ViperMan

I separated primarily due to diminishing "good" locations in which to continue my career. So yeah.

Nope. Next question.

"The 56th Fighter Wing at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona found out last summer it would only get 13 of the 26 F-16 instructor pilots it requested. Rather than spread the pain, the wing commander sent 12 of the new instructors to the 54th Fighter Group at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, which will take over F-16 training as the 56th shifts to F-35 training operations." Finally, a meaningful #1/13. Just remember boys, there's no points for second place.

"The lack of instructors has led some training squadrons to implement stop-gap measures and compensate in other ways in order to use their limited resources in the most efficient way. The 56th Fighter Wing at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona found out last summer it would only get 13 of the 26 F-16 instructor pilots it requested. Rather than spread the pain, the wing commander sent 12 of the new instructors to the 54th Fighter Group at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, which will take over F-16 training as the 56th shifts to F-35 training operations." Finally, a meaningful #1/13...

Assess objectively? Yeah, sure. I won't disparage the bros on the line who have been charged with conducting this experiment, but to think that this "process" will satisfactorily represent the larger issue is a pipe dream from the outset - at least from what I've heard. I'll stand by to be corrected. The impression I'm under is that the set of folks who have been selected to participate in the Austin experiment were selected based on criteria that made it near-certain that they would succeed. Certain individuals are likely to succeed no matter what they do. If we did in fact choose these types to "represent" the viability of a program so it can serve as justification to implement change large-scale upon a group that is a non-representative superset, we're lying to ourselves. I won't for one second state that the Air Force shouldn't investigate better ways of doing business/hacking the mish - but I also won't entertain the idea that this idea was born in a vacuum. It's a response to a separate problem, and a convenient way to save some dough.

Because it's never a good use of time to express the truth. /sarc

Long, long overdue. If you think our acquisition animal sucks at buying aircraft, just watch it try to purchase a satellite. That said, it should be administered by the Air Force - in the same way I imagine the Marines are administered by the Navy (I have no idea)? Zero need to duplicate bureaucracy or build new infrastructure. But it needs its own command, professionals, and to be separate because it is fundamentally different from the "Air" Force.

x 1,000,000,000

A lot of this. NPV is a helpful concept, but it too is only a snapshot of how money works and can work. The gov't assumes a 6.99% discount rate, presently. Personally, I think it should be much, much less (and so does the rest of the corporate world who actually has to pay their bills). The value (cost) of a military pension is enormous, especially when you consider a few long-term factors that will compete against its sustainability. QOL is important, but so is having an income whose purchasing power is invulnerable to inflation.

That's aggressive advice for a first time poster...source documentation?

God-damned poetry.

Not sure that's the best plan 'B' given the reason dudes were bailing when staring down Holloman, but, hey, what do I know? Hopefully we'll learn from our mistakes. How's about a det at Miramar or MacDill? Location, location, location. Good ramp space, airspace (on paper), etc, mean NOTHING when it comes to your after work life. Could have asked me and I would have told them the same thing, probably could have saved them a few hundred million dollars in the process, too. Oh well.

Not sure, but in the long term, they will get them from where they currently come from. Moving from Holloman to Kelly will at least slow the bleeding, which is part of the equation.

Copy. Quarter mil. Show me the money.

Why promote a Lt to Capt to do the same job? I had wings as a 1st Lt, so we're all good right? We all know that enlisted can fly airplanes (no sarcasm), but this is a different flavor of the same argument which suggests that enlisted pilots are a solution to our manning crisis - why pay someone less to do the same job? Does being a General in today's Air Force mean all that much to you now that we all understand the HPO system and the behind-the-scenes of how one makes it to that level in our organization? I would argue that rank has already diminished in importance because it isn't doled out in an egalitarian fashion in our organization, and if you walk around any flying squadron (at least in the fighter world), you'll see that general attitude. People's quals make a bigger difference than the color rank they've stitched on their shoulders. That's one side of the coin. On the other hand, you could argue that rank is a reflection of someone's responsibility (in many cases it is). So someone who has likely achieved every qualification the Air Force has to offer, and has spent a career doing the actual dirty work of the Air Force, not being a "leader" or signing OPRs, or getting selected for some special "development" program, is likely a better candidate to wear higher rank than someone who reads "books" by "authors". I could also make the argument that because the retirement of a Lt Col is worth about a 1/2 million more than that of a Maj, they deserve to be promoted to that level as well. Especially considering that the cumulative risk a career flyer has assumed is much greater than someone who pinned on wings, flew for one or two assignments, and then spent the next 12 years in "school". That person has served our country to a greater extent than a school-weenie, and should be compensated appropriately. Here's an idea: get rid of flight pay and increase my pay scale so I'm compensated at a greater rate than other AFSCs who don't accept the same risk I do. That compensates me now, and in retirement. Raimius' post below is exactly why Lt Col is a necessity.

PSA, no one needs to make a decision until the 31 Dec 2018. So don't rush yourself.

I agree with a lot of what you said, but we definitely view the problem in different terms. I don't think that every hospital in the USAF should be deprecated, and I didn't intend to imply that. But, you can't seriously tell me that we NEED a base hospital at Luke AFB (Phoenix, AZ), hospitals in Dallas, San Antonio, Washington D.C., Salt Lake City, all the redundant and overlapping medical facilities the Navy has in San Diego and elsewhere in garden, costal locations with millions of civilians around. Holloman AFB? Sure. Cannon AFB? Sure. There is valid need for certain locations to have necessary support functions where there is no realistic alternative. My point is that we have EXCESS capacity that could easily be farmed out. Tricare doesn't pay enough? Blah, they can fix that with a flick of a pen. No one (or few) here thinks that pilots alone could accomplish the mission themselves in a vacuum. The point I was making was to say exactly what you said in your post: that it is stupid to compare doctors to pilots in the AF. What's a pilot worth to Microsoft? How bout a Computer Programmer? I'm sure the relative value of each person changes when you swap context, and that is the bottom line: the USAF needs pilots a HELL of a lot more than they need doctors - ANY doctors. Money talks. As far as finance goes, we could do a lot to streamline and simplify their jobs using technology, etc. I don't for one second buy that they aren't capable because they are understaffed. They need to work smarter, not harder. The AF loves to resist change though, and while I'm full of great suggestions for how they can fix themselves, that's not the point of this post.

Sortofish. What I am saying (which deserves its own post), is that the Air Force (as is true with any very large enterprise) needs a bureaucratic means (which it currently has) of selecting from a group of highly qualified and highly motivated individuals to select for their most difficult training pipeline. This ensures a higher probability of success which is vital with extraordinarily expensive training. Requiring someone to have a college degree (any college degree) is in NO WAY too high a bar to preclude someone from competing for pilot training - READ: those people who can't (or don't) make it through 'X' State University, very likely, have ZERO business flying a fighter aircraft, let alone any aircraft in the USAF. This, by definition, precludes much of the enlisted force. The above is in no way saying their are enlisted individuals who "couldn't" 'fly' a fighter or heavy aircraft - lord knows. I know there are many individuals around the world flying fighters who are less than capable. I feel ardently about this because I feel that our national advantage isn't grounded in our Army. It's grounded in our Air Force. And when we give up that advantage, we're asking for F$@%ing trouble. What I see this as is grasping at straws and a mediocre "attempt" to solve a problem. Ultimately the AF needs to stand up and tell the Army to do it's job (another post). This, of course, requires national-level leadership buy-in to a strategy (hasn't seemed like we've had one of those for a while), but why else are these people wearing stars?

Way behind in total salary (maybe), but are you accounting for the amount of insurance required of private doctors? It can be enormous from what I understand, whereas the cost to someone accepting any of those bonuses equals precisely $0.00. You account for $200-300K of med school debt, are you doing the math on $0.00 of med school debt to a mil doc? Difference between these positive and negative numbers begins to add up pretty quickly. We always talk about bringing doctors "in". Do doctors need to be in the military? Does a base located in city X "need" a whole ing hospital? Why don't we just outsource our healthcare to the civilian sector and pay market price? I grant that there are certain specialities that the military needs for reason X, but we do not need the medical infrastructure that we currently have set up to be able to accomplish our mission. There is an awesome (sarcasm) thread on the CAF Fighter Facebook page that is basically just a swinging dick contest between doctors and 11Fs. The point missing from the whole thing is that there is a separate 'sub-economy' in the USAF wherein pilots > doctors: because mission. So it doesn't matter what the USAF pays doctors relative to pilots. If this was a janitor's union, and our mission was sweeping the hallways of junior high schools, no one would care if some of the "help" who checked janitor's balls (who had tons of expensive education) wanted more pay or "deserved" more pay. The mission is hall-sweeping, not ball-checking. Yes.

Sarcastic post aside, I'll answer the questions literally (for sarcastic fun): They won't. Enlisted pilot retention will likely be lower than officer pilot retention. Nail on Cranium, though I will say that it's not so much the 'process' that the academy/rotc/ots puts "you" through (capable people are capable people); rather, the pool of candidates that make it through the other end of those said training pipelines have shown they have the metal to handle the USAF UPT pipeline. This 'cheaper' process enables the USAF to select (from an already select group) individuals who are likely to succeed in a challenging program (which is extraordinarily expensive), which is, arguably, the point of those accession processes. My point is, the whole purpose of accession programs is to save tax payer money by sending the people most likely to graduate through the most expensive training known to man...having a "college degree" and 90 days of marching is not too high a bar to granting that privilege, IMHO. Interesting point, made me think. What does OTS cost relative to the Academy? A penny on the dollar? It costs next to effing nothing to send a bro through OTS, commission a bitch after 90-days, staple a gold bar on his shoulder and proudly salute. What I (cynically) think is that now the leadership is looking for more control. Can't control Capts/Majs/Lt Cols who don't give a F$#% what a two-star says because they realize that that guy is effectively their peer with a few years more experience. Better to have a SSgt F-35 pilot or C-17 pilot who just CAN"T say no, and who can't (legitimately) scoff your ideas. Control. Read Catch-22.

I haven't seen the sweeping push, yet, either, nor do I think their is one. My comment is mostly directed towards all the internet geniuses (/trolls) that come up with bright ideas which haven't even been put through the most basic and obvious thought experiment available to someone with half a brain.

But seriously, not one post on this here internet (anywhere) has successfully addressed the VERY low hanging critique that a lesser-paid individual has LESS incentive to stay in the AF long-term. Read: enlisted pilots have a greater incentive to separate at their first opportunity than do officer pilots. So, given that, how does having enlisted pilots solve our manning problem?

GD I was just "Hall and 'rolled' Oates" - well played, very well played. "using the bodies up as we go" "waking up to fantasy" Yeah, I will not listen to that song the same way again.

Really, REALLY want to get jiggy with it? How bout we let dudes flying trash operate "single seat"? That'll fix MAFs problem overnight. Slides = GREEN. I mean that is the lowest hanging fruit with ultra-high payoff, right?

Production of what? X and XX rides?