The AF is a lot bigger and has a much higher fixed wing to rotors ratio.
Also I bet the average hours are including military guys with civilian time.
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NEWS Air Force leadership talks frankly about pilot retention
- Thread starter ChuckMK23
- Start date
Also I bet the average hours are including military guys with civilian time.
I would still be interested if the fixed wing ratios of the services and the hiring numbers are similar.
The guard/reserve opportunities on the AF side are better than the navy if we're talking my good deal, but I was still talking about regular AD good deals.
Ah. I didn't quite catch that. My bad. With that said, the two I'm good friends with are happy they have that experience for relevancy to the civilian sector that the rest of their fleet tour didn't give them.
LFCFan
*Insert nerd wings here*
Sailors go to sea, Soldiers go to the field, Marines do both, and airmen...??? I think this is also why it's so easy to poke fun at the AF; there is no shared suck to which you can point.
As much as I'm not a huge fan of life in Bahrain, having visited the lovely Al Udeid twice I sometimes really think the Navy made the right call by building what looks like a little college campus in a Gulf city instead of doing something like the AF did in Qatar.
I really don't see how warrants flying aircraft (manned or otherwise) like they fly helos in the Army would be a threat to senior NCOs...I don't think anyone is imagining E-8s commissioning to go fly drones. I don't think I've seen any arguments for the AF using warrants like we do in the Navy.
In the spirit of "every Marine a rifleman", I have thought for years that "every Airman" should be an "airman".
I'd make every officer first qualify as an RPA/UAV pilot/operator before training in their selected specialty, and make every enlisted person qualify as a RPA/UAV observer/sensor operator before training in their technical field.
I'd make every officer first qualify as an RPA/UAV pilot/operator before training in their selected specialty, and make every enlisted person qualify as a RPA/UAV observer/sensor operator before training in their technical field.
Like I said before, there are some very set feelings about it from the USAF SNCO's I have talked to about it but it is not accompanied by a concurrent amount of rationality.
This is what happens when senior commissioned leadership fails to reign-in runaway E-7/8/9. Now hear me out. A strong NCO force is critical to the success of any military organization and we should be putting as much effort into developing them as we do our junior officers. But.... when these groups begin to see themselves as something separate, better, different, or equal in ways that are not prescribed or permitted by law - then we have problems (insert USAF S/NCOs) - and the Navy isn't too far behind. It's no wonder the USAF senior enlisted folks aren't interested in a warrant officer program; it'd be some rice out of their bowl.
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I could write a book on the stupid I have seen recently with SNCO silliness, especially Army. One highlight was when one Colonel talked trash about the Navy for refusing to provide the 'appropriate' O-9 level honors to the Sergeant Major of the Army when they visited the USS Constitution, since he is the equivalent to a Lt Gen in precedence. That is actually true, we looked it up, but precedence ≠ honors, authority, responsibility, legality or pretty much anything else.
But back to the thread at hand....the impression I have gotten from the USAF MSgt's on WO's was that they see them as a 'threat' to their place in the USAF no matter how wrongheaded I think that is. Of course with 'Command Chief Warrant Officers' (CCWO) now becoming a thing now adding WO's to the mix might go sideways too.
Warning: Anecdote (and probably a repeat)...
As a DH, our CMC was horrible. Divisive in the Mess, couldn't play well with the DHs (came from a major staff where O-4s were peons, apparently), and had no idea what the maintainers actually did downstairs. Let me tell you, it's a thing of beauty to watch DHs who have already quit once give a self-important E-9 the business. We probably took it too far, at least initially, as evidenced by our front office asking us to play nice, but that eventually fell away.
There are many anecdotes regarding this CMC, but one of my favorites was when the E-7 Evals went to the CMC after the DHs had their chop. The CMC had some minor changes penned into the evals. The changes were probably valid, but still required some minor editing in the program. As the Admin O, the CMC came to me and told me that there were some changes and I should update the Evals. I just kind of paused for a moment, as this was a typical situation of the E-9 tasking the O-4, and mind you as DHs, we've already made our final chop. I then explained that if changes needed to be made, the files were on the S: Drive and then we at Admin would print out the updated Evals and forward to the front office. Funny how those changes weren't as important anymore when the tasking got turned around.
Same CMC that after I built a specific privilege system on the S: Drive so that only senior members to the evaluated personnel could get into the evals, ordered an E-6 in Admin (who had overall admin rights) to make Evals available so the CMC could change write-ups AFTER THE FRONT OFFICE HAD HAD THEIR CHOP. Fortunately, that E-6 was one of my super-stars and came to me and I told her I'd give her top cover. But sheesh.
I could keep going, but bottom line, fortunately the Wardroom (and technically the Mess) won the war, though it took a toll on both the Mess and the front office.
I've always thought it would be interesting to send every AF Officer through AF IFS. 40 or so hours in a DA-20 to understand the environment that the AF lives in would be beneficial.
Perhaps it might be beneficial conceptually, but since AF IFS has morphed from a "screening" into essentially "phase 0" of pilot training, I imagine it would prove ineffective overall and cost/time prohibitive. AF IFS consists of civilian CFIs who fancy themselves military IPs who are the "gatekeepers" to being a pilot. It models pilot training via formal briefs, standups, and other practices adopted from actual pilot training. From what my students told me, in many ways IFS was more painful and difficult than phase 1 (read: AF primary).
Really? Civilian CFIs attriting student pilots? When I was in IFS it was made very clear that this was an introductory program as the DCA (and I believe CNATRA) at the time was adamantly against civilians being able to attrite flight students from a military flight training program.
I'm not sure of the attrition process during IFS, but everything I was told is that it is a very difficult/painful program where the "IPs" treated them worse than we did. I don't understand that as the very name of the program implies that it is a program to ensure the students are willing and prepared to enter flight training, not that the program is a part of the flight training. I guess it goes to show that if people think they have power, they abuse it...