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NEWS Air Force leadership talks frankly about pilot retention

Recovering LSO said:
Wasn't that number that was briefed during our mando training as being the DoD-wide number?
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I couldn't tell you. I happened to walk into a conversation with some folks from J3 that were lamenting about the "number." I asked about "said" number, expressed my disgust, and continued my conversation with another 1310 bruddah. For the record, there "was" a Marine O5 involvd in the back and forth, but the context of the discussion led me to believe the data was accurate.
 
Recovering LSO said:
Wasn't that number that was briefed during our mando training as being the DoD-wide number?
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Well, let's run the numbers again.

Active duty end-strength is ~1,301,300 per the wiki. So using the same numbers above, lower bound would be 650 active duty transgender personnel in DoD, upper bound would be 15,615. So accounting for the assumption that some fraction of transgender servicemembers either don't want to do that or haven't been approved yet, that seems like a more reasonable idea.

Maybe our Marine was just joking that everyone who wanted to transition happened to be in the Navy.
 
Alright you Rat Bastards, now I will go down to the bowels of the NMCC, and verify said information from the source. Expect an update this weekend. Happy ??? :-)
 
robav8r said:
I couldn't tell you. I happened to walk into a conversation with some folks from J3 that were lamenting about the "number." I asked about "said" number, expressed my disgust, and continued my conversation with another 1310 bruddah. For the record, there "was" a Marine O5 involvd in the back and forth, but the context of the discussion led me to believe the data was accurate.
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Disgust, eh?
 
I guess I've never understood the level of angst or amount of distraction many of you claim all the various GMT requirements create. I've been doing the same silly NKO courses the rest of you have, and frankly they don't even register on my list of 100 things I give a shit about every day, and they have never once interfered with my ability to fly or do my ground job.

I get it, they aren't fun and nobody likes them, but if you're spending more than .01% of your time at work doing GMT or other periodic mando training, you're doing it wrong. What am I missing?
 
pilot_man said:
This is what I've been saying for a while. If you look at CAPT Dwyer's Tailhook brief from this year there is a very telling sign that he basically glosses right over. View attachment 16839 (from around time 19:00) If you look at the small red line for DHs needed to fill seats or Slate requirements, for VFA and VAQ pilots that line is magically right at the divider for those getting out and those staying in. Is it that they are that accurate at filling seats or is it that they are grabbing dudes that normally would have been put to pasture to fill the vacancies then saying that they are meeting all of the requirements? I've seen guys who thought they were going to spend the rest of their careers in the test world surprisingly make DH.
I'd love to see this graph as a trend over time. Or some analysis on the quality of the pool of eligibles now vs the pool 5 or 10 years ago.
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That slide also caught my attention. My understanding of their color coding is that based on that, VFA and VAQ will exactly (i.e., non-competitively) meet their DH requirements, assuming that everyone who promotes stays in, including those who have not yet taken the bonus and a few who are no longer even eligible to take it. Seems optimistic.
 
Brett327 said:
I guess I've never understood the level of angst or amount of distraction many of you claim all the various GMT requirements create. I've been doing the same silly NKO courses the rest of you have, and frankly they don't even register on my list of 100 things I give a shit about every day, and they have never once interfered with my ability to fly or do my ground job.

I get it, they aren't fun and nobody likes them, but if you're spending more than .01% of your time at work doing GMT or other periodic mando training, you're doing it wrong. What am I missing?
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It's the idea from higher that:

1. I need a fucking sweater vest moron to tell me to not fax myself classified documents.
2. Their CYA knee-jerk reaction to whatever the .1% of us that are retarded did (that they probably would have done anyways, even if we tattooed 'don't do dumb shit' backwards on their face) is more important than not wasting the other 99.9%s time.
3. Even if each of those GMTs cost $1 to produce, which they don't, thats $1 our Navy didn't spend on parts, planes, or people. In light of our current financial situation, we can't afford to waste money on ineffective training OR have people (our most valuable asset, as every flag has ever assured me) sitting on their asses instead of turning wrenches or flying planes.

One more in a long list of facepalms courtesy of out of touch flags more focused on their post-Navy gig and not getting fired than on leading a fighting force.

Sometimes, you might have to take a tongue lashing from a bitchy Californian Senator, swallow your pride and say 'yes. one of my Sailors screwed up...however, the other 399,999 are doing a pretty kickass job with less and less resources.'
 
Getting back to this Air Force thing - comments by the AF sound like they're not going to the majors and asking them to stop hiring military pilots or anything. More like they're trying to figure out some sort of partnership, since they know guys will keep going to the airlines and the airlines will keep hiring them.

"One idea discussed was to bring more predictability to Air Force Reserve commitments, so a pilot could have a successful reserve and commercial career. Other ideas included potential adjustments to required flight hours pilots need to join a commercial airline, debt forgiveness and other quality-of-life changes that would help both sectors, (AMC commander GEN) Everhart said."

So at least it sounds like the AF is trying to find solutions to the problem, and they recognize it's not the money. Whereas the Navy's response seems to be, "wave some more bonus money at 'em, and if they leave anyway, fuck 'em, we don't want quitters."
 
Increased reliance on ANG/Reserve sounds like the best solution for all the flying services. Bonuses may help some, but they will never actually be able to win a bidding war.

Sorry if I'm cynical to the point that "adjustments to required flight hours pilots need to join an airline" reads as: "help us trap pilots here"
 
Treetop Flyer said:
Sorry if I'm cynical to the point that "adjustments to required flight hours pilots need to join an airline" reads as: "help us trap pilots here"
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That was my thought as well. Though wouldn't minimum ATP hours be up to the FAA, not the airlines...?
 
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