Subs are volunteer only. Once you volunteer you're chained to the oar to be sure, but by policy they cannot invol anyone to subs initially.

 

I would not believe anything Big Blue says to these UPT grads about manned aircraft follow ons. Part of our current manning problem was created by the void of the last round of UPT direct RPA pilots leaving for their promised manned follow on aircraft. Big blue cannot afford to make the same mistake twice.

We are in emergency mode, nothing they are doing to try to entice RPA pilots to stay is working. They are all bailing at the first opportunity.

If I was one of these guys, I'd SIE before graduation and go fly on the outside. If the Air Force can't fix their problem in 10 years, I wouldn't let them do it on my back.


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I know what the Sub deal is, I just made a poor analogy out of it. At any rate, to force these RPA's on someone who is not keen to fly them seems inappropriate and a waste of my money. If they are really that understaffed, really have these issues, I just find it amazing, truly amazing! Heck, If they put me in a position to do so, I could have them fully staffed in relatively short order. This is a completely ridiculous and unnecessary state of affairs.

 

That's the difference between having managers running our service and true leadership. A true leader would have solved this problem years ago, and I doubt the solution would have involved jading multiple generations of Air Force aviators by sentencing them to rot in GCSs.


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After further thought I'm rescinding my offer. Something this messed up must be intentional.

 

I saw a student try to SIE after assignment night after getting a UAV. Not a pretty picture as you can imagine and a bunch of lawyers got involved. However, the kid wanted to fly and in his mind doing something else for 4 years in the AF so he could punch out and ho the civilian pilot route was more appealing than being stuck in UAVs for 10 years. I can see the arguement from both sides though, he did sign up to serve first, fly second. Total kick in the balls at assignment night to see a UAV pop up on the screen. Someone had a good suggestion, let the old retired pilots fly the UAVs as contractors, keep the youngins in the jets to grow.

 

Exactly Pitts Driver. The ranks could also be filled/augmented from other sources as well. If the AF actually follows through with this crazy plan they are going to end up in a huge world of hurt. They are playing with our national defense, lives and careers, not with some second string airline.

 

Agree that they could manage the RPA community better...

a) Create a separate and standalone community with it's own accessions and training program so you know what you're in for when you sign up.

b) Integrate RPAs with the manned career tracks so that everybody does an RPA tour at some point AFTER first operational assignment (like navy boat tours). Anyone signing up to fly would know that was part of the deal.

The advantage of a) is that everybody would want to be there and could focus on RPA. Disadvantage is creation of (really perpetuation of) a new and separate REMF culture which would clash with manned aviation/traditional military. People who would volunteer for a career of RPA are going to be fundamentally different animals...

Advantage of b) is it keeps things a bit more culturally homogenous. Disadvantage is higher average training and retention costs, beyond what should in theory be needed to maintain an RPA-only force (which could be trained on the cheap and need not be incentivized not to stay when airlines hire).

 

My thought for the last 10 years or so is that the AF should adapt the Marines' "every man a rifleman" mantra and make "every Airman an Airman." Just like every Marine pilot has to go to TBS before they get a crack at flight school, the AF could make every officer and airman train to operate RPAs before they go on to whatever their main AFSC is.

Make every officer qualify as an RPA pilot as part of the accessions pipeline and make every enlistee qualify as an RPA systems operator/intel analyst.

The training pipeline would be much larger, but there would be an infinite supply of folks who feed the machine.

It would also make everyone have skin-in-the-game buy-in to the service mission, and we could help eliminate some of the idiotic ops-vs-support foodfights that are largely based on ignorance of what the other guy does for a living.

 

The AF could open the job up to enlisted. Seems ideal for a Staff Sargent rank as a one-time, and one-time only, three-year assignment for those who want it. Any higher rank would be overqualified. (no disrespect for those currently roped into the job)