Combat aircraft

Combat Aircraft examines

the US Air Force’s pilot

retention dilemma, and offers

an opinion about what needs

to be done...

REPORT Joseph Zeman

has fallen short of pilot employment

numbers by as many as 1,500 pilots out

of the necessary 20,300 as of April 2017.

Despite increased military benefits,

enhanced re-enlistment bonuses, and a

strengthening of pilot funding, there still

seems to be an uncontrollable gap.

Where are the leaks

coming from?

There are many items for the USAF to

point to when attempting to identify

where the current pilot shortage is

stemming from, including a lack of

pilot flight time due to mandatory

administrative duties, being forced to

do more with less, competition from

commercial aviation, and a lack of family

time. This can all be attributed to the

high tempo of operations — senior air

force pilots point to the end of the Cold

War and how that triggered a steady

decline in resources, yet the mission

increased. The air force has had to do

more with fewer resources.

The average aviator isn’t leaving his or

her service simply because the nature of

the work is changing, but also because

THE

PILOT CRISIS

T

HE US AIR Force is candidly

facing up to a dilemma that

demands a robust solution —

and one that must be found

in the near future. A rapid

decline in pilot retention

has been attributed to a number of

factors, one being that the mandatory

pilot retirement age is currently set at

65. Not only are age restrictions and
    a steady deterioration of Vietnam-era
    pilots creating this gap — so too is a
    fading interest in even becoming a
    military aviator.
    A lack of new recruits can be attributed
    to competitive career opportunities
    in the airline and corporate aviation
    worlds, and a high operational tempo
    that has not caught a break since the
    fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The USAF

Above: The

USAF is looking

at expanding

pilot production,

possibly adding a

new training base

to help boost

output, but it

needs recruits to

fill these slots in

the first instance.

USAF/SrA

Corey Pettis

Right: Expanding

the Air National

Guard and Air

Force Reserve

may be a way

to help mitigate

shortfalls in

the active-duty

component.

Jamie Hunter

26 May 2018 //^ http://www.combataircraft.net

26-28 US Pilot retention C.indd 26 20/03/2018 11:05