Originally Posted by paulcg77

The Army literally treats their pilots like they are ground pounders who also happen to know how to fly. 20 years ago, army aviators could at least wear flight suits. Now even the FW army pilots wear ACU's or whatever they're called now, which is ridiculous. I can't imagine wearing NWU's in the cockpit - they're already hot and uncomfortable, definitely not designed for that on a humid summer day. I still can't believe the army took away your flight suits - it's like it bothered them too much that you weren't as miserable in some facet of your lives as the rest of them.

The Army has one advantage over the other branches that will always ensure a ready supply of pilots - it doesn't require a college degree and will literally train pilots straight out of high school. Never underestimate the recruiting potential of giving an 18 year old the prospect of flying an Apache; it's an endless, bottomless pit of willing recruits who don't care about QOL, family concerns, pay/incentives or how often they have to PCS.

Originally Posted by new guy

The year was 2007. I remember it well. It didn't effect me as much because I was in year two of flight school, but all the instructors lost their minds.

And that statement is exactly right. Sergeant Majors hated flight suits and finally convinced the brass to get rid of it. You're just like everyone else in the Army Soldier, with the exception of the cost of your training literally quadrupling any other field that WE actually train.

Sorry to have hijacked the thread. I genuinely feel worse for the AF guys because when you come into the Army, they let you know you're a garbage person day one. The AF always had the globo-gym feel for QOL. "Here at Air Force, we're better than you, and we know it." Now it looks like even that's going away for the pilots.

Originally Posted by Av8tr1

To be fair the flight suits sucked too. Never warm enough in the winter and too hot in the summer. But I’d rather have that then what is issued now.

Originally Posted by new guy

That's it?! 35k a year for you guys with your ratings/ certs? Versus your pay scale outside? They are impressively out of touch. Did that program I read annoy in 2017/2018 every go through? It was to offer two paths; one being the traditional move up, hold command positions, staff, blah both blah traditional route and the other was geared to letting the flyers be flyers over the course of their career. It seemed like a real way to address the issue seen in your industry is moving up means moving away from hit flight line.

Originally Posted by paulcg77

To be faaaaaair, everything is relative I guess. I love my flight suit, wish I could wear it in the 121 world. Show me something better. The Navy has some pretty decent accoutrements for cold weather flying, so I've got no complaints.

Originally Posted by Beech Dude

And that's the high end. Some AFSCs were offered as low as 10K/yr. The offer was/is a total joke. Any worthwhile idea guys have sent up of course is shot down. The stars in DC want to divest the force badly; not just because we need to since all of our jets are falling apart, but also it will artificially solve the pilot shortage. Don't need that many pilots when you barely have any airworthy jets.

Originally Posted by rickair7777

Guess they shouldn't have gooned up Space so badly that it got taken away from them.

Originally Posted by Av8tr1

right???? Air Force has “airmen”. Navy has “seamen” so what does space force go with? “Guardian” some quality leadership there. or big fans of some quality Saturday sci-fi cartoons. JFC……

Originally Posted by TipTanks

I guess this is unpatriotic of me....but I just really struggle to take the "Space Force" seriously....I know what they do, and I have friends that were in AFSPC and I'm not saying it's not important.....but "Space Force"?

I just can't wrap my head around this being anything but a Steve Carrell show on Netflix....