Pilot Shortage Deepens, USAF is SCREWED.

[pilotguy]

7 minutes ago, Termy said:

The age 65 change arguably had an equal or greater effect than the economy.  We could have another recession and it barely affect airline hiring.

The next recession won’t hit the airlines hear as hard. They are smarter now and more prepared

[hindsight2020]

I'm still amazed at how they can get away with painting a fake target on the production side and so egregiously dismiss and deny the retention side. Basically that means, as has been posted on here ad nauseam already, that senior management point blank knows the issue IS retention, but has fvck all interest in acknowledging the retention grievances. Basically writing off retention as a sunk cost. WOW. The level of misappropriation of taxpayer funds that goes along with that attitude is epic.

Their only problem is they can't stand up in front of C-SPAN and give such a ballwalk-level allocution of their sentiments, and immediately be called out as derelict by Congress of course. So all you'll get is this troll level 69 obfuscation of the facts at hand, and the privately-held HOPE the economy tanks and they can solve retention that way (the historical way). Forget dereliction, that's borderline documentable cowardice in the conduct of their duty. Didn't we hang people for that in the past?

[Champ Kind]

Has anyone in Congress hit up AF leadership during testimony regarding retention?

[EvilEagle]

4 hours ago, ColoradoAviator said:

 

 

Where are these undermanned AFRC & ANG units and what do they fly?

From my experience all the units I’ve talked to have the drawn-out, picky, secret-decoder-ring hiring process. Must live local and have three first cousins in the unit to be considered.

 

Everyone in the ANG F-15 business is undermanned.  Hiring everyone that applies off the street is not the fix to this problem - still need to be picky in hiring.  It's a problem with the imbalance of AD (3 squadrons) to ANG (6 squadrons).   

[pilotguy]

Calling it production immediately takes the responsibility off of the commanders. 

Calling it production also means commanders don’t have to try and fix retention anymore. They don’t even have to talk about it inside their squadrons. Whereas before, they did...

Edited February 17, 2018 by pilotguy

[YoungnDumb]

I forget who said it but the AF has given up on retention and is focusing on production anymore.  Let's be honest, why admit you made a mistake when you can blame it on someone else?

[Duck]

Airlines and USAF pushing for retirement age to go to 67. That’s the only thing they both agree on. Lol

[Fireball]

I think many people are missing the point to a degree. Yes, this is a retention problem. However, there is also a production problem, too, because retention has gotten so bad. This is proposal (of several hopefully) to fix part of the entire problem. And it isn't focusing on culture, support, dwell, or money because this is AETC, the command responsible for producing pilots, trying to figure out how to increase production.

Obviously things need to get better, but let's not shit on the people looking at different ways to fix a significant part of the problem.

[BashiChuni]

false. the air force has been very successfully producing pilots...for a long time. production is not a "significant part of the problem". that type of thinking IS the problem.

if a water pipe in my house breaks i don't call the water company and tell them they need to pump more water to my house. "you're not producing enough water!"

it's ridiculous when you think of it that way.

someone needs to stand up with some cojones and say "no we cannot fix this with production. production is not the problem. and we will make unintended problems trying to increase production on 50 year old aircraft or cutting syllabus sorties."

but that's not built into how we think in the military. every problem is "solvable".

Edited February 17, 2018 by BashiChuni

[DuckHunter]

I'm beginning to wonder if the decision to eventually enact stop loss hasn't already been made.  Could be the reason why retention hasn't been a focus, because they know deep down they will retain us anyway.  This way they save some money regardless of what it will do to morale.

[Jaded]

59 minutes ago, Fireball said:

I think many people are missing the point to a degree. Yes, this is a retention problem. However, there is also a production problem, too, because retention has gotten so bad. This is proposal (of several hopefully) to fix part of the entire problem. And it isn't focusing on culture, support, dwell, or money because this is AETC, the command responsible for producing pilots, trying to figure out how to increase production.

Obviously things need to get better, but let's not shit on the people looking at different ways to fix a significant part of the problem.

Welcome to Baseops, random guy who just happens to use his second post to defend AETC.

[flyusaf83]

1 hour ago, Fireball said:

I think many people are missing the point to a degree. Yes, this is a retention problem. However, there is also a production problem, too, because retention has gotten so bad. This is proposal (of several hopefully) to fix part of the entire problem. And it isn't focusing on culture, support, dwell, or money because this is AETC, the command responsible for producing pilots, trying to figure out how to increase production.

Obviously things need to get better, but let's not shit on the people looking at different ways to fix a significant part of the problem.

Cool. Can you point me to the AF slides that detail how they plan on improving retention (pay and QoL)?  I’m all for a multipronged solution, but the AF is only working one side of the problem, and it happens to be the side that isn’t an actual problem (production).  

So pardon us when we don’t trust AF management to fix the self-induced problem they can’t even admit to, let alone fix.

[Fireball]

26 minutes ago, Jaded said:

Welcome to Baseops, random guy who just happens to use his second post to defend AETC.

Not exactly defending AETC, but production is the only part they can really take the lead on. So I guess I am. Oh well.

I understand that production didn't get us here, but now it is so bad that retention alone can't fix the problem. Hence the need to increase production.

But if that's the only solution, we're not fixing anything.

[Fireball]

1 minute ago, flyusaf83 said:

Cool. Can you point me to the AF slides that detail how they plan on improving retention (pay and QoL)?  I’m all for a multipronged solution, but the AF is only working one side of the problem, and it happens to be the side that isn’t an actual problem (production).  

So pardon us when we don’t trust AF management to fix the self-induced problem they can’t even admit to, let alone fix.

Pay and retention really aren't in AETC's wheelhouse are they? Pay at the very least is a HAF problem. You can't just take some slides from AETC and then proclaim that the Air Force is ignoring QoL and pay. Though they very well may be.

[BashiChuni]

Maybe AETC should grow a pair and call a spade a spade. 

[flyusaf83]

22 minutes ago, Fireball said:

Pay and retention really aren't in AETC's wheelhouse are they? Pay at the very least is a HAF problem. You can't just take some slides from AETC and then proclaim that the Air Force is ignoring QoL and pay. Though they very well may be.

Pay isn’t in AETC’s wheelhouse, sure.  But retention absolutely should be.  Your lack of accountability for them shows how leadership has gotten away with being so toxic. Commanders at every level should be held accountable for how their actions affect pilot retention.  Maybe if commanders were actually being held accountable for how they treat their people, we wouldn’t be in this mess.  But that’s not how leadership works in the AF... you get rewarded for taking care of your boss, not your people.  In fact I’ve been told by management that excessive pilot morale is bad optics because it makes non-pilots feel bad about themselves.  Until leaders like that, in AETC and elsewhere, are shitcanned, retention will continue to plummet.

As far as your point that this half-ass plan doesn’t mean that other AF leaders aren’t focused on retention, I call bullshit.  Show me.  Show me the AFs plan to retain us.  AF leaders, above AETC’s level, are not focusing on retention at all.  So when they come out with all these measures to improve the non-problem of production, they deserve every ounce of shame and ridicule they get.  

[HossHarris]

6 hours ago, pilotguy said:

The next recession won’t hit the airlines hear as hard. They are smarter now and more prepared

That’s why I have all my retirement money in GoJet and Endeavour stock ....

[pilotguy]

7 minutes ago, HossHarris said:

That’s why I have all my retirement money in GoJet and Endeavour stock ....

Talking about the majors. Nobody cares about the regionals

[brwwg&b]

18 minutes ago, flyusaf83 said:

As far as your point that this half-ass plan doesn’t mean that other AF leaders aren’t focused on retention, I call bullshit.  Show me.  Show me the AFs plan to retain us.  AF leaders, above AETC’s level, are not focusing on retention at all.  So when they come out with all these measures to improve the non-problem of production, they deserve every ounce of shame and ridicule they get.  

This. 

Honestly the AETC info is a pretty good look into how they are looking at fixing their portion of the problem. Sounds like they're willing to "break the mold" and looking at implications greater than 6-9 months down the road, so kudos to them for that. 

As flyusaf83 said though, the real transparency we are all looking for is into the AF's post-AETC portion of the overall master plan. 

1. Ok, you've produced a bunch of pilots. Do we have an ability to train them (MAF/CAF/AFSOC) and absorb them? i.e. do we have a plan for how to distribute them? ala not flooding the FTU's or ops squadrons. The thought process of circa 2012 AFPC isn't going to cut the mustard here. This needs to be a deliberate plan to maximize efficiency.

2. Retention. We've said it here 1,000 times. Some efforts are being made in the stride of Talent Marketplace (we will see how that turns out), but beyond that it seems that all of the major QoL concerns we have are not being addressed. Again, some transparency of the plan (IF THERE IS ONE) would help calm everyone's nerves. In the absence of it, we just have to buck up and wait. 

As an aside - some interesting proposals in the AETC brief. Some of the base/UPT/IFF/OA-X reallocation they are hinting at sounds like to me a consideration for moving T-6s back to Moody (straight to OA-X pipeline, A-29s already there, international/ALP program students) and possibly T-38 IFF as well, to make room for T-X IFF. Also there was a consideration in there to put some students through an Italian UPT/IFF. Wondering if there's any thoughts to opening more exchanges for LIMEX pilots to help absorption. We've seen it already with the F-18 and MCAS F-35 exchanges, possible for more international ones as well? 

[Duck]

Oh God, sending UPT kids to anything run by the Italians... I feel bad for those poor studs. They may be the only AF more fvcked up than ours.

[matmacwc]

1 hour ago, Duck said:

Oh God, sending UPT kids to anything run by the Italians... I feel bad for those poor studs. They may be the only AF more fvcked up than ours.

@di1630 ?

[di1630]

[mention=5633]di1630[/mention] ?

The Europeans in general make the USAF look competent which is scary.

[Danger41]

My ENJJPT experience with Italians was interesting. If the Germans, Dutch, or Norwegians offered an exchange UPT, I think it’d be fine.

I only had student experience there so that’s pretty useless, but Italians didn’t seem to have their feces colocated like the other countries.

[DirtyFlightSuit]

Fireball is just trying to take General Chang's mantle.  So far he's only maybe 25% the troll Chang is so keep trying.

[Majestik Møøse]

21 hours ago, nunya said:

You mean the intern they sent because it wasn't worth C-Suite time?

They sent the guy who has the same decision making power as our CSAF. Both left the meeting with takeaways for their bosses.