NEWS Air Force leadership talks frankly about pilot retention

[Flash]

Does the USAF consider 'pilot' staff positions only to be for pilots or can Navs and ABM's fill most of them. The Navy is pretty agnostic as to who fills most aviation staff billets, with the emphasis being on community if there is one instead of Pilot vs NFO, is the USAF the same?

 

[Machine]

Flash,

It's the Air Force. There's staff billets that are for fighter pilots only that have absolutely nothing to do with being a fighter pilot.

 

[HuggyU2]

Pretty sure that ain't legal, nothing the USAF can do about it unless Congress changes the law.

You are correct, Sir. However, the AF needs to be proactive in finding a solution. Get a waiver from Congress, hire them as a GS... something. If I were involved in fixing a problem this significant, I'd be considering some very difficult COAs, and finding a way to make them work.

We all know this problem is not going to be easy to fix. But I have to wonder: if it were 1953 and we were in the same boat (no pun intended, Sailors), would they be able to find a solution quicker than the modern-day USAF?

 

[magnetfreezer]

Flash,

It's the Air Force. There's staff billets that are for fighter pilots only that have absolutely nothing to do with being a fighter pilot.

Many of the billets are pilot/WSO interchangeable; the problem is WSOs have a shorter commitment (6 vs 10 post-wings) so are more likely to be out by the time folks start hitting their staff windows. Machine's comment is right in a lot of cases - the billets don't even require a pilot, but generals think "I want someone who will get things done" and filling it with an aviator comes to mind.

 

[HackerF15E]

Does the USAF consider 'pilot' staff positions only to be for pilots or can Navs and ABM's fill most of them. The Navy is pretty agnostic as to who fills most aviation staff billets, with the emphasis being on community if there is one instead of Pilot vs NFO, is the USAF the same?

The AF has some flexibility, but is also institutionally indoctrinated in some of the positions.

For example, I was up for a non-flying job in my last tour prior to retirement, and there were a number of positions for O-5 fighter pilots at Command HQ for both ACC and AETC. When my Commanders shopped my name for them, they said that the positions were "only for Graduated Squadron Commanders" and that they'd rather leave them empty than put an available volunteer career fighter pilot O-5 in there who wasn't a former Commander.

 

[HackerF15E]

But I have to wonder: if it were 1953 and we were in the same boat (no pun intended, Sailors), would they be able to find a solution quicker than the modern-day USAF?

What Would Lemay Do?

 

[sevenhelmet]

What Would Lemay Do?

Cuss a lot, and bomb them out of existence.

My kind of guy.

 

[DanMa1156]

The AF has some flexibility, but is also institutionally indoctrinated in some of the positions.

For example, I was up for a non-flying job in my last tour prior to retirement, and there were a number of positions for O-5 fighter pilots at Command HQ for both ACC and AETC. When my Commanders shopped my name for them, they said that the positions were "only for Graduated Squadron Commanders" and that they'd rather leave them empty than put an available volunteer career fighter pilot O-5 in there who wasn't a former Commander.

Not sure if this is just an AF thing - I'm pretty certain the Navy has lots of "post-Command" and "non-Command" only jobs.

Related: Even on the JO level, the follow on jobs after one's first operational (sea) tour have an order of precedence based largely on how your career is tracking. This, in and of itself isn't necessarily a problem. But, then those jobs have follow on jobs (second sea tours, third overall) that are only available to the people that were in select (first shore tour, second tour overall) jobs - again, not necessarily bad. Where I have a problem with it is that we have a bit of a quality spread to select people for those (first shore / second overall tours), and also take into account issues like co-location, gender (and presumably race) diversity into these jobs as well, which means that someone can do everything right, but get a second tier job and the ripple effects for the outcome of their career are astounding. I.e.: LT X gets selected for the FRS, and the world is that LT's oyster for follow on orders. LT Y (who performed equally as well or better as LT X did) was selected as "the quality" for a second tier job, but regardless of how well LT Y does at that second tier job, will unofficially be shuttered from being able to select CAG (airwing) Staff, Assistant Navigator, and plenty of other "top tier" second sea tour (third overall tour) jobs. This system probably worked OK in the past when it was quality self-selecting quality, but with a quality spread in the mix, it by necessity means that plenty of the top people will have glass ceilings in their career as a result of what job they were selected for on their very first shore tour (second tour overall).

 

[Pags]

Not sure if this is just an AF thing - I'm pretty certain the Navy has lots of "post-Command" and "non-Command" only jobs.

Related: Even on the JO level, the follow on jobs after one's first operational (sea) tour have an order of precedence based largely on how your career is tracking. This, in and of itself isn't necessarily a problem. But, then those jobs have follow on jobs (second sea tours, third overall) that are only available to the people that were in select (first shore tour, second tour overall) jobs - again, not necessarily bad. Where I have a problem with it is that we have a bit of a quality spread to select people for those (first shore / second overall tours), and also take into account issues like co-location, gender (and presumably race) diversity into these jobs as well, which means that someone can do everything right, but get a second tier job and the ripple effects for the outcome of their career are astounding. I.e.: LT X gets selected for the FRS, and the world is that LT's oyster for follow on orders. LT Y (who performed equally as well or better as LT X did) was selected as "the quality" for a second tier job, but regardless of how well LT Y does at that second tier job, will unofficially be shuttered from being able to select CAG (airwing) Staff, Assistant Navigator, and plenty of other "top tier" second sea tour (third overall tour) jobs. This system probably worked OK in the past when it was quality self-selecting quality, but with a quality spread in the mix, it by necessity means that plenty of the top people will have glass ceilings in their career as a result of what job they were selected for on their very first shore tour (second tour overall).

USN has the same nonsense. Command at Sea is the coin of the realm past the O-5 level. My Air Boss had been an HT CO prior to being Air Boss and he had a hard time getting the follow on orders he wanted due to his command tour not being at Sea.

Things turned out OK for him as he picked up O-6 and is now commanding a Naval Station.

 

[Recovering LSO]

Not sure if this is just an AF thing - I'm pretty certain the Navy has lots of "post-Command" and "non-Command" only jobs.

Related: Even on the JO level, the follow on jobs after one's first operational (sea) tour have an order of precedence based largely on how your career is tracking. This, in and of itself isn't necessarily a problem. But, then those jobs have follow on jobs (second sea tours, third overall) that are only available to the people that were in select (first shore tour, second tour overall) jobs - again, not necessarily bad. Where I have a problem with it is that we have a bit of a quality spread to select people for those (first shore / second overall tours), and also take into account issues like co-location, gender (and presumably race) diversity into these jobs as well, which means that someone can do everything right, but get a second tier job and the ripple effects for the outcome of their career are astounding. I.e.: LT X gets selected for the FRS, and the world is that LT's oyster for follow on orders. LT Y (who performed equally as well or better as LT X did) was selected as "the quality" for a second tier job, but regardless of how well LT Y does at that second tier job, will unofficially be shuttered from being able to select CAG (airwing) Staff, Assistant Navigator, and plenty of other "top tier" second sea tour (third overall tour) jobs. This system probably worked OK in the past when it was quality self-selecting quality, but with a quality spread in the mix, it by necessity means that plenty of the top people will have glass ceilings in their career as a result of what job they were selected for on their very first shore tour (second tour overall).

This is very community specific. Plenty of VT (jet) IPs have gone on to successful CAG Paddles gigs.

 

[jtmedli]

This very community specific. Plenty of VT (jet) IPs have gone on to successful CAG Paddles gigs.

It is community specific but he's absolutely right. HSC community is F'd up from the floor up on how we treat our people and then they wonder why even the FRS and SWTI guys want out. East Coast commodore recently had a meeting with all of us to essentially ask why there were so many people leaving. Answers were pretty standard stuff: job satisfaction is non-existant, career path is rigged with landmines at every set of orders, QOL sucks, etc...

 

[jt71582]

It is community specific but he's absolutely right. HSC community is F'd up from the floor up on how we treat our people and then they wonder why even the FRS and SWTI guys want out. East Coast commodore recently had a meeting with all of us to essentially ask why there were so many people leaving. Answers were pretty standard stuff: job satisfaction is non-existant, career path is rigged with landmines at every set of orders, QOL sucks, etc...

I heard there was a similar discussion on this with the PERS guys at the NHA symposium this year.

 

[SynixMan]

I heard there was a similar discussion on this with the PERS guys at the NHA symposium this year.

Like breakout discussion or the PERS briefing to NHA?

 

[DanMa1156]

USN has the same nonsense. Command at Sea is the coin of the realm past the O-5 level. My Air Boss had been an HT CO prior to being Air Boss and he had a hard time getting the follow on orders he wanted due to his command tour not being at Sea.

Things turned out OK for him as he picked up O-6 and is now commanding a Naval Station.

Any chance that he was a former CO of 8? And about to command the same base 8 is located at? If so, he was mine as a Student, and I really appreciated his efforts helping me get what I wanted and his open dialogue with me.

 

[DanMa1156]

This is very community specific. Plenty of VT (jet) IPs have gone on to successful CAG Paddles gigs.

To which I'd have to ask - how many people in charge of VFA squadrons in recent past weren't FRS instructors and / or TOPGUN grads? I think literally every one of the VFA front offices on my cruise was a TOPGUN graduate. How many did a VT(J) tour? I'd also add that in VFA - this is a bit of a skewed sampling because retention is so low. HSC isn't quite there (although it's growing) and because (in my opinion) the HSC Carrier squadrons are wildly overmanned on the JO level so the retention isn't hurting as much since the original input is so large.