USAF tackles pilot shortage:
 

Air Force Strategies Chipping Away at Pilot Shortfall. Ramped-up retention efforts and new training programs are helping, slowly:


https://www.flyingmag.com/air-force-...lot-shortfall/

Big Blue is tone-deaf when it come to retention. The only play they have is offering mediocre money on terms no one wants.

"I want to stay at my base and keep flying. I want to instruct at the schoolhouse. I want a stable life for my family."

"Oh, ok. You want a bonus and want to commit to more ADSC. Well you're not eligible yet."

"No, I just want to stay here and keep flying, I want a stable life for my family."

"Oooooh. Well how 'bout we non'vol you to UPT then. A big, disruptive move will be good for your family."

"Goodbye."

"Well in that case, here's a 6 month non-flying deployment you ungrateful bastard."

This, so much this ∆∆∆

also, I know it’s 1530 on Friday, but I need you to come up with 30 bullets for our squadron award package that the wing execs forgot about for the past two months.


(this one actually happened at my squadron)

I love to see that all the branches hate their pilots equally. The moment you aren't the solution they want regardless of your work ethic, prior history, and contributions, you are immediately considered part of the problem.

On the Army side the helo guys were told this exact quote by the senior warrant officer of the aviation branch; "If the Air Force loses its pilots, it's not the Air Force. If the Army loses its pilots, it's still the Army." That was three years ago and the bleeding hasn't stopped...so they instituted a 10 year obligation POST flight school. It had been six. Hope the Army guys don't share their brilliant ideas to fix the problem with your people.

Big Blue did that years ago as well. Upped it from 8 to 10 yrs, once rated, aka post flight school. I can count on one hand guys I know that I started out with as butter bars who stayed in beyond their commitments. Granted, most went Guard/Reserve, but NOBODY is staying especially not for the 35K/yr bonus to sign away 10 more yrs of their lives.

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.

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.

I had heard from buddies that it tanked but that it was doomed from the beginning. It was offered on a limited scall to a small group of people. When the offer was officially made, some didn't trust that they wouldn't be punished for volunteering. Couple that with the fact that most would rather get out anyway and you have a coffin that is fully nailed shut for that program.

As always, take this with a large grain of salt. My info came a long way down through the grapevine.

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.

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.

Yeah, I couldn't remember the year this happened but I was a LT in the USCG and I remember meeting some Army aviators shortly after that happened when I was at our aviation training center in Mobile who were like "next we won't be allowed to have pilot wings because they're too distinctive for the Army". They acted like their souls were crushed. I truly felt for them. But on the bright side, at least you guys still have wings. Glass half full!

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.

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.

the newer two piece flight suits. https://www.uspatriottactical.com/ma...hoC7hgQAvD_BwE

I’ve got one and love it. I can layer up under it or take a layer off if it’s hot. Easier to put on or take off. So much better then the old adult onesie. Makes pooping soooooo much easier.

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

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……

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....

I worked in Space acquisitions as the Space Force came about. RUMINT I heard on the Guardians name was the higher ups wanted to get away from a name with “men” in it. They know they’ll get backlash if they try and change airmen, but when they had the opportunity to create one from scratch they could create a “gender inclusive” one.

A space focused force is not a bad idea. I’ve sat in on some of the briefs of what our near peer competitors (especially one in particular) are doing or want to do in space. The space dudes are nerds, but important nerds, and getting out of the shadow of the Air Force has helped and will help them focus on their mission. Totally agree on the name being a miss though. Pulling from the RUMINT wheel again, but apparently Space Corps was under heavy consideration, but the Marines threw a fit over the possibility of the word Corps being added to the end of Space.

Are you kidding?!

They've been planning this since the 80's... if the Soviet Union hadn't collapsed I'm sure this would have come to fruition by the mid 90's at least.

The US govt even funded a pretty badass propaganda animation series for kids about it. It's like GI Joe in space with anime:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKZfwih-3dM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starco...S._Space_Force

From what I understand only two C-17 guys took the "fly only" track deal. They were only offering it to the folks who were at the stay in/get out decision point in their careers anyway, and most had already made up their mind or feared it as just another bait-and-switch trap. They should've offered it to senior captains and junior majors. I know a lot of guys who probably would've jumped right on.

In Army digital camo, no doubt. I've seen something similar to this on our end, but I'll pass and stick with my olive green onesie that my father and my father's father wore, thanks :)

back in the late 90’s when the AVN BDU’s came out, their cost was 4 times what a one piece flight suit cost. And they wore out much faster. Stupid!

But Hey! What’s a few bucks? As long as SGM isn’t upset or feeling others have a cooler outfit to wear.

Navy paints their boats first, the Army does Army stuff first. Nature of the beast.

Overheard on a high school quad....

"YOU'RE joining the Corps after graduation??? How many pullups can you do?"

"None. How many DDoS attacks can you execute in 90 seconds?"


You could have made the same argument for a Cyber Force, perhaps with more urgency. Although we kind of already have a national cyber force comprised of NSA and their not-so-loose affiliation with cybercom and it's subordinate elements.

Military Uniform stupidity is ingrained in the culture. Once upon a time NORAD - in a fit of concern over midair’s - painted all their tip tanks day-glo orange. Then yo up the ante, got day-glo orange flight suits. When the squadrons eventually rotated to SEA and got shot down, they found a real dearth of day-glo orange vegetation to hide in.

Later on a USAF Chief of staff was also uniform obsessed. Came up with a number of different uniforms - that no one but he liked.

https://www.airforcemag.com/article/0109uniform/

Fortunately, he only held that position for three years and the institution slow-rolled his idiocy until someone more reasonable replaced him.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archi...-3ab085817d68/

I knew a senior officer who - as a young captain - had been selected to test wear the blue flight suit McPeak had designed. Besides sharing the NORAD flight suit problem of little blue vegetation to assist with the E&E, it pretty much made the wearer look like a giant smurf according to the senior officer.

One of the majors rolled out a very smurf-like uniform a few years ago. The pilot group flat out refused to wear it, and are still in black pants, white shirts today. Their WO regional didn't display quite as much sack as the mainline guys, and they look ridiculous to this day.

Meh. I like the blue.

Honestly it was the cut more than the color... might be OK if you have a good personal tailor.

You're right but I think there' s a distinct difference between how the navy treats aviation versus how the army treats aviation. Naval aviation is given its own priority and isn't competing with the air force - we've got our own C130's, our own 737 transports, etc., and aviators in VP, VR and VQ squadrons (P-8, C-37. C-40, C-130, EP-3, E-6) never touch the blue water navy, never have to do underway cruises, never get to find their sea legs, pretty much don't touch water at all their entire careers in the navy unless they request a non-flying u/w tour which is pretty much just to get the sea service ribbon. Even in the USMC, where every marine is a rifleman and marine pilots still get infantry training in TBS, there is no one size fits all "you better blend in" aviator envy with the rest of their branch the way that the army tries to make their aviators lose their own identities. The way the army treats its aviators is definitely unique among the branches.

The Air Force also seems to have it out a little bit for the army - I remember when ya'll were going to get those baby hercs (C-27's) back in the late 2000's and an army unit even started training on them in a simulator and took delivery of a few airframes, but the AF came in and pretty much took them from you overnight, arguing to politicians that it was their job to have that role, not yours. That was BS. I'm happy you've gotten a few back recently, after the AF had them for a while and then gave most of them to the USCG. I feel like army aviation is always getting the short end of every stick and it isn't right.

PREACH!!!
If I remember correctly, the Army COS gave the -27's away in exchange for another ground Combat Brigade, that I am sure has since been stood down. Meh!, no longer my problem or fight.
As I type, my retirement paperwork is making its way through the 7 layers of the candy-cane forest.
Due to the bureaucratic delays in processing said freedom packet, I have made it clear that I myself already 'identify' as a retired soul.

Congratulations on making it and thank you for your service.

Congrats brother, and TYFYS! I'll be joining you shortly if my next reserve billet isn't at least in my time zone. One of my ex-squadron mates who is retired specifically bids MCO layovers for every Nov 11th so he can get his free bloomin' onion at the airport Outback there - can't wait until that's the highlight of my retiree life! :D

Thanks!
I will miss the People.

Thanks! I will have to add this to my repertoire... My airline life centers on my gastronomical and (and if I get a long enough overnight) local brew tour of the US. Free food is even better!

I can't wait until the pronoun people echelons above reality produce the retirement paperwork and their view of my status matches my view of the world.

First part, fact! The Blackhawk minimums are 8 hours a month. But be a technical and tactical expert and highly skilled aviator - just make sure all of your additional duties come first.

Second part, CSM or MAJ Butthurt/Good Idea Fairy (or whoever the f came up with it) got upset that pilots didn't look like everyone else with their flight suits, so we got the A2CU so we can look like everyone else yet have a functional flight suit. However... during any big formations we couldn't wear our A2CUs because they still look different from normal ACUs. Well what was the whole point of going to the A2CU from the one piece flight suit if we still couldn't wear them? Good Idea Fairy struck again.

I know you're an adult (20s, 30s, 40s with many years of adulting) and an officer, but if you want to go somewhere on your own time you need to put in for a pass. Go see the kid straight out of college to get approval for your pass to have a life outside of the Army.

By the way, did you have someone do a personal vehicle inspection for you? I know they're not a qualified mechanic, but they still need to sign this paper saying your vehicle - which you know and they don't - is safe for you to travel in.

The Army went to a 10 year commitment after flight school??

Checks. I know one of the two. He got the commitment and the program dissolved. It took lots of work on his part to explain to AFPC that he was in fact in a different boat than other people, but he got an extended PCS and a follow on to a cockpit. Hopefully he will be as fortunate later on when they try to give him a staff deployment...

It’s very unforgiving of folks who don’t know how to wear clothes, that’s for sure.

Anyways, I looked at my time in the Army as a service I was doing not a career. I joined to learn to fly and go to war, then move on with my life.

I enjoyed most of my time in the Army but I’m not sure any amount of money would have kept me around.

During COVID, with zero attrition, they were only able to decrease the shortage by 300 pilots? How long have the Majors been hiring? 6 Months? It takes time to leave the military, even without a service commitment. With AA, DAL, and UAL each hiring 200+ a month, I'm betting there are tons of guys who are "still on the books" with the AF even though they're out the door. The AF only produces 1200 pilots a year, or roughly 2 months of legacy hiring numbers. If they really don't see these numbers as a Master Warning, they're dangerously out of touch. They might be on glideslope, but their descent rate is about to be 2000 fpm.

Solid point. Too bad they don't let this be a good thing to reset things. We all know staffs at all levels became incredibly bloated during the GWOT years. Get the 11Xs out of them, back to squadrons and flying again. Or actually follow through on guys/gals requests. I know of zero people who have received a single assignment they requested. Guys who are O3s or O4s who are ready to punch when the staff crap shows up may reconsider if they know they'll PCS to another flying tour. But then again, big blue will say one thing, do another, and why wouldn't anyone rather be at AA/UA/DAL?