Posted on 11/10/2017 7:34:11 AM PST by SkyPilot
The secretary of Air Force said that, after weathering a 1,500-pilot shortfall last summer, the problem has escalated to being 1,926 pilots short -- or missing 1 in 10 of a force that's supposed to have 20,000 pilots.
Secretary Heather Wilson told Pentagon reporters today that "it's not just pilots, though, and air crew, when it comes to readiness."
"It is spare parts and flying hours and munitions," she noted. "So increasing the readiness of the force so that we win any fight, any time, is our top priority."
The biggest reason for the pilot shortage, in the secretary's view, "is that we are too small for all the missions that we're being asked to carry out on behalf of the nation -- and as a result, we're burning out our people."
"Surge has become the new normal in the United States Air Force, and you can do that for a year, or two years, or maybe even three or four years. But we're asking -- I met someone last week who has just come back from his 17th deployment -- 17 deployments," she continued. "Less than one percent of Americans serve in uniform and protect the rest of us, and they are carrying a very heavy burden. And at some point, families make a decision: that they just can't keep doing this at this pace, and I think that's the biggest thing we're facing, is we're burning out our people, because we're too small for what the nation is asking."
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
Sounds like a salary shortage problem. Double the pay and they’ll have a surplus in short order.
Money isn’t going to keep them..the money chasers go to the airlines.
8 years of Odungo
“why is a college degree necessary?”
Officers in the military run the place and they have degrees so they used it to exclude those without to limit competition. Fact is the Navy and Army have enlisted pilots.
No degree is needed to be a pilot (a decent high school education is all that is really needed), but the military sets the standard and screwed that all to Hell.
The primary reason for the military pilot shortage is that 30% of the civilian pilot pool is retiring right now. They draw heavily on military pilots since the 1,500 minimum flight time rule was imposed recently. Even many military pilots don’t have the 1,500 hours.
“Education always helps. “
education, yes. College, not so much as people think.
What’s a degree worth to flying without math and science? Few degrees have math and science anymore, including the Bachelors of Science degrees. Sad, they took science out of science degrees.
I am a retired Air Force pilot, however, to requal me would take many months. More likely, the recall would be to place pilots into rated staff positions, in order to place active pilots back into cockpit positions. But to recall retired pilots back to active duty would be an incredible step. Short of war, I used to think it would be politically untenable. But no longer.<>
In my opinion, this shortage is, without any doubts, by design thanks to the douche bag, Zero, and his bottom-feeding cohorts. There should be no doubt after he allowed 20% of our uranium to go to our enemies. Can we say treason?
Then, there’s pond scum like McLame.
Feminized and sodomized military is an apt description.
I recall a story about an officer telling two enlisted lesbian service members to stop making out in front of everyone and he was reprimanded for it. That was totally unfair.
True. Be interesting to see pilot numbers before Obozo got in.
From the inside.
This problem has been building since 2008 that I know about. About that time HQ USAF issued a directive that was supposed to identify units that were over extended. It covered the number of days spent TDY fighting the Global War on Terrorism, the number of TDYs per year, the number of days between those tours, and the number of days spent preparing to go TDY. The directive included maximum number of days for each item of interest and NEVER EXCEED numbers.
When it first came out AF Special Operation Command’s squadrons were all about every maximum number of days. Two squadrons were operating above the NEVER EXCEED numbers.
About 18 months later we were ordered to repeat the study. The numbers were worse. Plus the “mainstream’ AF numbers had also slightly increased.
What was done with this early warning? NOTHING! The operational tempo continued to increase and no new then operational aircraft (A-10s, AC-130Us, etc) were built or crews trained.
Now the crises can no longer be viewed as a “management challenge”. But the Air Staff people still got promoted, “death by PowerPoint” continued, and money spent developing aircraft that weren’t needed.
BTW these problems have existed since 1965 when the DOD fought and lost a war for the same reason.
Pay them more...give them more flying time...give them more stable postings...but get qualified bodies behind the wheel.
I agree with your sentiment. Several of my friends have discouraged their sons from the military for precisely the reasons you mentioned.
Any retired Brits/Canadians out there. Just offer them a big bonus and a few plush assignments.
Inevitable fallout from allowing perverts to take over the military. You lose your good personnel. Who wants to fly if your ground crew are too busy buggering each other to maintain the plane?
Does the Army operate fixed wing aircraft?
Many of them, as well as rotary wing. IIRC the Army has more total aircraft than the Air Force.
They got bigger fish to fry.
We have discussed on many occasions that what we need again is the military draft. We have no method for shared obligations and responsibilities to defend America anymore.
Bring back the mandatory draft, say for two years of training and service, and you will get many young people who will decide to stay in the service and beef up our military ranks again.
Give special incentives for those who qualify to go into flight training to expand the pilot pool. It's not going to make up for the shortfall anytime soon, but it is a place to start to turn this pilot shortage trend around.
This draft would solve a lot of our country's problems with the undisciplined and immature snowflakes colleges are pumping out.
Everybody serves for two years. Men, women, whatevers. When the get out, they will be better prepared for their careers and lives in general. If they decided to stay in, we will be better able to defend our country when the times comes.
If colleges are teaching these cupcakes nowadays to hate America, these youth will not be there to defend her when the times demand it.
Not true.
The biggest reason the pilot shortage, in the pilot's view, is because they see the Air Force being emasculated by the political correctness being forced on it by the government and want no part of it. They are also being lured away by commercial airline jobs that pay more and being more competently run.
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