Posted on 09/26/2016 2:54:51 PM PDT by Lorianne
The shortage stands at 723 pilots this year and is expected to worsen, reaching 1,000 in 2017, with no immediate way to plug the gap because the Air Force needs two years to transform a young officer into a fighter pilot. While active-duty pilot training will increase from 200 this year to 285 in 2017, it won’t begin to replace the lost talent and institutional memory.
(Excerpt) Read more at stripes.com ...
That was too funny,
And prescient....
RE: “Monty Python Military Fairie drill”
Are they also short of Commissars?
Exactly the case.
Our military has been hollowed out in battle capability, morale and moral authority.
Obola and Hillary are Effing treasonous and have committed crimes against humanity with their creative destruction in the Middle East.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3471902/posts
US Special Forces sabotage White House policy gone disastrously wrong with covert ops in Syria
SOFREP ^ | 09/14/2016 | Jack Murphy
Posted on 9/21/2016, 10:20:56 AM by MarchonDC09122009
Edited on 9/21/2016, 10:43:59 AM by Admin Moderator. [history]
US Special Forces sabotage White House policy gone disastrously wrong with covert ops in Syria | SOFREP
US Special Forces sabotage White House policy gone disastrously wrong with covert ops in Syria Jack Murphy | 09.14.2016
“Nobody believes in it. You’re like, ‘**** this,’” a former Green Beret says of America’s covert and clandestine programs to train and arm Syrian militias. “Everyone on the ground knows they are jihadis. No one on the ground believes in this mission or this effort, and they know they are just training the next generation of jihadis, so they are sabotaging it by saying, ‘**** it, who cares?’”
“I don’t want to be responsible for Nusra guys saying they were trained by Americans,” the Green Beret added. A second Special Forces soldier commented that one Syrian militia they had trained recently crossed the border from Jordan on what had been pitched as a large-scale shaping operation that would change the course of the war. Watching the battle on a monitor while a drone flew overhead, “We literally watched them, with 30 guys in their force, run away from three or four ISIS guys.”
RE: “Yes. Perhaps our pilots are tired of bombing Assad’s bases in support of ISIS, or climbing into fighter jets with FAILED PARTS IN THEM BECAUSE THERE ARE NO SPARES. Notice all the jets crashing lately?
Today’s patriots in our military are forced to commit treason because of their traitor ‘boss’. And people wonder why our veterans commit suicide. So many gains then 0dunga P*SSES IT ALL AWAY IN THE NAME OF ‘ALLAH’.”
Or Zampolits (Soviet era "political officers"...)
the infowarrior
But as in any technical and fluid profession, that person will still be very inexperienced, lack operational and situational maturity, and are usually not capable of making really good leadership decisions at that 2 year point. It will take more years of training and experience to peak and become fully effective in that role.
Sorry, I forgot to mention commissars when I listed women, homosexuals, and transexuals.
Still plenty of those, polishing chairs in the Pentagon.
For some time now, the AFAcademy has downplayed the pilot as just another job in the Air Force. In our new PC military, we cannot have any job that might be seen as more important or glamorous than any other least some be offended. Add that attitude to the fact that the AF has been terrible over the last 40 or more years in forcasting and planning for pilots, it is always boom or bust, you get the current situation.
Served in USAF 1957-1961. Left because I could not enter pilot training. Could not pass sight test.
Too bad. I’m sure you would have loved it; well depending on what you flew.
They should go recruiting among the Drone Shooter game guys living in basements. Give them a real Predator, a thousand cases of Mountain Dew, a ton of Doritos, pay them minumum wage, and they'd be thrilled.
/s
Gee, Wally, it’s almost as if someone is deliberately trying to weaken America.
“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?
“Are they getting their quota of homosexual and transgender pilots?”
I have to confess I haven’t any idea.
MSF BU seems to know a great deal about USAF and DoD personnel policies. Perhaps he can enlighten us, about how his US Army experiences and professional background qualifies him to dispel our ignorance about USAF.
Well I’ve only been a part of the military from 17 to my late forties and I’ve taken an active interest in what has happened and is going no. So I am familiar with Mikey Weinstein. I am familiar with Sara Lister. I am familiar with Eric Fanning. I am familiar with Richard Danzig. I know what theses folks have done and want to do to our military. Google the names Schurmann...I’m certain many of them are not familiar to you.
“Well I’ve only been a part of the military from 17 to my late forties ... .I’m certain many of them are not familiar to you.”
MSF BU has missed the boat again. To carry the metaphor a touch farther, it doesn’t appear he knew there was a boat, a canal, or a schedule in the first place.
I’d love to ask the question: why does every member of the senior armed services feel free to offer USAF advice, on absolutely everything? I gather they know everything, merely because their institutional forbears arrived earlier. Age does not bring wisdom, not necessarily. As 17 to 40-plus ought to suggest.
I know all the names on MSF BU’s list. Mike Weinstein was one of my underclassmen. So there’s nothing he can tell me.
But after 29 years in uniform, dealing with a number of headaches and surreal consequences courtesy of the personnel experts (to varying degrees of success), I will refrain from offering MSF BU advice on what the US Army ought to do, or not do, concerning personnel.
MSF BU has made a cardinal error in equating morality with effectiveness. Many other posters have made the same mistake. The two proceed along different axes.
Interestingly enough, we have a common experience with the Weinstein family. In my case I knew his sister Halee before she was thrown out of the Army for homosexual conduct. At the time Schurmann, all services considered that conduct abnormal (though I’m sure you’d disagree) and not conducive to an effective fighting force. The policy was across the board in the military and worked quite well under Reagan’s ‘we ask, don’t join’ implementation. During those years we did a fairly good job at filling the ranks. Alas, even with much reduced standards, quotas and affirmative action we’re not making recruitment goals. I wonder why that is? Could it be that policies championed by the likes of Dalton, Danzig, Widnall & Ash Carter have made the services less attractive places to join, especially for the types of people typically attracted to combat billets?
“... we have a common experience with the Weinstein family. ... I knew his sister Halee before she was thrown out of the Army for homosexual conduct. ... all services considered that conduct abnormal (though I’m sure you’d disagree) and not conducive to an effective fighting force. ... worked quite well under Reagan’s ‘we ask, don’t join’ ... we did a fairly good job at filling the ranks. ... even with much reduced standards, quotas and affirmative action we’re not making recruitment goals. I wonder why that is? ... policies ... of Dalton, Danzig, Widnall & Ash Carter have made the services less attractive places to join, especially for the types of people typically attracted to combat billets?”
Going to defer to MSF BU’s experience with the Weinstein family. I barely knew Mike back in the day and never met anyone from his family. He isn’t doing what he has been doing for the reasons MFS BU apparently assumes. Not entirely.
MSF BU ought to think more carefully before posting this or that about what he assumes. Not that I care from a personal standpoint, but assuming can lead one into fields filled with philosophical landmines, without providing any results worth the effort.
It’s sill looking like MSF BU is equating morality with effectiveness. I used to worry about the impact on unit cohesion from people with varying sexual proclivities, but have quit fussing ... the population cohort in the enlistment-eligible zone starts out 75 percent disqualified thanks to poor physical condition, criminal record, drug use, etc, indicating we have larger problems.
There is no “type” of person attracted to combat-coded billets. Everybody does things for their own reasons. Yes, even military personnel. Who will succeed, and who will not, is still subject to guesswork, and anyone still believing MSF BU’s final question means anything has cast doubt on their own suitability for that sort of work.
Those enamored of the “certain personalities succeed” school of thinking have confused macho overbearing bluff-mongering with effectiveness. I am not certain how extensively they overlap with the “morality equals effectiveness” contingent, but I have noted that both groups are cement-headed.
Oddly enough Shurmann, you still haven’t referenced any of your own combat leadership positions. I’m looking to men like Carl Mundy, Jeremiah Denton, Duncan Hunter, Sam Johnson, etc. all of whom had some experience with combat and all of whom led men in combat. What did you lead?
“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?”
Actually, we’ve had multiple pilot shortages. That was why they brought leather jackets back - to supposedly improve moral and help retain pilots!
Typically, pilots leave when the airlines are hiring big or when the paperwork weenies get overwhelming. They also tend to leave anytime flight hours go down, which in turn can be driven by maintenance or other issues.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.