My bad, I overestimated how long it took for 2x passover for LTC. But still according to that article it's pretty rare for pilots to be invol separated with less than 6 years to retirement.

So although 20 years isn't 100% guaranteed I think it's safe to say it's 99% for pilots.

All they need is a 2 track career path for pilots, a command track and a professional pilot track. The latter would be capped at Major and guarantee 20 years unless you impregnate the Wing Commander's underage daughter or something similar

I agree. Very few times have any of the services tried to prevent continuation to 18 years. I was cold-war drawdown era, back then they were cutting lots of people loose but they actually gave early retirements starting at 15 years.

They could do this if they managed it carefully, to ensure they have enough mid/senior officers to fill staff and leadership jobs with people who understand operations, flying, and fighting.

It would likely need to be warrants, federal law caps inventory of the various commissioned ranks and they might need those bodies for other things. They could trade fewer O1/2/3 for more warrants.

Since all I cared about was flying, I would have gladly traded in my Captain's Bars for Warrant Officer bars as long as the pay was the same. But at current 2018 rates that'd be a problem since even W4 pays about $700/month less than O-3 (over 6 years of service). So something would have to be adjusted for that to work. And as far as keeping pilots in the service it would probably only help a small amount since there's lots of other issues that affect QOL.

If the USAF copied the Army's program and allowed enlisted to apply for flight training with W/O bars awarded along with wings at graduation that would probably be a better retention solution. An 8 or 9 year commitment for Pilot training (I forget what it is now) along with several years of enlisted time would make the decision to get out somewhat more difficult.

Good point about the caps thou.

Kinda sorta. Around 2012 or so they denied continuation to a ton of dudes after 2nd passover. With absolutely zero warning. Want to say it was around 200 pilots.

It caused a lot of angst and lost faith and was definitely a retention issue for a few years after that. And probably still is an issue for folks finishing up their initial commitment.

From the article that nobody read, apparently.

"In 2011, 157 majors were dismissed from the Air Force after an officer continuation board determined their service was no longer needed."

True, but we can argue that where the line is drawn on ground jobs should be addressed. SEFE, scheduling, training, tactics, safety, DO? Absolutely they should be pilots. Equipment custodian, security manager, green dot (that’s sexual assault prevention) manager, Christmas party planner, exec? You don’t need a pilot for that. Heck most pilots I know don’t mind PILOT related jobs. It’s the other queep that drives dudes out.

In WWII the USAAF had a program to train high school graduates to become pilots and were awarded the rank of sergeants upon graduation . One such kid, flying a recon version of the Spitfire, flew over Berlin from the south of England after a bombing raid to access damage. After flying over Berlin for half an hour he realized that one of his cameras was not working, so he flew an additional 45 minutes over the city retracing his camera routes before returning to England. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Oh, and he had transitioned to the Spitfire from a P-38 when that aircraft's superchargers tended to malfunction at the extreme altitude required for recon flights. So much for needing a college degree to fly an airplane.

Yeah, that's a cultural issue. Other MOS's could make the same case though.

Nobody said you NEED a degree to fly an airplane. In 1942 they needed several hundred thousand pilot, 99% of whom they were going to discharge in three years. Even the service academies accelerated their graduating classes by one year. Things are different today...

1. Today flying is a bit more technically challenging, and the training is longer, more academic, and requires more maturity. Previous success in education is a good predictor for that stuff.

2. Flying slots are competitive, they can afford to be choosy. It would be hard to imagine a formula which would ever prioritize a non-college grad over a grad. The airlines do that very occasionally, but that's going to be a 45 y/o with 15,000 hours and lots of relevant tickets punched. When you're hiring 20-something kids you typically don't have much relevant professional history to consider.

3. Pilot jobs are a useful carrot to attract potential future senior leaders... giving them all away to enlisted/warrants kind of defeats that purpose. The current pilot shortage is just a demographic bubble at the airlines which lined up with a good economy. This too will pass, so there's no real need to break the mold on how AF (and USN) officer corps is structured (I do get there is need for some cultural tweaks to say the least).

The problem is that there are too many positions and too many levels. Many of which only exist as a checkboxe to get to the next level. A lot of fat could be cut and still remain operationally effective. Hell, it’d probably be a net gain.