New study shows grim outlook for future of Air Force pilot shortage • Hacker News Board

Re: New study shows grim outlook for future of Air Force pilot shortage

#111

Post by Jtsummers » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 6:56 PM UTC

zip1234 wrote: post #32

jwally wrote: post #14

An Anecdotal "I quit" I read a couple of years ago about the (then impending) pilot shortage: https://www.jqpublicblog.com/punching-out-latest-dear-boss-l... Dear Boss, I’ve fucking had it. I’m finally giving up on my Air Force and I’m throwing in the towel. Flying fighter jets is no longer cool enough to outweigh the bullshit, and so I’ve broken the mach for the final time. You’re going to believe that I’m leaving b…

The Air Force wants fighter pilots to end up as generals. In order to do that and compete in the promotion system that is in place in the Air Force, they need to do more than just fly. The fact is that the Air Force wants officers first and pilots second. Perhaps the answer is that pilots should just be warrant officers like in the Army. They can fly their entire career and do just that and nothing else. There would…

This is an issue on the civilian side as well. They're strongly encouraging engineers and scientists to pursue management positions and degrees. They're tacitly discouraging pursuit of higher degrees in science and engineering outside of a few areas (and even there it still turns into resume fodder for management positions). So there's becoming a huge drain on the civilian workforce of experienced people and the new people are too young (fresh grads) to keep up the level of capability their predecessors (now bosses) had (and now expect, but don't understand that the new people have no guidance or mentors).

Re: New study shows grim outlook for future of Air Force pilot shortage

#112

Post by aristophenes » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 6:59 PM UTC

richardhod wrote: post #61

nradov wrote: post #33

The Army also has a pilot shortage, but they've done a little better than the Air Force due to allowing warrant officers to fly. Many pilots just want to fly , they don't want to deal with all the other management responsibilities and staff assignments that come with being a commissioned officer. When the Air Force split off from the Army they decided they only wanted commissioned officers as pilots and eliminated WO…

It's interesting how the US military copied the British class-based system of management, officers v other ranks. It does stymie a lot of creativity and talent.

The way I see this is that the US Air Force does allow enlisted to fly. First, get a college degree, and go through the application process to become an officer. Prior enlisted with the smarts to do it are seen as better officers. Then once you've done that you can get a pilot slot. Why would I want someone who is not willing or able to get a college degree pilot my $150 million dollar jet?

Re: New study shows grim outlook for future of Air Force pilot shortage

#113

Post by wefarrell » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 7:06 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #70

umvi wrote: post #6

Seems like the Air Force is trapped in a vicious underhiring/overhiring cycle. When I was in college I did Air Force ROTC. A lot of my peers had pilot slots; I was poised as a 17D (Cyber Ops). After graduating, my training date was put on hold virtually indefinitely. Eventually I got an email that the Air Force had commissioned way too many officers and were looking for people to voluntarily leave with no commitment/…

> looking for people to voluntarily leave with no commitment/obligation - seemed like a good deal How’s that a good deal? Presumably you wanted to join and now that’s something you’d never get to do?

The key word being voluntarily.

If they really wanted to join for the sake of joining they weren't going to be forced out. Otherwise you get free college (worth up to 200K in the US) for a small amount of weekly training. That's an insanely good deal.

Re: New study shows grim outlook for future of Air Force pilot shortage

#114

Post by jessaustin » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 7:07 PM UTC

fatbird wrote: post #108

tomohawk wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in this case. He's already going to get retirement benefits. Now, he's being payed a lot more, and part of that pay is for an additional retirement benefit. Contracting is really for short term needs. You pay short term wages (which bundle in insurance, retirement, profit, etc) for contractors. However, if the organization will continue to have that same need for several years, then paying people short term wages…

But now he doesn't fly planes, which saves them a lot of money, and I doubt he'd have voluntarily transitioned within service from jets to drones, no?

,,,voluntarily transitioned within service...

My impression is that very little about the military is voluntary. If they need pilots to fly different craft, the pilots will fly different craft.

Re: New study shows grim outlook for future of Air Force pilot shortage

#115

Post by chrisseaton » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 7:17 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #114

fatbird wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But now he doesn't fly planes, which saves them a lot of money, and I doubt he'd have voluntarily transitioned within service from jets to drones, no?

,,,voluntarily transitioned within service... My impression is that very little about the military is voluntary. If they need pilots to fly different craft, the pilots will fly different craft.

Large job changes like that aren’t forced in my experience. If the person isn’t happy doing it the results are unlikely to be good, so they always try very hard for volunteers. It’s a volunteer service after all.

Re: New study shows grim outlook for future of Air Force pilot shortage

#116

Post by jessaustin » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

chrischattin wrote: post #98

kevinventullo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American voter, I can assure you my choices have always been war or war.

Tulsi Gabbard.

The coming election will be a measurement of American voters. Now they do have a choice. There is actually a candidate opposed to mass murder as our official policy. Now we've learned she's also the only major-party candidate wise enough to correctly judge the whole Assange situation, as well.

Re: New study shows grim outlook for future of Air Force pilot shortage

#117

Post by aristophenes » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 7:29 PM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #69

aristophenes wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That excitement has to last through years of training with crappy hours in crappy locations. Doesn't matter if you are cool fighter pilot if you can't be there for your family, move them out to the desert, don't have any say over when and where you will go for weeks at a time when you aren't deployed, gone for months or a year at a time when you are deployed, move from one crappy location to another every couple of y…

> if you can't be there for your family Aren't fighter pilots pretty young? I work in an office and I don't know anyone under 30 with a family. If SF cost of living is enough to delay marriage and kids, you'd really think the demands on the military would be too. I get that there are middle-aged career officers, but I don't see why guys in their 20s are having kids before they get out.

> Aren't fighter pilots pretty young

Yes, that's the problem. They keep getting out before they get old. The retention problem is for field grade officers (think people in their 30's). If you get a pilot slot you are signing up for a 10 year commitment, you can't leave. The first couple of years are basically training. You then get worked to the bone and start counting the days until you can get out. A lot of military do have families early if they can (they are people who don't get hung up on making a commitment after all). Those that don't often want a family and can't get one because of their work.

When your commitment is up you are in your 30's and thinking what do I want to do when I grow up? Re-sign with Big Blue and get transferred to God knows where, be out of the country a lot, etc?

On top of that the real fast burners get promoted out of being a line pilot early and go on to be commanding officers in the Air Force. So the attrition is happening at the top and bottom. I don't know if this shows up in the stats because I'm pretty sure they are still counted as pilots even if they are flying a desk at the pentagon.

In short, the Air Force wants their pilots to stay in for a career, 20-30 years. If you want to wait that long to start a family you're going to have a tough time.

Re: New study shows grim outlook for future of Air Force pilot shortage

#118

Post by phreenet » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 7:29 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #33

The Army also has a pilot shortage, but they've done a little better than the Air Force due to allowing warrant officers to fly. Many pilots just want to fly , they don't want to deal with all the other management responsibilities and staff assignments that come with being a commissioned officer. When the Air Force split off from the Army they decided they only wanted commissioned officers as pilots and eliminated WO…

The US Army has an interesting program called 'High School to Flight School' for Warrant Officer pilot candidates.

Re: New study shows grim outlook for future of Air Force pilot shortage

#119

Post by jessaustin » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 7:29 PM UTC

jl2718 wrote: post #65

NikolaNovak wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost of flying F-22 for an hour is reported anywhere between $33k and $70k, with most estimates in the $60k range. Let's assume $50k/hour to be safe - 200 hours of flight time gets you to the $10 million figure on its own, with no other costs accounted for. Pilot still ends up the cheap part of the equation, given ~$200mil+ per airplane cost. Whee - are we having budgetary fun yet :-)

Remember that our strategy against the soviets was to bankrupt them through military buildup in their massively corrupt and inefficient economic system. Back then, we could build things a lot cheaper than them, so we built a lot of stuff we didn’t need because they would have to try to keep up.

This wasn't so much a strategy as a backward explanation for why we were spending so much. They couldn't say the real reason, corruption. Now spending so much has been just as normalized as a "standing" army. No one still alive remembers what peacetime used to mean. So, they don't have to lie any more about "strategies" for the Soviets.

Re: New study shows grim outlook for future of Air Force pilot shortage

#120

Post by Doxterpepper » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 7:33 PM UTC

randcraw wrote: post #25

Weirdly, the article says almost nothing about the impact of drones on career pilots, especially their will to reenlist. The focus was fighter jocks, but I doubt most will end up flying commercially -- the skills of flying passengers or freight don't overlap much with dogfights, missile tech, or flying invisible. The article also says nothing about which kinds of pilots are in shortest supply (fighter, heavy, rotary,…

> The focus was fighter jocks, but I doubt most will end up flying commercially

My understanding from folks I've talked to in the airline business is that they generally want people who flew fighters. Those people who have previously taken aircraft to their maximum limits are not as freaked when things go wrong in the cockpit of an airliner.