USAF in danger due to pilot shortage
07-02-2023, 02:45 PM
#41
Occasional box hauler
Joined APC: Jan 2018
Posts: 1,684
Originally Posted by TransWorld
Never said he was an Air Force officer. Remember Marines fly planes, as well.
Do you think he was a political brown noser?
Do you think he was a political brown noser?
07-02-2023, 05:33 PM
#42
Gets Everyday Off
Joined APC: Aug 2016
Position: Relaxed
Posts: 6,947
Originally Posted by Excargodog
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.
02-18-2024, 12:12 PM
#43
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Sep 2011
Position: in a Big Box that moves back,forth, up, down and makes cool sounds
Posts: 352
Originally Posted by busdriver12
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.
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.
02-18-2024, 12:28 PM
#44
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2008
Posts: 19,273
Originally Posted by busdriver12
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.
02-18-2024, 12:57 PM
#45
Speed Verified
Joined APC: Sep 2017
Posts: 1,027
Originally Posted by sailingfun
The military now operates with a A team, B team system. Years ago there was no B team as they were removed from the program. Now you have squadrons operating with pilots who can't perform all the required missions.
02-18-2024, 06:48 PM
#46
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Joined APC: Dec 2007
Position: Window seat
Posts: 5,213
FY1981 - 1987 washout rate - 27%, USAFA - 25%. Remove FY87 (37% washout rate!?) the rate drops to 25% overall and 20% for USAFA SUPT candidates.
FY90-96 - washout rate overall 17%, USAFA 15%.
Now more like 5%(??).
https://www.aetc.af.mil/Portals/88/D...-12-160013-593
FY90-96 - washout rate overall 17%, USAFA 15%.
Now more like 5%(??).
https://www.aetc.af.mil/Portals/88/D...-12-160013-593
02-18-2024, 09:37 PM
#47
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Joined APC: Oct 2006
Position: Center seat, doing loops to music
Posts: 825
In fairness, accessions and the size of AETC (nee ATC) were both much larger pre 1991. The low washout rates came with the introduction of the T-1, which has saved a lot of lives and careers (most AF pilots didn't and don't need to train in the T-38 to do their crew MWS airplane jobs, anymore than naval aviators, a helo plurality cohort, would need strike pipeline to do their jobs).
The persitence of the "unflickabble booger" problem is not an accessions problem (UPT washout rates are thus immaterial), but a retention problem. 1)Money and 2)lack of control being the fundamental impasse between HAF and the largely uniquely Field Grade Officer subdemographic in question. #2 in particular from where I sit in that .mil continuum.
The USAF has been clear they don't consider any of it a retention a problem, so nothing will change. Labeling it a "production problem" has always been gaslighting on the part of the Service in order to dismiss their field grade officer cadre's complaints. Thing is, the airlines will hicupp again, as they always do, as a cyclical industry. As such, the usaf will win again at playing run the clock offense. I'm not advocating for any of it, I'm just describing the water. Don't shoot the messenger, but we've seen this movie before. Sure, I think it's a cold play, but it works for the service, yes at the cost of a number of excess deaths. To wit, it's a number the service is content with, but one they're not going to be public about it.
Take care of yourself and your crew (if you have one), and make the highly individual and cold calculus of whether the risk of operating uncle sammy's decaying legacy fleet (under the Feres doctrine no less) is worth bodily injury/death over the opportunity cost of a statistically safer and greater airline income, the day after your initial UFT ADSC expires. No right and wrong answer, I've known many brothers in arms who have said "no más" to what they deem gratuitous bodily and income risk by staying in a military (especially ejection seat) cockpit over just going to the airline gig full time. But kvetching about uncle sammy's deal won't move the needle on a policy basis, so it's a crap or get off the pot affair in the end.
The persitence of the "unflickabble booger" problem is not an accessions problem (UPT washout rates are thus immaterial), but a retention problem. 1)Money and 2)lack of control being the fundamental impasse between HAF and the largely uniquely Field Grade Officer subdemographic in question. #2 in particular from where I sit in that .mil continuum.
The USAF has been clear they don't consider any of it a retention a problem, so nothing will change. Labeling it a "production problem" has always been gaslighting on the part of the Service in order to dismiss their field grade officer cadre's complaints. Thing is, the airlines will hicupp again, as they always do, as a cyclical industry. As such, the usaf will win again at playing run the clock offense. I'm not advocating for any of it, I'm just describing the water. Don't shoot the messenger, but we've seen this movie before. Sure, I think it's a cold play, but it works for the service, yes at the cost of a number of excess deaths. To wit, it's a number the service is content with, but one they're not going to be public about it.
Take care of yourself and your crew (if you have one), and make the highly individual and cold calculus of whether the risk of operating uncle sammy's decaying legacy fleet (under the Feres doctrine no less) is worth bodily injury/death over the opportunity cost of a statistically safer and greater airline income, the day after your initial UFT ADSC expires. No right and wrong answer, I've known many brothers in arms who have said "no más" to what they deem gratuitous bodily and income risk by staying in a military (especially ejection seat) cockpit over just going to the airline gig full time. But kvetching about uncle sammy's deal won't move the needle on a policy basis, so it's a crap or get off the pot affair in the end.
02-19-2024, 11:22 AM
#49
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2017
Position: Retired NJA & AA
Posts: 1,920
Originally Posted by Polyester
The Retired Return to Active Duty offer seems to be wholely unenticing.
https://www.afpc.af.mil/News/Article...-personnel-sh/
02-19-2024, 02:50 PM
#50
Line Holder
Joined APC: Jul 2021
Position: I fly airplanes
Posts: 71
Originally Posted by AirBear
Boy that's an understatement. I looked it up and it sounds like retired pilots will mostly be filling rated staff positions:
https://www.afpc.af.mil/News/Article...-personnel-sh/
https://www.afpc.af.mil/News/Article...-personnel-sh/
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