Pilot shortage?

[wlawr005]

Especially considering since NFO training is so much shorter he has a much higher chance of spending his last two years on a boat or staff somewhere.

 

[DanMa1156]

@DanMa1156 PERS got caught with their hand in the cookie jar violating the DoDI. I remember one of the PERS-43 briefs at Hook or NHA where they said something along the lines of “yeah so turns out we can’t shorten people’s shore tours to make them retainable, so we ‘fixed that glitch’”. That was the 18/19 timeframe, and I believe folks showing now are all getting what they should.

Man, wish I had been able to stay longer; oh well. Glad it's fixed.

What I really meant was, most people in aviation probably signed up to be aviators. Not shooters, not FACs, etc regardless of what brief we were given when we signed the dotted line. Perhaps it’s not in the cards right now but “not flying” seems to be a consistent reason people don’t want to stay. Not saying it’s right or wrong but I hear it often enough.

The Army does Warrant Officer pilots who only fly. Why can’t the Navy do the same?

It's easy to say that, but the Navy has spots it needs to fill. It's going to pull from people who can fill those spots. There is no way someone could do my job without having been a Naval Pilot or NFO first, and I suspect many 2nd Sea Tour jobs are like that. Fun? No. Necessary, yes? Is the Navy upfront about it? I think so.

Regarding the Warrant Officers flying, that's been debated here multiple times and tried multiple times with little to show for it. It just doesn't work as a function of multiple factors:
1. We aren't specialized like the Army (I'll compare helo pilots to helo pilots here, but an HSC pilot is expected to be proficient in ASUW, SOF, and PR, among other logistics and SAR missions. Inside of those are multiple weapons systems, overland and overwater tactics, and so on. We also do all of our maintenance in house to include Functional Check Flights. In the Army, a guy can be an FCF pilot his whole career as I understand it. They outsource their maintenance to another "squadron," which is a totally different set up than we have and will not ever work when we deploy on ships with extremely limited space).

2. HR problems, career path. In theory - fixable - but would require structural changes - like, where do we get disassociated tour guys? Do Warrant Officers ever get a break or do they remain on sea duty indefinitely? If they go to a shore tour to keep flying, now we're hurting our future squadron and wing leadership from remaining current/tactical/relevant in the aircraft.

3. Officer responsibilities: the idea of having an all-knowing, only-flying tactical genius in the squadron probably isn't the answer either. It turns out it takes years and years to get them to that point, and then they are burnt out an want shore duty most of the time. Also, who is going to pick up their load if they aren't taking over a division? Now we've made a standard O-1 to O-3 take over twice the responsibility he should. See space constraints listed in point #1.


I'm sure there are more.

 

[Swanee]

In other words and of more importance to Naval Aviation would you say that instead of forcing aviators, which the Navy is already short on, to do non-flying tours instead keep them in aviation for their whole career is a possible path in the future? I understand the argument that those non-flying tours make you a more well rounded Naval Officer but like you say it doesn't seem to make much sense to take somebody who the Navy has spent millions of dollars and time to train and have them do a job they neither signed up for nor trained for.

Aviation is a weirdly expensive, rank heavy, concept for what a frontline warfighter is when compared to the rest of the frontline jobs in the military. I've had this conversation many times with other non-aviation types, and they just don't get it. An officer doesn't really fight, they just lead, so their billets and leadership are what really matter, not their warfighting skills.

These are the same people who have told me that it only takes a LCpl or a Cpl to drive a HMMWV or a Tank, LAV, AAV. If an E-4 can do it, how hard can it really be? (BTW- the last person who told me that was a Division Chief of Staff, so an O-6)

If we pull out of the Middle East in a few short years, well, nature abhors a vacuum. If we stay until...? Well, that's what we've been doing.

Before this we either had a complete reconstruction plan, or we made them a territory. Perhaps that's the answer? We've let the countries we've liberated" choose whom to sell their mineral deposits to- they didn't choose us.

Something else to think about - have our practices in personnel and assignments kept up with what we expect of our pilots compared to the 20th century? Also, has the structure of squadrons evolved to support increased expectations from pilots?

I ask the above based off an assumption I'm making that pilots flying F-XX or F/A-XX in 2021 have way more asked of them than when life was Sparrows and dumb bombs. I'm supposed to be proficient at every mission out there, able to do everything from Harpoon and SLAM-ER to CAS to an FI DCA to an OCA with HARM/AARGM. And the threat is a peer threat now. Deep down inside I have just a tiny sliver of doubt that, in my TMS, if - today - we were to do something like put yellow striped weapons on, employ against actual emitters, with permanent blue air kill removal, doing all the high end things we can say we can do on paper, but with sim unboxed... it wouldn't go so well. Hopefully the threat has the same issues.

Is the design of a squadron where I spend more time on collateral duties than training to do all the above the right way to do things? Is 36 months and then you may never see a grey jet again the right way to do things? Is that the way things have always been done? Maybe we need to evolve the design of our squadrons and the way we do manpower to keep up with the mission. Maybe we need to change the way we assess readiness and the ability of squadrons to do all the things they say they can do.

In the late 70s my old man flew the A-37, then in the 80s he flew the A-10, and later the F-16. They went to the range 3 days a week (generally via LATT). They only counted their first bomb on their first pass, everything after that was just practice for the next first pass. No drop on the first pass because of switchology? You gooned it up when it mattered, you need more practice (and you got it). Those dudes were really good at what they did, and Gulf War 1 was the result- a war in which we really thought we were fighting a peer AF.

Fridays were reserved for BFM, because BFM made you a better pilot. Same with bad weather for the new guys- if you Wx cancelled, as a less than 500hour pilot you were expected to go get some real weather time.

Collateral duties were limited back then. Are they needed now? Maybe. But if so, then we need more pilots, and more airplanes and hours for those pilots to fly.

The Army does Warrant Officer pilots who only fly. Why can’t the Navy do the same?

Congress.

 

[FinkUFreaky]

You sparked my nerd nerve so I just did some quick excel math as I happen to have an old copy of the FY-18 DoD flight hour rates. For me, the Navy spent between $5.5-$6 million to get me from brand new ensign to SWTP Level IV. That includes my annual salary.

Assuming you accounted for your IPs (and all the GS civilians at the squadron) pay and family benefits too?

 

[insanebikerboy]

Assuming you accounted for your IPs (and all the GS civilians at the squadron) pay and family benefits too?

Nope. I didn’t want to go too far into the rabbit hole, those numbers are purely what the Navy spent directly on me.

If you start counting infrastructure costs (building mx, electricity, etc), depot level mx, and other supporting personnel costs (IP, sim instructors, etc), I’d hazard to guess it’d add another few million.

 

[Griz882]

Why not plus up the reserves...substantially? Place every airframe in the reserves and scatter them across the country like they used to do (save on infrastructure by co-locating at ANG bases).

In short, give the skill set a place to go while they exercise other options yet keep them in the service and in the cockpit.

 

[DanMa1156]

Why not plus up the reserves...substantially? Place every airframe in the reserves and scatter them across the country like they used to do (save on infrastructure by co-locating at ANG bases).

In short, give the skill set a place to go while they exercise other options yet keep them in the service and in the cockpit.

When was this a thing? How big was each "det" for lack of a better word? My immediate thoughts are lack of standardization and no economy of scale on maintenance, but I'm super interested to hear that this was apparently a thing in the past? What do you see as the supposed benefits (other than infrastructure cost reduction)? (Serious, not sarcastic.)

 

[Pags]

When was this a thing? How big was each "det" for lack of a better word? My immediate thoughts are lack of standardization and no economy of scale on maintenance, but I'm super interested to hear that this was apparently a thing in the past? What do you see as the supposed benefits (other than infrastructure cost reduction)? (Serious, not sarcastic.)

I grew up down the street from NAS Willow Grove which was a ANG/Reserve base at the time. USMC had a reserve MAG there with 53s, 130s, and A-4s. USN had a reserve ASW force of several VP squadrons and an H-2 squadron. PA ANG had A-37s, A-10s.

Immediately following WWII there were NASs all over the country near big cities that allowed reservists to easily maintain currency. Think LT Harry Brubacker from Bridges of Tiki Ri. The novel and movie are based on the real events of VF-884 "bitter birds" and their activation and deployment ISO Korea. VF-884 was a squadron from the Midwest (NAS Olathe?), their logo was a jayhawk, and they were bitter because they had been activated to go fight a war.

 

[Jim123]

When was this a thing? How big was each "det" for lack of a better word? My immediate thoughts are lack of standardization and no economy of scale on maintenance, but I'm super interested to hear that this was apparently a thing in the past? What do you see as the supposed benefits (other than infrastructure cost reduction)? (Serious, not sarcastic.)

NAS Atlanta, NAS Willow Grove, NAS New Orleans...

The reserves have ebbed and flowed for spreading the equipment inland where the people are or putting it in the fleet concentration areas and figuring out how to move the people to it. I don't think one approach is clearly superior to the other. Obviously ships are a little more limited, maybe you could stretch those a bit by putting a reserve frigate in Corpus Christi (the minesweepers used to be there) or up in New London (somebody could get a fitrep bullet and a NAM MSM for that idea!!). It's pretty common for reserve centers to be on the same property of other-service guard/reserve/active bases.

The naval air reserves are much smaller than they used to be, each community has one or none reserve squadrons instead of two or more. Not really much point geographically distributing those. It's like debating how you're going to spread a single packet of butter that came with your breakfast at a hotel.

I'd like to see a larger reserve force even if it comes at the expense a smaller active duty force. It would distribute the military population better among the general public and make them more aware of what we do on their behalf.

 

[GroundPounder]

I grew up down the street from NAS Willow Grove which was a ANG/Reserve base at the time. USMC had a reserve MAG there with 53s, 130s, and A-4s. USN had a reserve ASW force of several VP squadrons and an H-2 squadron. PA ANG had A-37s, A-10s.

Immediately following WWII there were NASs all over the country near big cities that allowed reservists to easily maintain currency. Think LT Harry Brubacker from Bridges of Tiki Ri. The novel and movie are based on the real events of VF-884 "bitter birds" and their activation and deployment ISO Korea. VF-884 was a squadron from the Midwest (NAS Olathe?), their logo was a jayhawk, and they were bitter because they had been activated to go fight a war.

NAS Olathe became New Century Air Center, KIXD. It used to be the HQ of Bendix King radio.

It was out in the middle of no where, but the last time I went there it was surrounded by the suburbs.

 

[taxi1]

Why not plus up the reserves...substantially?

I'd like to see a larger reserve force even if it comes at the expense a smaller active duty force.

Indeed

Every now and then I wonder what the founding fathers would have thought of our current massive standing force. Anathema to their original intent, for sure.

 

[Griz882]

When was this a thing? How big was each "det" for lack of a better word? My immediate thoughts are lack of standardization and no economy of scale on maintenance, but I'm super interested to hear that this was apparently a thing in the past? What do you see as the supposed benefits (other than infrastructure cost reduction)? (Serious, not sarcastic.)

No sarcasm detected. As @Pags and @Jim123 have already noted naval air reserves used to be quite large. My dad flew with, and commanded squadrons out of NAS Olathe and NAS Dallas (NAS Grand Praire when he was there). At Dallas they had the full line including PV-2s, SH-3's, A-4's, F-8's and F-4's. At one point the Navy and Marines shared aircraft and you had this look...



I absolutely agree with @Jim123 that it would be a good look for the Navy, but even setting that aside, it would keep millions, if not billions, of dollars of well trained butts in Navy seats.

 

[Griz882]

Sorry @DanMa1156 I forgot to answer your actual question..."What do you see as the supposed benefits (other than infrastructure cost reduction)?"

I already mentioned one benefit, keeping highly trained aviators in seats. Another, a bit less wear on assigned aircraft and a place for other skilled people (enlisted) to serve as well. I imagine the cost reduction would not be that substantial but it could be noticeable. Others noted the benefit of having some "hometown heroes" hanging around. Logic, I would think, might place VP and HSM units at bases like Pease in NH alongside the ANG tankers with close proximity to an ocean. VFA, VAQ, and HSC could be housed anywhere (along with the ANG or AFR) and HSC would offer a nice community bonus during emergencies. Even plopters could go to the "R" as the Marines already have them with VMM-764 for example.

Of course, weekend flying isn't full time flying but I imagine that when the next big war comes along it will take just a handful of hours to get the reserves ready to fight as opposed to two plus years to train up nuggets.

 

[taxi1]

In the Predator and Reaper land, it is physically possible to pop into the base after work and spend 4-5 hours flying in Indian country on real missions, Hellfire some bad guys, then stop and pick up milk on the way home. The right kind of orders is the only roadblock to fighting while on drill.

A total swing the other way.

 

[scoolbubba]

Every active squadron should have a SAU. The amount of trained bodies who want to finish out a career in the reserves but can't find a seat in a flying unit is astounding.

The navy isn't letting resources walk out the door, it's actively shoving them out and saying we'd rather spend millions to train up a nugget to get to where you were 6 years ago than pay you 200 bucks after taxes per drill period.

Throw an FTS in the squadron as reserve cat wrangler, an OSO in the wing with a couple FTS YNs and PSs (getting them out of the goddamn NOSCs is a fringe benefit of this plan). Flying reservists are already fenced off from MOBs; the expectation would be that is true as long as you deploy with the squadron a la the reserve VP squadrons (you don't do the whole thing as a SELRES unless you want to).