Air Force to begin testing enlisted pilots

[SPAWNmaster]

I'm just going to leave this right here....

 

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2017/12/06/enlisted-combat-pilots-the-air-force-is-launching-a-test-that-could-lead-to-that/

[Swizzle]

Check two other threads...we're already talking about this...

 

Time to lock this down, then "File 13"

[Guest]

Currently the longest enlistment term is 6+2 in the IRR. How can this possibly be seen as a good COA? Wider pay gap between enlisted and airline pay than officer/airline with a shorter contract??? Doubt anyone would stay past their initial enlistment.

[HU&W]

14 minutes ago, ihtfp06 said:

Currently the longest enlistment term is 6+2 in the IRR. How can this possibly be seen as a good COA? Wider pay gap between enlisted and airline pay than officer/airline with a shorter contract??? Doubt anyone would stay past their initial enlistment.

Easy.  20 year enlistment.

[disgruntledemployee]

12 minutes ago, ihtfp06 said:

Currently the longest enlistment term is 6+2 in the IRR. How can this possibly be seen as a good COA? Wider pay gap between enlisted and airline pay than officer/airline with a shorter contract??? Doubt anyone would stay past their initial enlistment.

Easy fix.

1. Gather those Es that want to pilot

2. Put em in the pipeline (good luck, I hear its full)

3. Upon completion of UPT, they commission as 2d Lt, start a 10yr ADSC, and begin their journey towards the airlines.  Welcome to the party, folks.

4. Oh, and to qualify they need a 4yr degree.

In the end they look just like any other pilot.

Out

[LiquidSky]

1 minute ago, disgruntledemployee said:

Easy fix.

1. Gather those Es that want to pilot

2. Put em in the pipeline (good luck, I hear its full)

3. Upon completion of UPT, they commission as 2d Lt, start a 10yr ADSC, and begin their journey towards the airlines.  Welcome to the party, folks.

4. Oh, and to qualify they need a 4yr degree.

In the end they look just like any other pilot.

Out

Why not just send them to ots first then like I currently done with the few prior e that do get picked up? Especially in reserve units and such. 

And how does this in anyway fix or alleviate the shortage of pilots as their is no additional throughput unless a new base opens for upt or incentive/way/method to get those people to extend beyond 6/10/etc years?  

[BashiChuni]

it sounds like their building a new pipe...

[hindsight2020]

The Moody UPT re-activation is still in the vaporware stage. 

[Azimuth]

Maintainers made the worst Boom students with the “I fix the jet, I know how everything works.”

This will be a terrible idea.

[flyusaf83]

Good lord, the AF is desperate. This in no way will help production (more likely to hurt it - more washouts) and will result in worse retention.  And that’s just the numbers side of it, not even touching the host of problems posed by enlisted ACs.

Who in God’s name is steering this ship?

[AZwildcat]

3 hours ago, flyusaf83 said:

Who in God’s name is steering this ship?

Right?

Someone literally just asked a question at a CSAF all-call about enlisted pilot opportunities and he said not right now, because we have a retention problem, not a recruiting problem...there is no shortage of people willing to raise their hand to fly  So WTFO?  What problem are we trying to fix again?

[HAWDINGL]

Growing up we had a family friend who flew P-38’s in WW2. He said the requirement when he signed up was 2 yrs of college to become a pilot. I understand at one point they also had enlisted “flight officer” pilots. I’m guessing requirements shifted as the needs increased. Why not try dropping the requirement to two years of college to get a commission before doing away with the requirement all together.

 

Other than money, and the few who really want to lead the paperwork war,... why would anyone want to become an officer? It’s my understanding that O’s who are pilots in the Army get stuck as paper pushers, while the WO’s are the combat leaders in the plane/helo. I think we have a few people on this forum that could speak to the validity/invalidity of that.

 

At the end of the day, this is just another way for the Air Force to fix the problem by not addressing the real problem.

 

 

[Day Man]

31 minutes ago, HAWDINGL said:

At the end of the day, this is just another way for the Air Force to fix the problem

What problem are they fixing though? Like @AZwildcat said, there's no shortage of pilot candidates. The problem is still training capabilities and retention of seasoned guys...

[MCO]

29 minutes ago, HAWDINGL said:

Growing up we had a family friend who flew P-38’s in WW2. He said the requirement when he signed up was 2 yrs of college to become a pilot. I understand at one point they also had enlisted “flight officer” pilots. I’m guessing requirements shifted as the needs increased. Why not try dropping the requirement to two years of college to get a commission before doing away with the requirement all together.

 

Other than money, and the few who really want to lead the paperwork war,... why would anyone want to become an officer? It’s my understanding that O’s who are pilots in the Army get stuck as paper pushers, while the WO’s are the combat leaders in the plane/helo. I think we have a few people on this forum that could speak to the validity/invalidity of that.

 

At the end of the day, this is just another way for the Air Force to fix the problem by not addressing the real problem.

 

 

Apples and oranges. Your argument would mean that there are currently no combat leaders flying aircraft in the entire Air Force, and I would disagree. There isn't as much of a problem with helo pilots bailing out of the Army because there are a lot less helo jobs out in the world to entice them. There is also some validity to the AC being an officer, especially on the mobility side, and having some authority to protect his crew and mission. I would assume this also applies to the CAF side but I'm not as familiar with it. The main argument against enlisted flyers right now is that they  will bail for the airlines in higher number than Os because the pay gap will be even higher.

The problem as stated many times before is not that we don't have enough people that want to be pilots, its just that we aren't making them fast enough, and we can't keep them in. Making enlisted or warrant pilots does absolutely nothing to fix that problem. It just gets some people some headlines, makes it look like options are being looked at, and in my opinion is pushed to show enlisted can do it just as well as Os. Probably true, but it doesn't matter it only exacerbates the problem.

My question is why would you not want to become an officer if everyone else is?

[JustHangingOut]

54 minutes ago, HAWDINGL said:

Other than money, and the few who really want to lead the paperwork war,... why would anyone want to become an officer? It’s my understanding that O’s who are pilots in the Army get stuck as paper pushers, while the WO’s are the combat leaders in the plane/helo. I think we have a few people on this forum that could speak to the validity/invalidity of that.

At the end of the day, this is just another way for the Air Force to fix the problem by not addressing the real problem.

As an Army guy myself, the O-grade vs WO-grade on paper is supposed to work as the WO's are the subject matter experts and flying is there thing.  Officers will be in a line unit for a short time as an LT, leave for staff, and potentially come back to the line as a commander as an O-3, but that doesn't always happen.  Sometimes LT's get put with a forward support company being in charge of fuelers, maintenances, feeding sections, etc...and only fly bare minimums to keep current....then go to staff, and then put command of another support company of some kind.

the WO's tend to stay in the line longer, however, as O's move around often they end up inheriting a lot of Officer additional duties.  I'v even heard of WO's as company commanders and got all the work that goes along with it.

I have plenty of WO's in my company that are very bitter and are headed out in one way or another (another reason I'm on here).  There is a mass exodus of Army pilots now.  It is not as publicized but the force is dwindling fast because now about 6 regional carriers will pay for us to get our FW certs and fly for them on a 1-2 year contract.  The big Army refuses to admit there is a problem let alone a massive pilot shortage.  the CCWO (command chief WO...basically the big kahuna WO) put out a memo basically saying "the army will still be the army without you"

Hope this helps

 

[NKAWTG]

The pool of candidates for flight training is as large as its ever been.   If you want to increase it,  just lower the ADSC back to 6 or 8 years.  

As everyone is foot stomping, the problem is a training pipeline capacity issue.  And a retention issue on the back end.  Changing the entry requirements won't allow you to train any more.

Also what happens 10 years from now when the airline hiring wave has crested and these huge year groups that were pushed through stay because opportunity on the outside has dried up.  It's not like we just had a 10 year stop loss to RIF/VSP cycle. 

[HU&W]

I think what we have here is AETC trying to put in their own solutions when the root cause (and solution) is in AFPC.

[Sprkt69]

9 hours ago, NKAWTG said:

The pool of candidates for flight training is as large as its ever been.   If you want to increase it,  just lower the ADSC back to 6 or 8 years.  

As everyone is foot stomping, the problem is a training pipeline capacity issue.  And a retention issue on the back end.  Changing the entry requirements won't allow you to train any more.

Also what happens 10 years from now when the airline hiring wave has crested and these huge year groups that were pushed through stay because opportunity on the outside has dried up.  It's not like we just had a 10 year stop loss to RIF/VSP cycle. 

The huge glaring issue is absorption rates. The CAF just cannot absorb the numbers in any meaningful way while still keeping quality at a high level. It would not matter if the FTUs could double the output, there would just be nowhere to go for the numbers they are trying to push.

Who knows, maybe they are just trying to help the Airlines out with all the “excess pilots” during the next RIF/VSP cycle.

[Breckey]

10 hours ago, MCO said:

There isn't as much of a problem with helo pilots bailing out of the Army because there are a lot less helo jobs out in the world to entice them. 

Which is one of the reasons why the 11H retention is so high

[YoungnDumb]

Wonder if the E's will get out of all the queep and just be allowed to fly?

[herkbier]

9 hours ago, YoungnDumb said:

Wonder if the E's will get out of all the queep and just be allowed to fly?

Doubtful. Look at how brand new copilots get office jobs and tons of addl duties when they show to their squadrons

[LookieRookie]

11 minutes ago, jonlbs said:

taskandpurpose.com/no-enlisted-pilots-air-force/

 

little more detailed info on the plan

All that tells me is JBSA's PA doesn't really know what's going on and just has some talking points.

[ThreeHoler]

A guy who is part of the team is posting on the TPN Facebook page.

[Hacker]

So let's see just how many different possible solutions the AF can come up with to sidestep fixing the actual retention issues.

[RTB]

.  

2 hours ago, Hacker said:

So let's see just how many different possible solutions the AF can come up with to sidestep fixing the actual retention issues.

It's absurd.  The amount of time, money and energy going into ideas that will NOT fix the exodus is just staggering.