Posted on 10/21/2017 11:21:10 AM PDT by be-baw
The United States Air Force could recall as many as 1,000 retired military pilots to active-duty service to address an acute shortage in its ranks.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday allowing the Air Force to call back to service up to 1,000 retired aviation officers who wish to return, the White House and the Pentagon announced.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
I wonder if this will be spun as “Trump Reinstates Military Draft.”
Competence, talent and merit have been sacrificed on the altar of diversity in the military. Such were the dictates of the high priest Obama.
The Air Force basically only lets people with engineering degrees become pilots.
They also don’t allow warrant officers to be pilots.
Easy fix if they wanted to.
Attended a talk by a top NORAD general. We are so depleted in equipment they are being forced to redeploy from Europe and Asia to protect the homeland.
>>I find having to do this very concerning. Why are there not more pilots coming through the ranks?
Some may be getting rated, serving the minimum time and getting out. Others may be moving to more political jobs like Public Information or Diversity Compliance jobs. I’m sure the AF is pushing a lot of people who unsuitable for the job through to fulfill quotas and then make the Maintenance Officers as soon as it can.
So many officers just walked away from the military during Obama’s rule due to political correctness. Or were purged by Obama and his political correctness officers.
What OTHER shortages, pilots, technicians, mechanics, clerks, and the myriad of critically needed skill exist as a result of the last eight years of a Commander in Chief who visibly degraded our military?
Could today’s military pull of D-Day or take the Marianas? Or hold onto Pusan?
They are stingy with their flight school slots. Back when I was commissioned in 1992 only one guy got a flight slot from the senior AFROTC class out of 30 or so. I was army ROTC and 4 of us got branched aviation out of about 100 seniors. Of course not everyone wants a flight slot. I think about 15 seniors in the army program requested aviation as their first choice. I know on the air force side about 20 guys put in for flight slots. I also know air force pilots view army pilots as just slightly more competent than retards
Well, since they haven’t had warrant officers since the 1960’s.....
How do Army pilots view the Air Force pukes?
we can all guess which political party caused this and any other service retiree recall.
The national origination for introducing kids to flight is Young Eagles. The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) sponsors it. I’m a YE pilot and ground crew volunteer. It’s loads of fun and any can volunteer as you don’t need to be a pilot to help out.
“So many officers just walked away from the military during Obama’s rule”
I don’t know a single active duty officer anymore, and I know many who got out earlier than expected.
Not so re: engineering. I know a poli sci major,ROTC,good leader/smart kid who got a pilot slot. Now an AF Captain. But he had skills when it came to piloting.
For a long time, the Air Force has been an instrument of social and political correctness, fighting and mission were distant seconds.
The pilot shortage is REAL, and we are beginning to feel the consequences of it. This is a subject I have spoken much about.
There several factors, but the biggest, by far, has been the economic destruction of the American Middle Class, and the loss of decent paying jobs for the masses. The decline in the pilot population closely follows the decline in real family incomes from around 1980 onward.
Flying, or learning to fly, has never been cheap. In high school, I had to work 25 hours to afford one hour of flight training.
Add in another factor, that being the decline of eligible people in the population.
Stuffing ADD drugs and psychotropics into kids that act out in school, instead of disciplining them is a big part. As is widespread drug usage, and arrests, will almost immediately disqualify you from most flying jobs, and the medical process.
There has also been a severe pilot PAY SHORTAGE for at least two decades, that plays a big part of this. Lots of kids with the desire, could not justify spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for commercial flight training, only to make $18k flying for a regional to build time for the majors, while living like a pauper.
Another thing is regulation driving costs through the ceiling.
In 1972, a brand new Cessna 172, the workhorse of training and general aviation, cost roughly 2 1/2 years average salary to buy. Today that same, almost exact airplane, costs 9-10 years of the average salary to buy.
Much of that cost is regulatory and liability.
There is no one fix for this, a lot of things have to happen in the right order for it to happen.
From a hover. M
Honestly, in my 28 years in uniform and the last six in civil service I’ve never seen Air Force aviators downgrade our Army aviators.
First of all Army pilots don't fly F-22s or B-1s.
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