TnkrToad

Looks like heavies are getting shorted across the board--C-5s, KC-135s, KC-10s getting shorted, too. Folks getting C-130s here and there, but the numbers hardly seem adequate--especially considering the need to fill both AD and ARC units. The SUPT drops would make one think the AF is awash in heavy drivers/don't need any more. I don't think our rated managers are seeing what I'm seeing . . .

Let's see . . . - AD senior leaders clueless/unwilling to acknowledge MAF pilot shortfalls . . . heavy drivers feel unappreciated - A-word hiring is huge/not going away & MAF mission is directly applicable to a-word skill sets . . . civil sector makes heavy drivers feel really appreciated (showing it through compensation packages) - Something like half of airlift & tankers are in the AFRES/ANG . . . Guard & Reserves need AD heavy drivers, sending demand for AD heavy drivers even higher - From what I read on here, folks already in AFRC have little desire to stay past 20 . . . Guard/Reserves need even more heavy drivers - Folks separating from AD little prob getting hired by the airlines . . . heavy drivers don't need the Guard/Reserves - AFRC's inability to fill taskings drives AD requirements even higher, driving up AD OPSTEMPO, which further pushes folks toward the exits I'm sure glad Big Blue is only short on 11Fs. What could possibly go wrong?

Considering all one needs is 15 years and 3k hours (or failing that, 144 gate months), that's ridiculous. On the tanker side, there were guys coming out of their first assignments at Grand Forks the 2005-ish timeframe with well over 2,000 hours already. Folks in the MAF community who can't build 3k hrs are a mystery to me; must've been folks who spent a lot of time at Mildenhall/somewhere like that which didn't fly much--in spite of a war going on. Even then, 12 yrs' worth of gate months ain't that hard to come by, even with school and a staff assignment. TT

...But, you see, the problem is that GC & his cronies are trying to solve their WSO/CSO/Nav problems with UPT grads (at least indirectly), but they refuse to acknowledge that they are doing so. There were about 5,000 Navs (by this I mean Navs/CSOs/WSOs--whatever you wanna call them) in the AF in 2005. Now, we've got about 3,500. The OSS/staff/command/CAOC/deployed to Buttkrakistan to backfill Army guys/etc. workload didn't decrease by 30% over the last decade, so guess what? Pilot types have had to backfill billets that Navs might otherwise have filled. Ergo, we are trying to use UPT grads to solve the WSO problem . . . an expensive proposition that ticks people off and makes them all the more susceptible to the siren song of life outside of Big Blue. Tying this back to the ACP discussion, I find it odd that there's so much handwringing over an 11F shortage, when the pilot shortages are across all MDSs. Sticking to what I know/my parochial interests, the Nav community that's taken the biggest hit over the past decade is the 12Ms. Not surprising--with the advent GPS/better avionics, one doesn't need 'em. Problem is that 11Ms are filling billets that 12Ms would normally have filled, at the same time the civilian sector is drawing 11Ms away from active duty at substantial rates, while at the same time MAF folks are backfilling CAF & SOF billets . . . yet global airlift & tanker requirements ain't really subsided. The resulting experience loss across the board is substantial. In 2005, there were 3,500 Command Pilots in the AF. Today there are 2,100. In '05, there were 1,900 Master Navs; today, there are 600. That sure looks like a helluva brain drain--notably in the mobility community--and given the current civilian hiring picture, I don't see our ability to retain experienced aviators getting any better. While I fully understand that certain pilot communities are hurting worse than others, I can't escape the conclusion targeted bonuses for select pilot communities in FY17 ACP would be a galactically bad idea. Rant off. TT

Are these the same personnelists who were (1) key enablers in creating the pilot shortage mess in the first place, and (2) still can't even be bothered to post the End FY2016 Rated Retention Report--a doc that should take about 69 minutes to write, but we're almost 3 months into the new FY? I know a number of personnelists who do great work, and I love 'em for it, but the current and near-term future pilot manning shortages within the AF represent a failure by personnelists (specifically rated managers) and the senior AF leaders who listened to them. TT

Per the non-final numbers, the MC-130 community brought the AFSOC average up. All but two (14/16--87.5%) of the MC-130H/J/P pilots took the bonus. The two non-takers were both Talon drivers. The CV-22 and U-28 communities also marginally brought up the average; they were both 58%. Bottom line, given only 78 total 11S eligibles, even a handful of folks extra taking the bonus skewed the numbers significantly. The only other AFSOC community not already mentioned is interesting. There were 21 C-145 (I assume a combo of NSAV & 6th SOS) eligibles. There were more C-145 eligibles than there were in any other AFSOC community. Their take rate was just 33%. Not sure what to make of this (again, go back to statistical significance discussion), but doesn't appear folks are all that excited about the OSA for SOF mission. That, or they saw the opportunity to take all that flying time to the civilian sector. If the C-145 numbers include the 6th SOS, the AvFID mission must be really suffering. Lemme guess--AFSOC will take more 11Ms from AMC to flesh out their ranks in the NSAV & 6 SOS missions . . . TT

FWIW, the final FY16 ACP report still has not been released, so theoretically, the numbers could change. Per the AFPC website, though, the overall FY 16 11S take rate as of 3 Oct was 50%. Regarding gunships in particular, the take rate for AC-130H/J/U/W combined was 23.5% (4 takers out of 17 eligibles). I'm no math major, and others can comment on statistical significance, but this seems pretty bad. What I'm looking forward to in the final report is rest of the data, beyond just take rates: how many retirements/separations has each community experienced? Getting back to my own 11M lane: There's been some talk in this forum about a pending 11M crisis. It's unarguably already here. The point of the bonus is to keep experienced folks on property, IOT to fill leadership and staff positions. Underproduction of 11Ms in the mid-90s year groups, combined with current-day hiring, means slim pickin's right now for current/future mobility O-6s/ future senior leaders. Personnel management buffoonery/endless deployments/backfilling other AFSCs/etc. has likewise thinned out late-90s & early 2000s year groups & made it really unlikely those still on AD will stay past 20. Those reaching bonus eligibility are somewhere around the '05 year group; if this year's take rate (and the broader trend over the past few years) is any indication), they sure don't seem inclined to stay on AD. I have trouble seeing how the 11M is/will be healthy in any year group that's hit bonus and/or retirement eligibility. If the theoretically "fat" heavy community is as hurting for experience as I think it is, I can only imagine how much worse it is for undermanned communities like 11Ss. TT

Bump-- Funny, the FY16 Rated Retention Report still isn't posted. I can't see there being any surprises in the final take rates, but it'll be interesting to see how many pilots we lost to retirements/separations, and from which communities. Before, the narrative from GC and people of his ilk seemed to be, "no big deal--there are lots of folks who turn down the bonus, yet still remain on AD." I don't see that being the case anymore. We'll see. TT

Only gripe I have in the article is that, in a few places, the writer conflates race with gender. It's pretty clear that females have an overall promotion advantage in the AF, at least within the officer corps. I sure hope Big Blue doesn't use efforts to account for racial disparities to further exacerbate the feminization of the Air Force. TT

Gonna be pretty difficult for Big Blue to spin this positively. Average take rate for past 5 FYs = 64%: - FY11: 70% - FY12: 67% - FY13: 68% - FY14: 59% - FY15: 55% I'm no math major, but 49% seems substantially worse than 64%. The take rate was 65% or higher for 11 years, from FY03 through FY13. There's a downward trend, even though Big Blue has steadily expanded the number of AFSCs who could take the $25k/yr bonus to 20 yrs aviation service option (used to be just 11Fs and I think RPA drivers, as I recall, that got the enhanced bonus option). The problem for the AF is that, while take rates are decreasing, numbers of eligibles are increasing. There were 750 FY16 pilot eligibles. There'll be 820 pilot eligibles next year. What will be interesting to read in the FY16 report is the Overall Loss Breakdown--between separations, retirements, permanent DNIF, & promotion to O-6, how many pilots did we lose? I suspect the Air Force's total pilot inventory will have shrunk yet again this year. TT

I buy the idea of LAAR (and likely C-27J also) on the cost basis argument--in the right context. In the LOBOG (Lots of Boots on the Ground) days of Afghanistan/Iraq, LAAR would have made a whole lot of sense in-country. I'm not so sure LAAR is as much of a panacea today, now that we're going with light footprints in-country. Regardless, directly attaching Air Force aircraft and crews to specific Army units is exactly what we do not want to do. It is more convenient for ground forces to complain about non-support from the Air Force than it is for them to convince Army leaders to buy adequate numbers of aircraft types to provide ground forces with what they theoretically need. - If the Army wants more unmanned ISR, it can buy more Gray Eagles - If it wants more dedicated manned CAS, it can buy more Apaches - If it want more dedicated manned ISR, it can buy more RC-12s Funny, I guess the Army doesn't really want any of those things, since I don't see Army leaders clamoring for the funds to massively expand their Gray Eagle/Apache/RC-12 fleets beyond what they currently have/are projected to buy. Senior Army leaders don't want to buy enough of these assets to provide each ground commander with his own fleet of air assets, because doing so would be prohibitively expensive. Investing in enough airpower to satisfy ground commanders' desires would in turn choke out other vital elements of Army ground power . . . if the Army had to pay for it. What works great for ground commanders is to instead demand the kitchen sink from the Air Force, without (a) taking time to acknowledge that their own service has shortchanged them, or (b) considering the entirety of the problem of providing support throughout the AOR/the world. I'm not saying the guys on the ground are wrong for wanting every asset possible to support them/their mission. If I were in their shoes, I would be doing the same thing. That doesn't make the math any less true--we can't/won't spend the cash to give ground guys everything they want--especially in the era of sequestration. When I consider environments where LAAR makes sense, I think a very strong case could be made for buying a small fleet. It could save significant cash/wear & tear on other airframes. As Sqwatch indicated, there are lots of cases where LAAR makes little sense at all, though. I can imagine a number of cases where a Viper, in a centrally-located CAS orbit with tanker support, would be a better/cheaper option than LAAR for on-call CAS support. Whether LAAR, Vipers or other AF assets, they should never be penny-packeted out to Army units. TT

Copy all--sorry, didn't mean to nitpick your word choice. Mostly I was reacting to reviews of his work that say his argument is somehow sophisticated or insightful. In my mind, many of the Air Force's issues for its first two to three decades as an independent service can be traced to the way the Army treated its AAC/AAF. It'd be interesting to see him on the forum. TT

Ugh. If one defines "nuance" as ignoring the lunacy that one can easily see in the way the Air Corps was treated by the Army prior to 1939--when one of the most pro-airpower presidents in history (FDR) pushed the most pro-airpower Army chief of staff in history (Marshall) to start building the Air Corps from its emaciated interwar state--then yeah, I'd say he might have a nuanced argument. I could go on with his selective use of history, but this is the problem when political scientists pretend to be historians. I think his idea of giving the Air Force back to the Army is moronic, but I'll bite. The bottom line is this: sure, we could reorganize and get back to two services, but I don't think the Army would be all that happy with the way it would turn out. If we were to divvy up the services, I'd think we'd split it into (1) a high-readiness service, consistently deployed around the globe [you could call it the Navy if you really dislike the Air Force name and are happy with tradition unhindered by progress] and (2) a break glass-in-case-of-war service, that generally remains stateside [Army] that expands and shrinks, according to what overseas adventures our civ leaders find for us. How would I split the services up? - "Navy"--gets all AF's: tankers, airlifters, OSA, fighters [but for A-10], bombers, big wing recce, CSAR, AFSOF, Global Hawk, space [missiles, satellites, all of it], cyber, and the bulk of the training infrastructure. I probably missed something, but that should mostly cover it. Maybe if one service owned both land- and sea-based air, we might make more rational decisions about using carrier battle fleets to do jobs that land-based air can do as well or better...around the clock. -- BTW, if you really want to rationalize force structure, the Army's THAAD and probably Patriot should also go to this new "Navy." It would put all air theater air defense capabilities in one service. Come to think of it, I could probably make a strong case for handing the Ranger Regiment over to MARSOC...it would put the nation's "911" force all in the same service - Army--gets AF's: Preds, Reapers, A-10s . . . the stuff that primarily exists to directly support conventional ground users. They could buy all the Super Tucanos, C-27s, RC-12s, etc., they want to directly support ground users. Of course, the Army would have to get rid of stuff that has nothing to do with direct support to ground users [THAAD & Patriot above come to mind] -- This way, the Army could focus on their two-dimensional world, where all that matters to them is defined by the ground they own and the fixed-wing assets that only support them (rather than all joint/combined users across big theaters), and the amalgamated Air Force/Navy could own the oceans, air, space and cyber and non-CAS missions The podcast brought up an interesting point about USAFA--what would happen to it? I've got an idea for that: a Merchant Aviation Academy. - People who want to kill people and break things overseas--in air/space/cyberspace/over, on and under the sea--go to USNA - People who want to defend the homeland--in air/at sea--go to USCGA - People who want to make money driving civilian boats--go to US Merchant Marine Academy at King's Point - People who want to make money flying civilian planes/launching rockets for SpaceX--go to the US Merchant Air & Space Academy at Colorado Springs [on the grounds of the former USAFA] - People who think two-dimensionally and/or who aspire to be Fortune 500 CEOs--go to West Point, then into the Army Would my plan work? Perhaps. The funny thing is, it would ultimately end up in one service being even more dominant at the joint level (and it wouldn't be the Army), and with the addition of a whole bunch more land-based aviation, aviators would likely become even more dominant in the Navy than they already are. TT

Gotta love Air Force logic. Actual knowledge/competence (ACSC instructor learns more than his students in the process of teaching his lessons) takes a backseat to square filling (officer X had good timing/was lucky enough to get an alternate slot at ACSC, and gets in-res credit). Funnier one is: IDE or SDE select gets picked to go to a civ school to get an advanced academic degree. Since said individual is in the window for going in-res, he/she automatically gets in-res IDE/SDE credit. The non-select from the same year group puts in the same effort/gets the same civilian degree, and gets no in-res credit. Does it make sense? Not to me. Maybe to GC . . .

Good point--I forgot about Dick Myers. Of course, Army General Tommy Franks was CENTCOM commander from July 2000-July 2003. He had plenty of access to the President and SecDef, was sure happy to be seen on tv, and I imagine he made some good money on his book American Soldier. It would also be nice to know how vociferously Marine General Pete Pace (Vice CJCS for the entirety of Myers' chairmanship) argued against the Afghanistan/Iraq missions. Bottom line, of course we've should look first and foremost at our internal issues and strive to address them. My main point remains valid: when we look at the truly moronic way we often conduct tactical and operational-level air ops, and even more so make strategy that intrinsically involves air ops, I think we too easily ascribe failure to just airmen. Feel free to bash away at Air Force leadership, though. The problems noted above are real; it's funny that our fighter pilot-dominated Air Force seems to have so much difficulty figuring out how to manage the fighter enterprise--on the high end, with the F-35 debacle, and the low end, with the decision not to buy a whole bunch of Super Tucanos for COIN. It ain't just the fighter generals goofing up, though--I'm still waiting to see the first operational KC-46 to show up on an Air Force ramp, to start replacing the almost 60-year old tankers we're flying now. Maybe ACSC should be turned into a one-year acquisitions course... TT

Dude, I get it. Hence my "Beat up our senior Air Force leaders all you want--they provide plenty of material" comment. I disagree with you on one major point--it is right to blame politicians for the stupid political decisions they make, and the other services for their failures to convince politicians to stay out of quagmires, while we simultaneously look internally at the many things we're screwing up all on our own. I don't know which our our GOs are saying or not, since I ain't nowhere near any of them right now. I do know that Deptula was plenty vocal, and still is, about the insanity of the LOBOG (Lots of Boots on the Ground) we pursued/are pursuing. He retired as a three-star, even though he's helluva lot smarter and had/has more experience than those who pinned on 4 stars instead of him. Others will have to give insights as to what our senior leaders are doing to fight the stupidity at the joint level. Streamlining strike approval? I dunno--talk to the CAF guys. Better intel analysis? Hmm...talk to the CAF guys. I don't have a good answer for why we haven't bought a bunch of Super Tucanos; of course, I'm a tanker guy...again, talk to the fighter guys who mostly run the Air Force. Of course, that would require providing adequate incentives for them to want to remain on active duty or at least not driving them out through queep and stupid social justice policies. I can't/won't defend the stupid 365s, nor will I attempt to explain the square-filling that counts for professional development. Regarding O-4s/O-5s who get protected while others get kicked in the teeth with deployments, been there/done that...contrary to TC's arguments on JQP, I'm not sure CCs should be allowed to protect their shiny pennies from deployment taskings. Having done a full 3-year joint tour, I am convinced that some folks from other services simply don't/won't get airpower. Whether due to good old fashioned service parochialism or being blinded by their paradigms, it can take a huge amount of effort before they get a clue. Personal example: try telling a long-tab Special Forces guy that, no, you can't just launch a plane, get dip clearances to overfly Country X while the plane is en route, and get those dips communicated to the crew in a matter of a few hours (at which time the plane would be entering Country X's airspace). Even talking really slowly and using simple words didn't help. Motivation and effort can get people to do some pretty amazing things, but--barring something truly extraordinary (and this situation wasn't all that urgent)--not stuff like that. To some extent, the only way to prevent stupid ideas is to put air-savvy folks in positions of rank/responsibility, so they can tell those from other services to shut up and color when they push horribly bad ideas. What to do about it? Since this is the SOS/ACSC thread, I'll suggest the following: - The only requirement for teaching a PME program should be having attended that PME program (think ACSC & SAASS). Or, perhaps better yet, have your active-duty ACSC and SAASS instructors be guys who are smart and have decent operational backgrounds (but are not in-res types) be the instructors. Funny, we hear about the ACTS bomber mafia, and how it somehow managed to brainwash a generation of interwar leaders with their strategic bombing doctrine, yet we forget that for most of them the only academic qualification they had was their ACTS diploma. By eliminating the need to have active-duty folks with the "right" credentials to teach courses, we can maximize the number of "shiny penny" types out in the field, doing useful work. - Have some form of a companion trainer program at Maxwell/the P-gon/perhaps other bases, so that quality individuals can meet their flying gates and maintain their sanity/some semblance of connection to the flying world while teaching/working as staff weenies. Worked pretty well in the ACTS days. - Rather than falling all over ourselves to celebrate biological diversity--race/gender/sexuality--for schools/promotion, select based on merit, while ensuring a mix of the best & brightest from across the mission sets (experiential diversity) Plenty of other ideas, most of them probably better than mine... TT

I get what you're saying, but I don't see how failures in Iraq and Afghanistan (the 15 years of losing wars you refer to) indicate failures within the Air Force. Somehow, I don't think the strategic decision to put a helluva lot of boots on the ground in Afghanistan, in order to try to turn it into a modern Jeffersonian democracy, was driven by Air Force leaders. Likewise, was it not the ground planners' responsibility to win the argument that they needed more soldiers/marines for the Iraq invasion, in order to forestall an insurgency? Somehow, during all this, I don't recall the CENTCOM commander billet being filled by an Air Force general. I absolutely believe that we need to have competent Air Force senior leaders in positions of authority in the joint arena--and we need adequate numbers of quality folks in value-added joint FGO billets--in order to keep our civilian masters and morons in other services from dragging us into more quagmires (which no amount of airpower--whether A-10s or F-35s--can unscrew). GC/our overall senior leaders' approach to growing/placing leaders--not ones who fit a magical formula and timeline, but folks who truly get the proper employment of airpower and who understand that the social justice and square-filling culture they're implementing is antithetical to taking care of people--ain't helping our cause. Neither is the failure to provide adequate incentives to keep people in, nor is the failure to eliminate the many needless irritants that drive people with better options away from the service. Beat up our senior Air Force leaders all you want--they provide plenty of material--but I don't see how they can be blamed for getting and keeping us in ground force-centric quagmires. TT

And a touch tone-deaf...

Copy all; problem is it's awfully hard to find civilian schools where true critical thinking is happening. I can only speak to the history side, but in current-day academia, what passes for critical thinking is figuring out how to take a historical event--no matter what the event is--and turn it into race/class/gender/sexuality narrative. Not many schools out there with military historians who actually do operational mil history. Good on ya' for reading Tooze, btw--I'm still bitter at him for not writing a good conclusion chapter. Regarding ACTS, the bottom line is this: the majority of the faculty in the mid-30s were fighter pilots, and the vast majority of the students were fighter pilots, too. A substantial number of instructors and students were graduates of ivy league schools; Hal George forewent the opportunity to clerk for a Supreme Court justice to become a pilot. Grandison Gardner had a master's from MIT. Leon Johnson (he was just a student, not instructor) had a master's from Cal Tech. I could go on. Possum Hansell had a master's in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech. He entered ACTS as a fighter pilot--he was even part of Chennault's demo team--and graduated a diehard bomber advocate. Bottom line, despite being outnumbered, the bomber mafiosos somehow still got everyone to buy into the notion of unescorted HAPDB doctrine. Either the fighter instructors--which included future four-stars Vandenberg and Partridge--couldn't argue their way out of wet paper sack, or (more plausibly) the bomber guys made some pretty darn good arguments. If you're really interested, Conrad Crane just came out with a new book, American Airpower Strategy in World War II: Bombs, Cities, Civilians, and Oil. I haven't read it yet; it'll probably screw up everything I know about WW II strategic bombing. TT

I get what you're saying, but I think you're missing my point. The men I mentioned were effective as both combat leaders and as organizational leaders of an Air Force that was substantially larger than the one we have today, despite having gotten little in the way of PME. Bottom line, I see no evidence that having those who are being groomed for senior Air Force leadership spend so much of their careers in school (as indicated in my previous post) directly correlates to proportional increases of battlefield effectiveness or at the very least organizational efficiency. To get more academic-like, there's an imbedded counterfactual in your argument--you seem to indicate that: (1) if the functional equivalent of USAFA/AFROTC, ASBC, SOS, JPME II and Air War College had existed before the war (arguably ACSC already existed, in the form of ACTS), and (2) Tooey Spaatz, Hoyt Vandenberg, Nate Twining, Tommy White, Curt LeMay, etc., had the spent more time in those schools, that the Air Force wouldn't have been so bomber-myopic during the Second World War and the early Cold War. In fact, I would say the opposite is true. If they had spent more time getting the HAPDB doctrine preached to them during the interwar years, would they not have been even more misguided? The weird thing is that the first dyed-in-the-wool bomber pilot to become CSAF was John D. Ryan--in 1969. His six predecessors--Spaatz, Vandenberg, Twining, White, LeMay (yes, even including Curt LeMay) and McConnell--started their careers as fighter pilots. All but LeMay were, if anything, more aligned with fighters than bombers throughout the bulk of their respective careers. If they were bomber zealots, even though they came from fighter backgrounds and spent little to no time in PME schools which preached the virtues of strategic bombing, I can only imagine how bomber-focused they would have been in a more fully-articulated interwar airpower PME system. You mention SAASS, which highlights a significant concern about the period of over-professionalization: - Step 1: take your smartest, highest-potential folks from the already-selective IDE pool and put them through an additional year at SAASS (so far so good) - Step 2: pick the smartest/most articulate SAASS students and sponsor them to get their PhDs (taking them out of operations for another three years--not so good). This is done because unwashed non-SAASS grads certainly couldn't teach SAASS students, and surely if a little education is good, then more must certainly be better. - Step 3: send those smart guys to schools that aren't configured to let them get through in 3 years (which describes most civ Ph.D. programs), such that only about half complete their Ph.D. programs on time (oops--our very smartest folks spend up to 5 straight years in school--IDE-SAASS-Civ Ph.D) and now half of them are screwed (five years out of ops/not exactly operationally relevant, yet don't have Ph.D.s in hand, so can't teach at SAASS, as originally intended--really not good) But we have to risk ruining our smartest folks' careers and denying the valuable services they otherwise could be providing to the operational Air Force because having more PME credentials and spending more time in school is magically going to make us smarter than real-world experience. Alternatively, the folks who do get their Ph.D.s in the allotted 3-year timeframe spend most of their careers at Maxwell teaching, rather than leading or serving on senior staffs where they could have value-added operational effects. Education is awesome. The hyper-education I see for our senior leaders, which has second- and third-order effects such as I described above, does more harm than good (IMHO). Not trying to get into a pissing contest, but rather hoping for substantive discussion. I do find it interesting that we're arguing about military history, yet you don't specifically list military history as one of the fields we should be sending folks out to study at civ universities. By the way, the faith in strat bombing wasn't blind, certainly not by the end of the war. You can figure that out by reading (former SAASS instructor) Rob Ehler's book Targeting the Third Reich. Perhaps his book and others like his are being ignored in PME. If so, I really don't know why we have such an extensive PME program. I would say you were very lucky to get a SAASS slot, without having had to attend ACSC beforehand. TT

The point, in my mind, is not that we shouldn't be educating our current/future senior leaders, but that we are overeducating them, and in the process losing out on experience and operational credibility. It's Friday, so read on if you want a history lesson: - Spaatz (first USAF Chief of Staff): famously despised his time at CGSS/never went to War College . . . yet effectively led the Army Air Forces during WW II (when the AAF peaked at over 2.4 million men). Given his disdain for PME, the fact that they named the officer education center at Maxwell after him is laughable. - Vandenberg (second CSAF): was best educated of the first 5 CSAFs--ACTS, CGSS & War College--but when he taught pursuit at ACTS, he was somehow was incapable of making the case for fighter development during the interwar period. Even though he was a fighter pilot, he de-emphasized fighters as CSAF. He took over from Spaatz as CSAF in 1948--two years before the Korean War. - Twining (CSAF #3): never attended War College, but served as both CSAF and CJCS - White (CSAF #4): also never attended War College - LeMay (CSAF #5): the 3-month ACTS short course (during the '39-'40 academic year) was the only PME he ever attended in his career. Nonetheless managed to build SAC into an impressive war machine between '48 and '57. Ironically, there's a doctrine center at Maxwell named after the guy, even though he never taught or commanded there. None of those individuals, by the way, got any meaningful airpower instruction in their precommissioning sources, and there was no equivalent to ASBC or SOS for any of them. The Air Corps was part of the Army throughout the interwar period when these guys were CGOs, and the Army wasn't all that enthused about preaching the virtues of airpower back then. Now, along the way to earning four stars, our most senior leaders get: 4 years of undergrad precommissioning airpower education/indoctrination, SOS, perhaps 6 months at a WIC, 1 year of IDE, perhaps 1 more year of SAASS, 2.5 months of JPME II, 1 year of SDE, and probably some other fellowships at ivy league schools along the way. It doesn't appear to me that the professionally overeducated crop of senior Air Force leaders is appreciably more competent than the minimally-educated leaders who kicked the snot out of the Axis in WW II and led a much bigger Air Force during the Cold War than exists today. Education is important, but it's pretty clear to me we've gone a bit overboard with the emphasis on education over practical experience. TT

Perhaps; now that I think about it, probably some combo of late rated, folks medically DQ'd from flying, and physically-qual'd folks who spent too much time in school/nonflying staffs. I don't know, but it was a minor point. The point still stands; between (1) folks hitting 20 yrs and retiring (which I figure a substantial portion will), (2) half of the pilots who bother stay in long enough to meet the O-6 board getting passed over, and (3) some number of the pilots who do get promoted being far removed from actual flying and/or inexperienced (as partially indicated by the number of people with basic or senior pilot wings) . . . the number and AFSC diversity of the pilots who make O-6 is going to be extremely limited. Doesn't seem like a formula for success. TT

Not surprising for the 1990 year group; the Air Force figured, "Hey, we've got plenty of fighter guys! Post-Cold War drawdown/peace dividend and all that . . . we'll pass on creating even more fighter pilots and make a whole bunch of folks third pilots on heavies instead." Shockingly, Big Blue was short of fighter pilots in that year group 13 years later. Here's a snapshot from one of the mid-90s year groups I'm talking about. Apparently the whole '96 commissioning year group has only 335 pilots, of which only 276 are command pilots (don't know what happened to the other 48--it ain't that hard to get that toilet bowl around the star over one's wings). These guys have just started to reach retirement eligibility and (aside from the BTZ types) have yet to meet their primary O-6 board. At least according to the way AFPC keeps track of ACP numbers, there are 40 total aircraft types in the AF: 3 bomber, 8 recce, 6 fighter, 6 mobility, 4 rescue, 9 SOF and 4 RPA. When you throw in OSA and some of the weird airplanes SOF guys fly, the actual number of aircraft types is even higher. Bottom line: as the '96 year group pilots (1) hit the 20-year retirement decision over the next year, and (2) are free agents--no 20 year bonus programs were offered for that year group, and (3) realize there's about zero chance they'll be offered any additional incentives to stay in, I figure that number will probably get cut to half (at least) of what it is now. To me, this means there will likely soon be (if there aren't already) Air Force airframes which don't have a single '96 year group person that's flown them--and this will happen before the O-6 board effectively cuts those numbers even further. Doesn't seem like a recipe for success, when it comes to ensuring we have adequate numbers of O-6s and above who know what they're doing. TT

To back up your point, and others on this forum, the biggest problem is that we are well past decision speed with regard to retaining good folks who are leading us now, and will be into the future. I've seen complaints on this forum--can't remember if in this thread or another one--about the current crop of O-6s. There's a reason for that; it's called rated force management, of which the ACP is just a part. Force management, if done right, not only ensures an adequate supply of line flyers and O-4/O-5 staffers, but also an adequately-large pool of potential senior leaders. - Rant on - The '92-'97 (ish) year groups were undermanned for pilots from the beginning of their flying careers (we had this post-Cold War drawdown, so we just didn't need that much new blood). Folks like GC, who like to stare at Red Line/Blue Line charts that show if particular year groups/AFSCs are over- or undermanned relative to AF requirements, were well aware of this dynamic two decades ago, and knew--shockingly--that undermanning within those year groups could only get worse. Quixotically, right around the time when most of the folks from those year groups started coming up on the ends of their SUPT commitments, they got rid of the 20 and 25 years of aviation service options (which had been offered in prior years) starting in FY '05. Not only that, but in later years rated force managers like GC cut into manning further by allowing/encouraging/forcing a substantial number of folks from those year groups to separate through VSP/early retirements/forcing out those twice passed over/etc. Guess what? Those '92-'97 year groups are the ones who met O-6 boards over the past few years, or--in the case of '96 and '97--will meet their primary O-6 boards in the next couple years. So: - The last several groups' worth of 11x O-6s were selected from a small pool of 11x O-5s--not a good way to ensure quality - Owing to airline hiring/the inability for the Air Force to compete monetarily/in terms of QoL/ineffective effort by A1 to lead-turn the problem, the next several year groups of folks who hit the O-6 board will be those few who bothered to stay in, when their peers (who only had 5-year commitments and have a golden opportunity to get on with the airlines when the hiring's good) retire in droves It's going to be awfully difficult, even if/when Big Blue finally gets the authority to offer bigger bonuses and/or funds civilians to cover queen so flyers can do their jobs, when our senior leaders are selected more by virtue of remaining on active duty and being able to fog a mirror than quality/experience/education/training. By the time increased flying pay/higher bonuses are put into effect and squadron queep-doers are hired, the long-term damage will be done. By the way, folks like GC could have known all this by just looking at their spreadsheets. Complaints from the field simply amplify what they already should have known. Maybe every single one of those from the early-to-mid 90s year groups who bother to stay in and managed/manage to get promoted to O-6 and above will be super-awesome folks, who are exactly what the service needs to lead us into the future, while of course also meeting all the necessary diversity targets. My experience indicates we don't have the depth and breadth of talent we need in the aforementioned year groups, but I could be wrong. I sure hope so, considering some of those who were selected for O-6 by virtue of being the best of those who are left will stay on active duty for another 10-15 years. - Rant off - TT

Gearpig, I have seen nothing to indicate that GC is in fact a general officer. My best guess is that he's someone who served and/or is serving in HAF/A1M (it seems likely he was an O-4 or O-5 at the Pentagon when he first joined this forum). If that is so, he at best has some insight into GO thinking, but he is not one himself. I don't have time or inclination to go back, look at old posts and sort through the clues, but I think he is being given way too much credit on this forum as someone who truly matters. Based on how long he's been on this forum, I'd guess he's an O-5/O-6 tops. In my mind, he's useful on this forum for giving insight into what the Air Force rated managers might be thinking right now. Given that GC & company: (1) knew--by year group and AFSC--where the rated shortfalls were; (2) had plenty of forewarning for the train wreck that is now upon us, due to the economy growing, forced retirements, 1,500 hour rule, etc.; yet (3) made minimal to no efforts to retain folks in short manned AFSCs/year groups (aside from 11Fs, even though plenty of other AFSCs were--and are--hurting as bad or worse, especially for particular year groups); I can't see how anyone can take this person seriously. The only real question is who should be fired--(1) the staff weenies like GC, who somehow convinced AF senior leaders that the personnel iceberg ahead was inconsequential, (2) the senior leaders who promoted GC and pushed people like him to HAF staff, where he could do this much damage, or (3) the senior leaders GC worked for who were fool enough to listen to the stupidity GC and his peers were spewing? If we're sending our notional best and brightest to the Pentagon, so they can blindly follow scripted personnel playbooks then we truly have lost our way. It is difficult to heed a call to duty from someone who failed to do his as a rated manager . . . assuming he is who he says he is. TT