have, so don’t pass it up if given the slightest chance.

Some civilian pilots hate that airlines like hiring fighter guys, but they simply don’t know what they don’t know.

Flying transports, helos, whatever else, will also see you doing tons of cool ****, so if interested in the Reserves, don’t pass those up either. While these may not be as dynamic as flying a fighter, the flying is still like nothing in the 121 world, and the experience (ready room camaraderie, etc) will be a great one.

Mil flying of any type is likely more challenging, exciting, interesting, scary, difficult, than 99% of what you’ll probably see in the 121 world, so it’s worth experiencing, even if you’ll be happy to move on from it.

But regardless of what you fly, you are an officer first, with everything that that entails, as everyone previously mentioned.

hindsight2020

...And then there's those of us Andy Dufresne types who never spent a day in Active Duty, while carving ourselves a tunnel to an Active Duty Retirement in the backdrop, for the relative low price of having a willingness to not promote, spend some time in crappy CONUS duty stations, and "be just a pilot". My family ain't starving either.

Sure, there's been opportunity costs to it, and the first 5 years were no picnic and considerably lagged in pay and benefits compared to AD bubbas. But considering airline "flying" didn't and still doesn't motivate me vocationally, it really was a no-brainer for me coming out of dead-end academia and engineering work I had no intention of applying professionally.

But that's also why I try to stay out of these AD-centering conversations. I recognize my career experience is enough of an outlier to be irrelevant to the AD discussion.

I will also plug this forum as a very consequential place, where I met folks who were instrumental in getting me pointed in the right direction hiring wise, and who have become real world acquaintances, co-workers and friends. This in spite of much of the otherwise high noise-to-signal ratio that permeates the airline kvetching on here otherwise.

Cheers!