The biggest problem with the USAFA is that it is not needed. Air Force officers have been best when they have been civilian school graduates, and that includes results in the pilot programs. When there is little need for something it then flounders looking for an identity, as the USAFA has for its entire existence.
P.S. I lived just a few miles north of the academy until recently. It is by far the best of the bunch as far as resources and location, and without question it is something someone should make real use of before it goes away.
“The biggest problem with the USAFA is that it is not needed. Air Force officers have been best when they have been civilian school graduates, and that includes results in the pilot programs...” [Code Toad, post 44]
A mildly interesting notion. Where did you come by it? Propaganda from the two senior services, who claim superior wisdom and pride of place just because, well, they’re senior?
It’s logically impossible for the senior services to develop a better and more complete view of national defense. They think in two dimensions only. What really riles them is that air power demonstrated execrable manners by coming along in World War Two and win it - while still at a relatively primitive level of development.
I speak as an air power advocate, not an apologist for USAF as currently equipped and led.
The parlous state of USAF senior leadership is perhaps most colorfully embodied in the Two Johns - John Rosa and Johnny Weida, Superintendent and Commandant of Cadets respectively, in the first few years of this century. They were bedeviled by the largest sex harassment scandal to hit USAFA, but suffered no real punishment. One was a Citadel grad, the other a USAFA grad. Both enjoyed prior assignments as fighter pilots. One - I forget now which - infamously commented that “It is the Air Force Academy, but it isn’t our Air Force Academy.” I was told by several colleagues that their only qualifications for their jobs at USAFA was the ability to fly really good four-ship.