Which should scare the hell out of everyone in a position of power and influence in NAVAIR.
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USAF Enlisted Pilots, The Right Stuff, Stolen Bikes, AIC, and SWO pipe dreams.
- Thread starter Farva01
- Start date
OBOGS* should scare the hell out of them too, but...
* I mean the strategic implications of its problems.
The CNO (and his predecessors) have done their share of lobbying Congress to address the resourcing part of the problem. As for the rest, the services are Title 10 force providers. The fact that we've been rode hard and put away wet for almost 20 years is due to the executive branch policy and budgetary priorities of both political parties.
Most? Based on what data?
There is something in the water down there though for sure, but I'm not sure you would be interested in its effects.
Fuck it then. Don't require a degree anymore. You just have to do real well on the SATs. Naw, fuck that too. No requirement of any sorts. Trophies for all my friends.
I think I am missing something- I thought Congress told us what we get in terms of number of ships, airwings, and each flavor of officer, and it was up to the Navy to allocate the officers how they see fit. Thanks in advance for educating me.
I agree we are in the perfect storm. This happened in late 90s and mid 2000s, but those were wide swath departures of all URLs. The current situation has a hiring boom in one industry that calls for a 13xx skill set. Unfortunately, hiring booms always end and the first people to get furloughed will the recent hires.
D
Deleted member 24525
Guest
Companies have to adapt to manning issues in the real world. Take a look at the airlines. Southwest dropped its requirement to have a 737 type rating...and then a year later dropped its requirements for 1000 turbine PIC.
Do you think they did that so they could “give everyone a trophy”??!!! Absolutely not. They did it because the airlines are facing a manning crisis.
To make that statement is completely ridiculous. It has nothing to do with giving everyone a trophy and everything to do with finding a solution to a pilot manning issue.
When people say stuff like “everyone gets a trophy” or “snowflake” etc then it prevents actual discussion into the issues and shuts people down without ever collaborating to find a solution.
Take the emotion out of it and realize that, with enough training and time, anyone can do our job. We are not special.
As long as people continue to believe that mid-career (specifically TACAIR) retention problems would all be better if those pesky airlines stopped hiring...we'll continue to shoot behind the target. Up jets and flight hours are the best medicine for morale problems. If/when congress can get its shit together and set the conditions for guys to do what they signed up to do - fly - I think you'd see things take a turn regardless of the airlines, because that demand signal (short of some economic black swan) isn't going away for quite a while. Blaming the airlines is a lazy cop-out that gives bigger self-inflicted problems a pass.
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This should be on a banner towed behind a plane circling the Pentagon and the Capital . . . forever. Or, at least until shit turns around. Good post.
D
Deleted member 24525
Guest
When the economy is bad, then nobody gets out so they don’t care about the issues. The current airline hiring boom is just a light on the cockroaches...and to be honest, I still don’t think “they” see a problem yet.
RadicalDude
Social Justice Warlord
Based on all the aussies I fly with every day. But what do I know, I just share an office with one, jackass.
I never said any of this. Pretty sweet straw man, though.
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I think you might be misunderstanding the Navy's manning problem. It's not an insufficient number of qualified college graduates willing to join up and fly airplanes, it's an insufficient amount of training assets and personnel to keep the pipeline flowing. Reducing the quality of the applicants would only exacerbate the problem, as more training would then be needed to get them to the minimum standard, further throttling the already over-strained pipeline.
I also disagree that "anyone" can do our job. Many people might be able to, but we've all met people who had no business flying airplanes professionally. We've also met people who were naturally predisposed to be truly amazing pilots and officers. That isn't to minimize the benefits of training- everyone needs to be trained. But what makes people special in this business is that they have the right mix of work ethic, abilities, and judgment to be able to ultimately use their training to handle ALL aspects required by the job to a minimum standard. That's what tests like the ASTB are for, and it turns out to be pretty good as a predictive tool. The required mix of traits is not something everyone possesses. You can not train just anyone to be a successful naval aviator. For starters, there are people who do not possess sufficient mental capacity, hand-eye coordination, or focus. I've seen people given multiple second chances, both in the TRACOM and the fleet, and some got to a point where they just could not show improvement, and were shown the door. Your point about "with enough time and training" may be true in many cases, but at some point, the Navy needs to be able to cut its losses. People need to be trainable within a reasonable amount of resource expenditure- we can't spend years and millions of $ on an individual who is not showing promise. Especially when, again, there isn't a shortage of recruits who might show promise.
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RadicalDude
Social Justice Warlord
Just asked him again—he said about 30% of their aircrew (officers) don’t have a college degree. Most of the ones I’ve worked with (~20) didn’t.
Point is, it works for them.
Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
I don't really have a skin in the fight on the aviator career path, but what many are advocating for are reverting to things we learned not to do in WWII. Namely, the Japanese had a cadre of professional career pilots with a brittle structure for training reinforcements and the U.S. used non-aviator senior officers in command of CVs when they had little understanding on the basics of employing a tactical air frame.
There may be an alternative solution than what we have now, but beyond letting permanent LTs/LCDRs (or warrants) fly for their entire careers I'm not seeing how to avoid re-learning those lessons in a future conflict.
There may be an alternative solution than what we have now, but beyond letting permanent LTs/LCDRs (or warrants) fly for their entire careers I'm not seeing how to avoid re-learning those lessons in a future conflict.
My post wasn't intended to say that our problems are the airlines fault - I am 100% in agreement with you (as long as you add in reducing the administrivia along with FHP/parts/Mx improvement). Point was that past booms have affected the entire URL corps, but this boom is laser-focused on the 13XXs community, at a time when we can least afford a boom.
At the heart of it I get what you are trying to say here, and at some level I agree, but brother you are way off in many ways...you need (or needed) to spend a month or so flying low level clearing ops and airborne, urban gun work in a scout ship like the OH-58. Those guys were masters of friction and rapid decision making based on both direct support and ROE. The low-level aerial work over Mosul in ‘06 makes the shoot downs and boat attacks you write about seem more like Nintendo play.