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Once had a girl tell me anything can be a d!ldo if you are brave enough.

When everyone is the tip of the spear, you realize you are fighting with a frisbee.

The problem is not about production, it is CLEARLY a retention issue. If the AF produced 2,000 pilots next year, they would still be massively foooked. Look at the timeline, after a year of UPT (maybe less with the insane ideas floating around), Survival School, IFF, RTU...best case you get a crap ton of green barely qualified folks in 22-24 months from start date. How long to get them MR, seasoned...or would you just start throwing them into the fight like Kamikaze pilots in WWII. Retention is the issue up and down the timeline, you need seasoned folks to stay around at warfighters, instructors, and LEADERS.

I had a legit reply, but ClearedHot beat me to it, and took all of the air out of my balloon. That said, my T-38 rear cockpit landing currency is good... rehacked 2 weeks ago. Put me in, coach!

Looks like we found our first 19 year old F-35 wingman.

Sounds to me you need to change your work out routine, so you get a different response next time.

Have to disagree, we don't need a flood of new pilots, in some ways that will make the situation worse. The dismal and sinking retention rate means we will be short seasoned combat pilots. The last thing we need is a flood of inexperienced greenhorns flying in combat. I know what you are trying to say but you kind of sound like Big Blue when they say we are going to "grow our way out of this."

It’s all about the near rocks and far rocks. Right now we NEED to generate new pilots. The retention issue, to me, is a different problem but obviously related because we’re talking manpower. I can only speak for myself (off-topic) but the AF has treated me and my family very well so I might be a skewed data point. Despite this fact, I’ve had periods of time where I thought...as soon as my commitment is up I’m punching. The weird part is that it wasn’t caused by: the amount of time I was deployed, the nearly twice-yearly visits to CATM, the unpredictable homestation flying schedule, or even the bullshit language CBTs for a culture I could give two hoots about. It was the pervasive fundamental under appreciation and lack of emphasis placed on aviation. The AF does a lot of great things, but pilots/aircrew are the fking life blood of this service. The moment the rest of this enterprise stopped looking up to the people who deliver hate to our enemies is the day we lost. It’s the daily attitude of “you’re all the tip of the spear” that ruined things for me. Example: quiet hours at the airfield for an outdoor change of command for the MSG. Guess what motherfkrs...airplanes can be loud. Guess what again...we need to train because there are soft pink bodies on the other side of the ocean that need to be reduced to hair, teeth and eyeballs. /rant_off. As mentioned: we are hemorrhaging as a force but sometimes you need to put some quikclot in that wound before you make it to the OR.

Not saying that or implying that military pilot training is the only way to become a great pilot What I am saying is that it is PATHETIC that a military institution historically based on airpower with a 132 billion dollar budget, 12,600 pilots, 5 bases dedicated to pilot training and over 1,000 training aircraft and access to enormous amounts of data that was foretelling this problem can not figure a way out.

I was the announcer for the Boise Airshow in October. I hadn't seen the 'birds in over 2 years. Both days, the shows were excellent, and the team was in tune. I don't know what their rules/limits/altitudes are, but it looked better than in previous years. "Ridiculously"? You've not seen The Patriots. For example, check out #2's low pass at the 39 second point. Pretty standard for him. And all the low maneuvering is without a HUD and flightpath marker. 2017_ICAS_App_PJT_Video.mp4

"Noted" -Every salty terminal Major ever

Because they need it. 3 months doing T-6 instrument sims in a cardboard box made to look like a cockpit and Microsoft Flight sim 1998 software is not doing the job, especially when the follow on aircraft has no actual IFR instruments. (Mil hud and moving VFR map). Most these kids are smart, some have some stick skills and probably would have made it through regular UPT, but the quality of airmanship of the new guys is god awful. Hardware has been smashed and many of shots missed because of it. Q3, requaled in 2 or 3 days, put em back in the seat. Any other plane the knee jerk reactions would have happened years ago, but the generals need their pred porn and no flag covered coffins, so we brush it under the carpet and move along. Nothing to see here

"Hey there Major. I don't care about your morale patch, I mean I'm cool I have even drank a beer before, I'm a bro. But I know the Wing commander does that silly stiff, so may wanna just take it off for a bit. I know I know..." LTC Everyoneever

HuggyU2 Agrees, a pic from his recent inprocessing after returning to active duty.

So I've been here about three months on my farewell tour (read: you seven day opted, so here's your non-flying 6 month gig right at the end of your ADSC). This place has changed a LOT. No required PT gear, no required disco belts, and mustaches reign supreme, although there seems to be a bit too much strict compliance to the Hitler rule. I've been rocking a Robin Olds throwback mustache ever since I got here and never got chiefed once. I finally got the "tone it down" from my boss who got the standard passive aggressive words from someone else to pass along to me. What BLOWS MY MIND is the people who still willingly wear PT gear with reflective belts. They're uncommon, but not rare. My buddies didn't get chiefed face down in the mud for these nerds to keep wearing that shit! Facilities continue to be in a state of decay. The remaining CC trailers are same as always, with thick black mold and rot. The BPC buildings are not much better. Their poor construction is beginning to show in the form of all the tiles being loose, large cracks in the concrete, and leaking during the rain. AC is also spotty in several of those buildings. The high water mark of insanity (October 09) appears to have receded to today's baseline of 6/10 on the dumb scale.

This sounds like one big opportunity for LockMartNorthropBoeing to sell a bunch of expensive gold-plated technology. You know, the kind of high-tech gee whiz shit that kinda sorta works...sometimes........

Yes, and it's real. PCS to Texas hill country. Probably a CSD of ~February 18'. Should be pretty neat, but could get intensive real quick or be plauged by setbacks. The program has AETC/CC backing (naturally). A good and smart dude is helping it work.

Yes. It blows me away that the aircrew crisis TF is trying all these accession experiments that will get people killed when the problem is retention. The root cause of the retention problem is the credibility gap with leadership and personnel management (A1/AFPC). Not the only problem, but it's the most painful for them to address.

Sounds like a title for a book you should write. Oh and lets throw in an age waiver to 70 to get 5 years from retiring airline pilots

Sounds like sexual harassment to me.

I’d say that’s a valid overall observation. But in this particular case, leaders are ignoring or at least not addressing the myriad of reasons there is a pilot exodus, and have instead chosen to alter a training program and methodology that is proven and has been highly successful for over 50 years. These COAs are offering up a cheap solution to the wrong problem.

In my experience as a T-1 IP over the past 5 years or so the guys coming in with prior experience tend to exist on the extreme ends of the bell curve, rarely the middle. Either they are able to adapt to the military way of flying and are able to leverage their previous experience to great success, or they possess the attitude of "I've got nothing to actually learn here, I'm just checking the box" and they struggle if not wash out. Prior experience and skill CAN be an advantage, but only when paired with humility and an attitude that is conducive to accepting instruction.

Crash more than once, I think this is pretty standard, but it did take a while. She seems like a good one, her husband though.......

No, you’re a tool because of your “I’m an operator” bullshit. No one cares. You’re also a tool because in a thread where we regularly have civil discussion on a near-daily basis about guns themselves (with gun laws typically in other threads), you rolled in and said we couldn’t talk about any guns because of an event. Wrong for two reasons: 1) there was already a thread for the event itself to hug it out for your sensitive psyche in addition to being able to participate in threads discussing the legal aspect 2) By your logic after the NYC incident no one should have been talking about their F-150 or rental cars. How dumb does that sound? So yes, go fuck yourself. Or start your own discussion board with the tin foil hat guy and PYB.

I’m not implying that simply making more pilots will solve the problem, but if everybody gets out and you don’t replace them...then where does that leave the force? This problem is about production. Retention is a different beast. I get that the AF is losing highly qualified pilots but when they are gone, you can’t stop producing because the retention issue still exists. It’s kicking the can but until the gubment figures out how to keep the worlds best in service, alternate ways to generate more human capital should be explored.