Airline Pilot Central Forums - USAF in danger due to pilot shortage

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Quote:

Originally Posted by ObadiahDogberry (Post 3627648)

Just a casual observer here, but why hasn't the military (at least publicly) looked at doing with pilots what they are doing with other specialty positions like doctors and lawyers? If I am a licensed civilian doctor, my civilian licensing and education is recognized, I can join the military up to age 48, and go through a 5.5 week OTS. If someone had told me at 40 or 45 that my FAA ATP and 8,000 hours of flight time would be recognized by the Air Force, I would have happily applied. The military does not send experienced and licensed doctors or lawyers back to year one of medical school or law school, but at least the last time I looked at it 20 years ago, they did send experienced and licensed pilots back to day one of flight school. If you are going in active duty as an experienced doctor, you are going to be in the military as a doctor. But If you were going in active duty, as an experienced pilot, you may not even get a pilot slot (again, this is the last I looked at it 20 + years ago, when I was still in my 20s, may be different now), the only way to ensure you get a pilot slot was to get hired by a guard or reserve unit. I get that there is some kind of front line combat flying you might not want a 45 year old jumping in to, I certainly wouldn't expect the Air Force to throw someone like me in to an F-35 or F-22. But being an experienced Boeing pilot, how much of a transition would it be to put me in a C-5, or C-40, or KC-135? I am not expecting a six to eight week airline style training program, I get that it would be a longer training program. But if you accept that someone is arriving as a licensed and experienced pilot, just as you would if they were a licensed and experienced doctor or lawyer, that would certainly reduce training timelines and expense, and may increase the pool of potential pilots, especially among the guard or reserve. For you military guys, is this faulty thinking, or is there any merit to this idea?

There's just no need for what you're suggesting. In essence, all of the flying your comment addresses can be accomplished by contractors and money. Actual "military" aviation bears little resemblance to civilian aviation. That they take place off the ground is about all they have in common. Different communities, different mindsets, different attitudes. It's just not something you can pull off the shelf.

I am curious how much has changed, since I finished AF UPT back in the dark ages. I was just talking to a friend whose daughter will be a senior in high school this year and is interested in aviation. She had the impression from talking to a recruiter, that her daughter just had to sign her life away for ten years after college, and boom, she'll get a free ride scholarship and become an AF pilot.

Well. Way back when, it wasn't so easy. You had to compete nationally for a scholarship and had to maintain a 3.0 GPA to keep it (you could only get a scholarship in a technical field, if you changed your major to a nontechnical field, you lost the scholarship). Men were awarded pilot slots at the local detachment level in their sophomore or junior year, women had to compete nationally for 1% of the total pilot slots. If you made it to UPT, there was a high washout rate. One guy in my class washed out with 2,000 flight hours already, and my spouse said 40% of their class washed out. There was zero guarantee you were going to finish, no matter what kind of experience you had.

So while I realize there's plenty of recruiter BS going on, I'm curious what the real story is. Are they giving out far more pilot slots and is training that much easier to get through? I'd heard that many people are given drone assignments after graduation, which wasn't something we had to consider back in prehistoric times.

My understanding is that they have challenges recruiting officers, so opportunities should be more available.

Don't know about technical degrees, but I'm sure they require a specific GPA while on scholarship.

UPT wash rates are significantly lower, due to both need to be more efficient and also fear of offending anyone. If you wash someone out, you had darn well better have given them every chance they had coming, and annotated all of the i's and t's.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rickair7777 (Post 3657789)

I was just reading that graduation rates from UPT are far higher than they used to be. Don't know that I buy the "fear of offending anyone" reason, but if they're having problems retaining pilots, I can understand why they would be willing to give people additional training if needed, instead of washing them out after having a bad day or two, which always seemed like a waste to me. But graduation rates in the mid nineties percentile seem awfully high, unless they are massively screening people out ahead of time. Seems like if they were letting just anyone make it through, skilled or not, there would be a much larger number of military airplanes crashing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by busdriver12 (Post 3657809)

I was just reading that graduation rates from UPT are far higher than they used to be. But graduation rates in the mid nineties percentile seem awfully high, unless they are massively screening people out ahead of time. Seems like if they were letting just anyone make it through, skilled or not, there would be a much larger number of military airplanes crashing.

My understanding is that the class A mishap rate has gone up, but I’d be lying if I said I’m tracking it closely. My recommendation to kids who show interest in the military today is to establish themselves in a good civilian career and then join the Guard or Reserves to pursue their dreams of military service. The USAF can’t hold onto quality officers today and dropping quality control for incoming officers of any specialty will only accelerate the loss of the best officers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tnkrdrvr (Post 3659268)

Until we can get better quality people promoted to the highest levels - not just political brown nosers playing the game - I wouldn’t recommend ANYONE go into the military. Nor does it surprise me we can’t retain the best people.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/art...em_893993.html

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Originally Posted by Excargodog (Post 3659346)

How did you feel about Gen. Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis?

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Originally Posted by TransWorld (Post 3659432)

How did you feel about Gen. Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis?

He was not an Air Force officer. Not bad for a Marine though.

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Originally Posted by tnkrdrvr (Post 3659516)

He was not an Air Force officer. Not bad for a Marine though.

Never said he was an Air Force officer. Remember Marines fly planes, as well.

Do you think he was a political brown noser?

Quote:

Originally Posted by TransWorld (Post 3659564)

Never said he was an Air Force officer. Remember Marines fly planes, as well.

Do you think he was a political brown noser?

Never been a Marine. So what did you think of Gen. Merrill MPeak? From what I can tell his tenure marked a turning point of USAF senior leaders becoming political brown nosers, but that was slightly before my time.