“Has there ever been a time, even at the height of WWII or Korea, or Vietnam, when we had a hard time finding young men who wanted to be an Air Force pilot? ...” [DesertRhino, post 3]
“...Do we use fully trained fighter pilots for Air Force drones?...How about Warrant Officer pilots?...” [Stingray51, post 15]
“You’ve got to be smart to do this. The AF guys I knew who flew were all engineers of some sort ...” [MSF BU, post 17]
“... the Air Force insistence that only officers can fly. So they take trained officer pilots ... put them in a trailer ... they fly Predator drones ... the Air Force runs pilots through these posts time and time again. No wonder pilots are bailing.” [Lower Deck, post 19]
“Interesting. I did not know this.” [Lorianne, post 23]
DesertRhino’s question sounds rhetorical, but the answer is “Yes, constantly.” To provide a more complete answer, there are plenty who might want to be fighter pilots, but not all volunteers meet initial qualification standards, fewer can complete primary or basic flight training, fewer yet qualify for advanced training to be fighter pilots, and a still-smaller fraction can successfully get through training in a replacement-training unit (RTU). And not all of those want to stay on the job, once they get to a unit.
What Lower Deck mentioned is partly true. The problem is the pilots themselves, who have been struggling to prevent anybody else from flying, or commanding, since before the First World War (skeptics should read Rebecca Hancock Cameron’s _Training to Fly: Military Flight Training 1907-1945_ (ISBN 10: 1530027888 ISBN 13: 9781530027880)).
Non-pilot USAF personnel have been volunteering in large numbers, to operate remotely piloted aircraft (RPAs, USAF’s preferred term for “drones”), for over 20 years, but the pilots (especially the fighter pilots) have been blocking such assignments every chance they get. Before 1998, rated navigators were not even allowed to enter such billets, unless they already held an FAA pilot certificate with an instrument rating.
Non-pilots have been permitted to train as RPA operators, but the numbers are still small and are growing only slowly. It’s been found that rated pilots are the worst RPA operators of all: they think they know everything already and must be retrained (de-brainwashed) before they can of any use. This scrubbing do not always succeed.
Whoever the actual operators are, USAF still insists on putting fighter pilots in command of RPA operating units. Fighter pilots are certain they are superior to all others, especially troops who have no flying experience, and are poor commanders at all times. Combined with the small numbers of trained operators, the demanding schedules and long shifts lead quickly to burnout. And since USAF is run of, by, and for the benefit of fighter pilots to the detriment of every other mission, improvement is unlikely.
MSF BU’s information is outdated. Engineering degrees were never required, and most line pilots in USAF have possessed non-technical degrees since the early 1960s.
USAFA does graduate 800 to 1000 each year: nearly all get a commission and go on active duty. Most never fly.
The number of pilot-training slots allotted to Academy graduates has declined dramatically since the Vietnam era, in part because the training infrastructure has shrunken, in part because ROTC supporters felt they were being treated unfairly and complained to their Senators and Congressional Reps.
USAF personnel experts have expended great efforts since 1947, to balance authorized billets, end strengths, and production of qualified specialists with uptake of trainees. Pilot-shortage problems get the press but all specialties have troubles. The managers seldom get anywhere near success; lead times are very long, and most variables are outside their control.
The dynamics of modern employment contradicts nearly everything the military does, in personnel management. One-company career tracks are vanishing. Compensation is poor, even before considerations of hostile action, with attendant risks of death, injury, or captivity (one does not have to fly in combat to get injured or killed; it happens in peacetime and behind the lines too). Congress and the public are forever casting aspersions on military pay scales, especially when it comes to bonuses for technical specialties and officer aviators. Retirement benefits are ungenerous, even when not being threatened.
USAF does require longer service commitments from its people who undergo specialized training. It is by far the longest for pilots, and USAF decisionmakers are talking about lengthening it. Few 2Lts wish to commit ten to fifteen of their best years to military service, especially in today’s volatile world of work.
Are they getting their quota of homosexual and transgender pilots?