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The Air Force is in the midst of a pilot shortage. While most
platforms are affected by the shortage, the fighter pilot community
has been hit the hardest.
At the end of fiscal year 2015,
the Air Force was short 511 fighter pilots and the deficit increased
to nearly 750 fighter pilots at the end of FY16.
In
September 2015, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force directed a
Fighter Enterprise Redesign to focus on developing a strategy and
implementation plan to ensure the Air Force has an enduring,
proficient and sufficient fighter pilot force.
Senior Air
Force leaders took time to discuss the topic during the annual
Weapons and Tactics Conference held at Nellis Air Force Base,
Nevada, from January 9-13, 2017.
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January 10, 2017 - Lt. Gen. Chris Nowland, Air Force deputy chief of
staff for operations, plans and requirements (AF/A3), talks about
the current pilot shortage across the Air Force at Nellis Air Force
Base, Nevada. In September 2015, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force
directed a Fighter Enterprise Redesign to focus on developing a
strategy and implementation plan to ensure the Air Force has an
enduring, proficient and sufficient fighter pilot force. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Nathaniel Byrnes)
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“The health of the fighter pilot community is bad,” said
Lt. Gen. Chris Nowland, Air Force deputy chief of staff for
operations, plans and requirements (AF/A3). “We focus on
fighter pilots, but it’s not just [them]. We have a national
pilot crisis. Essentially the Air Force, when it comes to
pilot production, is going to have to change.”
The
past 25 years of continuous combat operations has taken a
toll on the Air Force fighter community. Compounding the
problem since FY14, losses of fighter pilots have exceeded
the Air Force’s annual production capacity.
“Recruiting and getting people on to fly is not a problem,”
said Nowland. “If you look across the Air Force, the quality
of the individuals coming into the Air Force are some of the
highest we ever had. That goes for the enlisted and officer
force.
“Our problem is capacity. It’s how do we get
the throughput up to produce the number of pilots we want.
It’s a supply and demand problem. Air Education and Training
Command is working hard on this problem, but it’s not
something that can change overnight. There is a lot of
infrastructure associated with it and the problem becomes
complicated as you consider how to man to the increased
capacity that we want to build.”
While a complete fix
of the shortage will be a long process, senior leadership
have already begun aggressively attacking the problem and
have several initiatives that will help fix some of the
current issues as well as developing a long-term plan to
rebuild the career field.
“Senior leadership is
extremely engaged,” said Col. Jason Cockrum, AF/A3 director
of staff. “They care deeply and are taking this very
seriously. They know and appreciate the high operations
tempo that our fighter forces have been operating at for the
past 25 years, and recognize the new and emerging threats in
the Pacific, Europe and the ongoing operations in the Middle
East. They understand those demands and the requirements for
a strong sustainable fighter force in the future.”
According to Cockrum, the Air Force is taking a threefold
approach to solving this problem by reducing the number of
fighter pilot requirements, increasing retention of pilots
currently serving and increasing the production of new
fighter pilots.
Cockrum engaged in an open
question-and-answer session with the pilot community that
were in attendance at WEPTAC to get feedback on the issues
causing the retention rate of pilots to decrease and how
they can go about solving those issues.
“Every time
we go out and meet with pilots we learn something new,” said
Cockrum. “We lean on our Airmen to give us feedback and
provide us with the changes they would recommend. For
example, we had a really good idea from the group we met
with (during WEPTAC) and within about three hours after the
meeting we had information back to the senior leadership in
the Pentagon. In less than 24 hours the idea was pitched to
Congress to see if the suggestion could be implement as part
of a future solution.”
Much of the impact on the
military flying community stems from the draw of commercial
airlines, who have been hiring at an increased rate the past
three years. The Air Force is focusing on improvements in
three areas to help mitigate against the increase in
commercial hiring.
“There are three pillars that a
lot of people focus on when considering staying in the
military; quality of service, quality of life and monetary
compensation,” said Cockrum. “Nobody in the civilian sector
can compete with quality of service. What Airmen go out and
do every day for our nation, you just can’t get that
anywhere else. So we are focused on improvements related to
quality of life and monetary compensation. We are not going
to be able to compete directly with the airline industry on
the monetary piece, but we are focusing on how we can ensure
the other two pillars offset any differences offered by the
civilian sector.”
By U.S. Air Force Airman 1st Class Nathaniel Byrnes
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2017
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