You mean maintainers being lead by professional maintainers and pilots having time to focus on being professional pilots? What a novel thought.
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NEWS Air Force leadership talks frankly about pilot retention
- Thread starter ChuckMK23
- Start date
You mean maintainers being lead by professional maintainers and pilots having time to focus on being professional pilots? What a novel thought.
I don't want more money.
I don't want to fly more.
I don't want more time at home.
I want to stop having to deal with all the bullshit that is not related to flying. I would be perfectly happy with a measly 150 hours a year that I was able to put 100% effort into than 250 hours of poor execution, $30,000 bonus, and the stress of doing what seems like 3 different ground jobs plus flying.
As CommodoreMid already mentioned to there are serious issues with that concept too, frankly I would much prefer the Navy model from what I have seen and heard over the years of both.
CMO was a disaster for the MPRA community. Our culture of deploying and serving alongside the folks who fix and maintain our A/C is one I'm glad we didn't lose. It's a lot easier to lose your "give a shit" attitude when the aircraft (and crews) you're working on don't belong to you.
I'm guessing that they're grabbing dudes who would normally be put aside. I can't speak for the VFA guys, but compare the DH selection list and then the DH slate when it comes out. You'll see dudes who weren't on the select list at all filling OP jobs. Granted, it's not fair to those guys who got pulled up to say they aren't qualified for those slots because we don't know their backgrounds and they could be just as good as the guys on the original select list, but when Big Navy says we're meeting our numbers, somehow I guess they're meeting a target moving at their discretion.
For consideration (and don't shoot the messenger!) - I have heard from several senior aviators recently that they have been given fairly broad authority to start killing a lot of the things that are called "administrative bullshit" by many on this forum (myself included at times), but they're having a hard time getting someone (from the fleet) to give them a comprehensive list with justifications for for the axe (i.e., is transgender training keeping your from flying, or do you just not like it?). Somethings aren't going to go away - SAPR for example. That "training" will continue, but what they're asking is for someone to quantify for them how much flying that is really costing you. I truly believe that they'd like to try and "solve" their retention problems in ways that don't cost a lot of money (bonuses), but it's going to take the fleet to speak to them in their language, i.e., cause and effect. We do this, so we don't do this. We spend x hours on this so we don't do x hours on that. They're asking if it is really a zero sum game.
My advice, get to writing! Use CDR Salamander, use USNI, use open forum here where you know Navy Times reporters lurk, write to The Hook magazine, etc. People read that shit, and if you put together a good case (fact vs emotion, numbers vs hunches), I think you'll find some people willing to have the conversation.
And once more for good measure - don't shoot the messenger.
My advice, get to writing! Use CDR Salamander, use USNI, use open forum here where you know Navy Times reporters lurk, write to The Hook magazine, etc. People read that shit, and if you put together a good case (fact vs emotion, numbers vs hunches), I think you'll find some people willing to have the conversation.
And once more for good measure - don't shoot the messenger.
Funny . . . . I heard today down in the NMCC in a completely unrelated meeting that the Navy has ~10,000 personnel either signed-up for, or in the process of, gender reassignment. Speechless . . . .
Was this # briefed by a Marine? If so, it might be a joke
I was going to say, that seems high. Quick look on Wikipedia puts a lower bound of 0.05% and an upper bound of 1.2% on the percentage of the population with gender dysphoria. Can't think the Navy is that different. Those stats would give us a minimum of 173 transgender Sailors on active duty and a max of 4,236. Assuming, of course, that the studies are accurate, and we're demographically close enough to the study samples.
What helicopter pilots hear:
I don't know if the leadership you're referring to will get the quantifiable answers they want. I think in many ways it's not a zero sum game. To use your example with transgender training, I don't think the biggest issue with that is the opportunity cost of not flying (although that is an issue). I think the people that separate citing cultural reasons just hate the aggregate of transgender training, chart the course, etc. People are fed up that they have to do all that shit and that the government CYA is culturally part of naval aviation these days. They also feel that they won't get the same level of that stuff at the airlines or elsewhere (maybe they do, I don't know).
All anecdotal, but doesn't make it false.
For what its worth, some of those selected don't immediately get slated and some get slated that were selected a year or 2 prior for various reasons. Happens on the ACSB slate quite often...
YHBTBFSM Fog...
Wasn't that number that was briefed during our mando training as being the DoD-wide number?