Pilot Shortage Deepens, USAF is SCREWED.

[Guardian]

Gen Goldfien,
You’re doing a great job. You understand what’s important and have the most combat street cred of any CSAF in the last 20 years. That said, if you let combat capability worth $Billions walk out the door to save $300m annually in bonus money, you’ll destroy our Air Force. None of these slides talk about the cost of a $100k bonus (a pittance) vs the exponentially increased costs of continual experienced pilot backfill production. The bottom line - if you don’t pay us more, you will continue to spend $Billions to solve the airlines’ pilot production problems. You’re making them money. Most of us see staying in the Air Force as the equivalent of paying $Millions in opportunity costs to continue serving. It’s hard to look at the wife and kids and tell them that we’re forgoing all that money and QOL to keep going on adventures. Army vets in Congress pushing back? Joint Staff complaining? They don’t understand the problem. Tell it like it is.
 
Sincerely,
A 2x MWS IP

No sense in lying to him or buttering him up. In no way shape or form is he doing a great job. He’s a douche. He is part of the problem.

[di1630]

Just remember, we have enough pilots to fly F-22’s to bomb poppy processing huts in Afghanistan....this crisis is a crisis on paper and meeting numbers set on what we theoretically need to theoretically fight a theoretical war.

Once they are unable to send people to drill holes in the sky for 6 months over the desert I’ll worry slightly...til then, helluva a show.

[matmacwc]

1 hour ago, nunya said:

High or low?

High, by the time you can take the bonus your standing in the AF is pretty easy to figure out, the opportunities on the outside are just too good to deal with the BS. 

[pilotguy]

1 hour ago, ihtfp06 said:

Uh, since when did they ever offer 50? It’s been capped at 25 by Federal Law until a couple years ago, and it’s currently capped at 35.

I’m pretty sure congress authorized 50 but the AF chose the lower amounts. Same as flight pay. The AF chose to give out less money than was authorized in both cases

[jazzdude]

I’m pretty sure congress authorized 50 but the AF chose the lower amounts. Same as flight pay. The AF chose to give out less money than was authorized in both cases

Other way around for the bonus: AF wanted more, congress authorized less. Flight pay: congress authorized more, AF gave less than authorized.

[pilotguy]

Same with the BRS bonus. Congress authorized up to 13X base pay dependent on the needs of the AF......we got the bare minimum of 2.5....joke

[Hunter Rose]

2 hours ago, ihtfp06 said:

Uh, since when did they ever offer 50? It’s been capped at 25 by Federal Law until a couple years ago, and it’s currently capped at 35.

Must be my memory slipping in my old age. Could have sworn they offered fighter guys $50K/yr a year or two after I took my bonus, but maybe they had the option for 50% up front or could sign twice as long. Don't let my mistatement derail the thread.  Bottom line bonus needs needs to be $50-65K this year.

The other thing AF needs to realize is they have to get rid of the service commitments associated with the bonus too.  Just offer $50-65K extra per year when your UPT ADSC expires.  Even if a pilot only stays for 1-2 more years it's money well spent.  

In the last year I've sat in on more than one brief with GOs who were convinced it's SOLELY QoL and money plays no factor whatsoever.  With the amount of surveys I've gotten dealing with pay and bonuses hopefully that is starting to change. Money's the only fix to help stem the outflow for the next 3-5 years until QoL cultural changes can start having an effect.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 14, 2018 by Hunter Rose

[pilotguy]

26 minutes ago, jazzdude said:

30 minutes ago, pilotguy said:

I’m pretty sure congress authorized 50 but the AF chose the lower amounts. Same as flight pay. The AF chose to give out less money than was authorized in both cases

Other way around for the bonus: AF wanted more, congress authorized less. Flight pay: congress authorized more, AF gave less than authorized.

Ya that’s right that’s right.

[sqwatch]

 
Sincerely,
A 2x MWS IP

Droids count as .5

[Guest]

I’m pretty sure congress authorized 50 but the AF chose the lower amounts. Same as flight pay. The AF chose to give out less money than was authorized in both cases

House wanted 48k in the last NDAA, Senate (McCain) insisted on it staying 35k. The Senate also wanted to include language that would automatically reduce the bonus for an MDS the following year when the take rate surpassed a certain percentage. Fortunately that didn’t make the final bill.

[ARAMP1]

3 hours ago, Hunter Rose said:

The $35K bonus is a joke .

Yup...I've made that in a busy month on second year pay at FedEx.  It requires a little extra flying at draft pay and skipping out on your one weekend-a-month drill.  

[raimius]

Contracting out all helicopter training...I'm sure that'll work well...

At least we know how valuable we are!

[Breckey]

We won’t mind, we have the best retention after all.

[Hacker]

Yes, and that is how the bed you've made over the last 15 years feels to sleep on, Big Blue.

[Sprkt69]

2 hours ago, raimius said:

Contracting out all helicopter training...I'm sure that'll work well...

At least we know how valuable we are!

The great part is an O-6 in the ACTF downgraded all the MAJCOM commander’s (AFSOC, GSC and ACC) “Critically non-concur” to their helicopter plan to just a “non-concur” for the CSAF. 

So no biggie.

Edited February 15, 2018 by Sprkt69

[war007afa]

So what these slides tell me is the bonus isn’t the answer. It’s increasing flight pay across the Total Force. When shortages grow in the ARC this quickly, it’s fairly apparent you have a compensation problem (in addition to the continuing cultural problems). 

[pilotguy]

So we will overpay for contractors to teach upt, overpay for a new trainer, and fly our current airplanes into the ground trying to fix this..........why can’t we just pay current pilots more. Would be exponentially cheaper. 

1 million for 8 years, 500k up front....take rate goes from low 40s to high 80s overnight. This isn’t hard

[Majestik Møøse]

7 hours ago, sqwatch said:

 

Droids count as .5

 

Oh, ok then. “2.0 MWS IP”. I got the significant digits wrong, thanks.

[pawnman]

I'm really surprised the bomber manning is that good.  The B-1 FTU is staring down the barrel of having something like 5 IPs leave over the summer, with no projected inbounds.

[pawnman]

11 hours ago, di1630 said:

Just remember, we have enough pilots to fly F-22’s to bomb poppy processing huts in Afghanistan....this crisis is a crisis on paper and meeting numbers set on what we theoretically need to theoretically fight a theoretical war.

Once they are unable to send people to drill holes in the sky for 6 months over the desert I’ll worry slightly...til then, helluva a show.

How about enough to fill instructor slots at UPT and FTUs while also having enough instructors in the squadron to keep it running?

[di1630]

How about enough to fill instructor slots at UPT and FTUs while also having enough instructors in the squadron to keep it running?

There are plenty of people sharing airspace over undisclosed locations doing the square root of F-all who could be conus instructing and teaching new pilots while seeing their families/friends at night vs spending months without a beer.

10 min ago I had a young Capt complaining to me about the worthless missions he’s been flying and how little he sees his wife. He’s 4 years in and already salty, disgruntled and disappointed with the reality of being a fighter pilot in 2018 vs what he expected.

It’s still better than most jobs out there but when better pay and lifestyle (airlines) is available and the thrill of flying fighters is checked off with little hope of improvement, I 100% understand why dudes jump early.

[gearhog]

7 hours ago, pilotguy said:

So we will overpay for contractors to teach upt, overpay for a new trainer, and fly our current airplanes into the ground trying to fix this..........why can’t we just pay current pilots more. Would be exponentially cheaper. 

1 million for 8 years, 500k up front....take rate goes from low 40s to high 80s overnight. This isn’t hard

The Air Force isn't interested in saving money, it's interested in spending money. Take a look at historical budgets across the AF. Money never actually gets "saved", it gets moved. Falling short of the 12,696.9 pilots the Air Force says it needs is being called a "crisis", but we're larger than the next 10 or whatever Air Forces combined. (I don't know if that's accurate. i made that up).  Even if we reach a point where a lack of pilots results in excess flying hour program money, they'll simply shrug and move that money elsewhere.

Calling this a crisis with impressive presentations of stats on ppt is a tool to be used to fund new programs and acquisitions. If the Air Force has to choose between paying a few guys to stay in a few more years, or potentially being funded for new initiatives costing hundreds of millions to increase pilot production, they're going to go with the latter.

 

 

[Prozac]

4 hours ago, pawnman said:

How about enough to fill instructor slots at UPT and FTUs while also having enough instructors in the squadron to keep it running?

How many Wing, Group, & Sq execs at those bases?  How many jobs across the AF being done by guys with wings that could just as easily be done by someone else, or better yet, eliminated all together?  How many bullshit missions being flown just to show the AF is all in? How many flown just to close out flying hours? How much time wasted fucking around in DTS, dealing with pay, mpf, and myriad other tasks that should be done by support personnel,you know, to, like, support the operators? There is LOTS of low hanging fruit here, but seemingly very little motivation to actually harvest it. 

[Lord Ratner]

I'm really surprised the bomber manning is that good.  The B-1 FTU is staring down the barrel of having something like 5 IPs leave over the summer, with no projected inbounds.

Don't be. The numbers are certainly worse. For AD mobility they are showing a surplus. Sure didn't look like a surplus on the tanker side of things... But when you can change the denominator without any real justification, 100% is easy to achieve.

Sometime between 06 and 07 being able to separate, stop loss will hit.

[Blue]

2 hours ago, torqued said:

The Air Force isn't interested in saving money, it's interested in spending money.

Quoted for truth.