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New study shows grim outlook for future of Air Force pilot shortage

81 points by spking 8y ago

BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 8y ago
The AF needs to look at the software industry. Bring in hordes of newbies and keep the ones that don't kill themselves for 3-5 years, then repeat.
- dingaling 8y ago
  That was actually how air forces adapted to the jet era. Attrition was horrific, about 35% of USAF F-84s and F-86s being lost in crashes through the 1950s. Actual combat losses in Korea were insignificant compared to accidents. The 1970s-designed F-16 has a loss rate of 3.4 per 100,000 flight hours. The two 1950s fighters were 52.6 and 44.2 respectively.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
This is interesting because the military pilots I know simply love to fly. It's an amazing opportunity to fly amazing kit, and to get tons and tons of airtime. The pay was never that great, and young people in their early 20's shouldn't mind deployments in the midwest or wherever. Also, it's a very aspirational job: "Jet Fighter Pilot". They make video games of that. Every little boy, at some point, considered wanting to do it. Something fishy in the system, maybe a broken pipeline, because I can't imagine anything easier to at least get people excited about.
- ajmurmann 8y ago
  "and young people in their early 20's shouldn't mind deployments in the midwest or wherever." That to me sounds exactly like the kind of thing someone in their early twenties who is ready to head out and see the world would mind. Maybe I'm just projecting?
  - blunte 8y ago
    From my experience with pilots (family, NATO training base nearby), just the opportunity to flight high performance aircraft is a thrill. The name of the piece of land below you isn't as important as what aircraft you're in and what you're allowed to do with it.
    - matt4077 8y ago
      And the spouses, naturally, are supposed to get along with the program.
      - mmsimanga 8y ago
        I am guessing when you say "I do" you must have a pretty good idea of the person you are marrying.
        Moru 8y ago
        Weren't we talking about people in their twenties? Do you people often get married at that age? I thought it was more common to delay marriage and kids to later in the career nowadays?
        souprock 8y ago
        That delay is common where many Hacker News people reside, in places ranging from San Francisco to northern Sweden. It is however unnatural, and people in more affordable locations are still starting families closer to the natural time. My wife and I had 5 or 6 kids in my twenties, and then about that many in our thirties, and then still more. This sort of family becomes impossible if you delay, and you might not realize you want it until well after you can't have it.
        ben7799 8y ago
        Not that many people have 10+ kids, or something is just wrong with your post.
- rco8786 8y ago
  When I was young and single the last place you were gonna catch me relocating to was some sleepy midwestern town. That was a weird thing to just paper over
  - jplayer01 8y ago
    For the chance to fly a modern fighter jet? Wouldn't have hesitated at all, regardless of age.
- karlkatzke 8y ago
  The problem is that a lot of these guys are getting shunted from 'real' flying into drone piloting. They get front row seats to pushing a button and killing someone impersonally thousands of miles away, and they're managed like call center employees. In the words of one of my childhood buddies, "I didn't go through all that to fly a simulator, even if it's connected to something with wings somewhere else."
- aristophenes 8y ago
  That excitement has to last through years of training with crappy hours in crappy locations. Doesn't matter if you are cool fighter pilot if you can't be there for your family, move them out to the desert, don't have any say over when and where you will go for weeks at a time when you aren't deployed, gone for months or a year at a time when you are deployed, move from one crappy location to another every couple of years with sub-standard housing, and deal with a litany of red tape and BS not only on the ground but in the air. Assuming the stomach twisting maneuvers never get old and you still love the actual flying (many people have to learn to keep their puke in their stomachs). You have crazy hours and can't get regular sleeping hours, can't even drink when you want, but are still surrounded by functional alcoholics and professional bros. I could go on. The sheen wears off, the data backs it up. Imagine never seeing your kids even when you are at home because you are gone before they wake up, and home after they have gone to bed. The pilots often have to do more than fly. I hear it's much worse in the Marines since the pilots are also the officers in charge of the enlisted in the squadron, whereas in the Air Force you can be a pilot and an officer with no one reporting to you.
  - closeparen 8y ago
    > if you can't be there for your family Aren't fighter pilots pretty young? I work in an office and I don't know anyone under 30 with a family. If SF cost of living is enough to delay marriage and kids, you'd really think the demands on the military would be too. I get that there are middle-aged career officers, but I don't see why guys in their 20s are having kids before they get out.
    - aristophenes 8y ago
      > Aren't fighter pilots pretty young Yes, that's the problem. They keep getting out before they get old. The retention problem is for field grade officers (think people in their 30's). If you get a pilot slot you are signing up for a 10 year commitment, you can't leave. The first couple of years are basically training. You then get worked to the bone and start counting the days until you can get out. A lot of military do have families early if they can (they are people who don't get hung up on making a commitment after all). Those that don't often want a family and can't get one because of their work. When your commitment is up you are in your 30's and thinking what do I want to do when I grow up? Re-sign with Big Blue and get transferred to God knows where, be out of the country a lot, etc? On top of that the real fast burners get promoted out of being a line pilot early and go on to be commanding officers in the Air Force. So the attrition is happening at the top and bottom. I don't know if this shows up in the stats because I'm pretty sure they are still counted as pilots even if they are flying a desk at the pentagon. In short, the Air Force wants their pilots to stay in for a career, 20-30 years. If you want to wait that long to start a family you're going to have a tough time.
- imtringued 8y ago
  The pilots quit because they don't get to fly. Isn't that obvious?
- LeifCarrotson 8y ago
  An aspirational job is a recipe for supply problems. Whether it's fighter piloting, game development, teaching, acting, athletics, or music, you'll find people who love the idea of the work and are willing (for a time) to be exploited and mistreated for the "opportunity". Employment, at its most basic level, is a business transaction: Employees sell their time and skills, employers offer financial compensation in exchange. This exchange is complicated by expectations of status, morality, patriotism, fulfillment, health care, education, high risk/reward opportunities, societal obligations, and so on into the sales pitch. It's also complicated when the actual job involves fewer fun flight hours and more paper-pushing, distant deployments, bureaucracy, and boot-licking (all revealed only after time in the job). problems are going to arise. Specifically, financial compensation can be reduced, working conditions made worse, and responsibilities increased, without immediate feedback from the starry-eyed recruits. But eventually, someone taking a critical look at their employment will say "This isn't as glamorous as I expected. It actually kind of sucks." A while later, starry-eyed recruits will hear about that and stop thinking that the job is Top Gun and think it's more like Office Space. And someday, way down the road, management will wonder why there's a shortage of people willing to work in the conditions they created for the pay they're offering.
- ken 8y ago
  "Job dissatisfaction, career dissatisfaction, frequent and long deployments, poor quality of life, non-competitive pay and lack of personal and professional development are among the reasons cited" It sounds to me like "fly jets" is the only upside, and every other part of the job is pretty lousy. > They make video games of that. Video game design is constrained by what is feasible to program, and what makes a decent game. Tetris and Minecraft are incredibly popular, but that wasn't because brick laying was ever an aspirational job. Apparently fighter pilots only fly ~16 hours a month [1]. Against a typical 40-hour work week, that's less than 10%. No matter how much I love flying, it's tough to sell me on a career where I'll spend more than 90% of it doing the parts I hate. For techies, working at a startup is cool ("aspirational"!) these days. How many programmers would you still get if they earned less than $50K, would spend less than 10% of their workday writing code, and had to basically retire from coding altogether by 45? [1]: https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/03/01/secaf-air-force-pilots-are-flying-17-hours-per-month-but-its-still-not-enough/ https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/03/01...
umvi 8y ago
Seems like the Air Force is trapped in a vicious underhiring/overhiring cycle. When I was in college I did Air Force ROTC. A lot of my peers had pilot slots; I was poised as a 17D (Cyber Ops). After graduating, my training date was put on hold virtually indefinitely. Eventually I got an email that the Air Force had commissioned way too many officers and were looking for people to voluntarily leave with no commitment/obligation - seemed like a good deal, so I took it as did a lot of my non-pilot friends. Later I found out a bunch of my pilot buddies were reassigned to other career fields because of overly stringent medical requirements (the real reason was likely a shortage in the other career fields?). For example one friend indicated he had pollen allergies on a form and was instantly disqualified (like you would ever be breathing pollen at altitude). Another wasn't even poised to be a pilot but a CSO - nope, disqualified because it turned out he had a tiny benign cataract in one eye (he has 20/20 vision otherwise). The USAF brought this upon themselves
- nabla9 8y ago
  > had pollen allergies on a form and was instantly disqualified (like you would ever be breathing pollen at altitude). Any form of rhinitis (nose irritation or inflammation) after age 12 is disqualifying (allergic, nonallergic or vasomotor). The reason for this is because anyone who has rhinitis has higher risk of getting the reaction at least sometimes from changes of humidity, barometric pressure, irritants like chemicals, dust, stress, etc. Having runny nose or puffed eyes is no-go for fighter pilot in a breathing mask. Spending millions to train someone who has a change of not being able to fly is not a good investment. It's the same for the eyes. They estimate how the eye conditions develop for the rest of the career. Small things that don't matter now can become problematic later.
- fbelzile 8y ago
  Canadian Air Force, but same issues with the overly stringent medical requirements. A minor form of scoliosis disqualified me from ever using an ejection seat. Although I wanted to fly transport planes, the training required the use of an aircraft with ejection seats.
  - 52-6F-62 8y ago
usapatriot111 8y ago
country doesn't need that many pilots if it doesn't wage endless wars, though.
- tenpies 8y ago
  Except they do. Pilots also fly in humanitarian aid, fly out civilians and medical casualties, carry out Search and Rescue, and perform reconnaissance during natural disasters.
  - lutorm 8y ago
    That all applies to transport aircraft, not to combat aircraft. An F-35 is pretty useless for any of the roles you outlined.
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    Civilian pilots can, and do, all those things. And in much cheaper aircraft to fly/maintain.
    - WkndTriathlete 8y ago
      I'm skeptical that when disasters strike that any private/civilian organization has the capacity to actually mount an effective relief operation. (Excess capacity is unprofitable and would be trimmed out before the disaster happened.) The military, on the other hand - by definition, in times of peace - has plenty of excess capacity to execute an effective relief operation.
      - Gene_Parmesan 8y ago
        Excess capacity and, for sure, logistics. Despite their other failings, there's still no one else with the experience and infrastructure necessary to carry out huge-scale international relief efforts quite like the US military.
- brixon 8y ago
  how else would we go into deeper debt? the budget deficit and debt is not going to grow on it's own.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jwally 8y ago
An Anecdotal "I quit" I read a couple of years ago about the (then impending) pilot shortage: https://www.jqpublicblog.com/punching-out-latest-dear-boss-letter-decries-air-forces-lack-of-true-leadership/ https://www.jqpublicblog.com/punching-out-latest-dear-boss-l... Dear Boss, I’ve fucking had it. I’m finally giving up on my Air Force and I’m throwing in the towel. Flying fighter jets is no longer cool enough to outweigh the bullshit, and so I’ve broken the mach for the final time. You’re going to believe that I’m leaving because I’m tired of deploying, that I’m sick of the queep, and that I seek the money bags and greener pastures of the Airlines. I’ve heard you on TV spouting those same lines over and over. Boss, I probably will join the airlines, but that’s not why I’m leaving. I’m leaving because my wife (I love my wife) got tired of hearing me come home every night and bitch about how the leaders of my Air Force are running it into the ground. I’m leaving because you took the coolest job on the planet, you, the leaders of this job, and you ruined it. You took one of the few jobs left in the world that kids hang posters of on their walls, and you made it so damn miserable that thousands of guys like me are calling it quits. And the worst part is, you have no idea HOW you made it miserable, and even less of an idea how to fix it. You are focusing on the second and third order effects, but not the root cause. Boss, you were a fighter pilot. You were trained for years in how to identify the root cause. I know you have the ability to dig past the airlines, ops tempo, queep, and other reasons you’re currently focusing on, and find the DFP. I know that you know what it is, I just don’t think you have the stones to call it out in public and do something about it, so I’m pulling the handles. Yes, life in my Air Force has gotten tough. But the real reason I’m leaving boss, the heart of the issue is this. I’m a leader, I always have been. People follow me because I’m good in the Air, I have a strong act in the bar, and I give a shit about the people that work for me. And because I’m a true leader, I will never lead in this Air Force. Instead, the guys that are leading in my place, and in the place of all of the others like me, are boot-licking, risk-averse, yes men who have spent an entire career being faithful followers and couldn’t lead a 2 ship to the end of the runway. They’ve been rewarded their entire careers for being non-confrontational, making only safe decisions, punishing downhill and protecting uphill, and most importantly, being loyal to the bad leaders above them. That’s the real problem here, boss…. loyalty has become the new CURRENCY of your Air Force. More than integrity. More than excellence. More than tactical ability. More than taking care of the people in your charge. Absolute loyalty to your superiors is what gets you promoted. And in return for that loyalty, you get protection. Protection by your bosses for every stupid, unethical, illegal, hair-brained, vindictive decision you make that degrades morale, drives people out, and makes good leaders like myself write this letter.
driverdan 8y ago
> A recent RAND study found the cost of training a basic qualified fighter pilot ranges from $5.6 million for an F-16 pilot to $10.9 million for an F-22 pilot. Those numbers seem outrageous to me. Why does it cost so much? Are there frequent plane crashes?
- kgilpin 8y ago
  Jets cost a ton to operate, in fuel, maintenance and personnel.
- vasco 8y ago
  Just a single sortie is very expensive in just maintenance + supply. You need a whole crew to prepare a plane. Not to speak of the whole infrastructure required to train pilots, having places to fly from, teachers to learn from. It all adds up to a huge number, that when you divide by the number of pilots trained, doesn't get reduced by a lot.
- jcurbo 8y ago
  - Years of training on multiple platforms (initial pilot training, follow up training on the platform itself, possibly others) - Maintenance and logistics of those platforms - Probably amortizing the cost of those planes across each pilot using it for training
  - adestefan 8y ago
    The cost of the people to support all of that, too.
- openasocket 8y ago
  I'm guessing it has to do with flight time. Flying a jet is expensive. A jet will consume something like $10,000 of fuel per hour of flight time. Not to mention maintenance costs, the costs of the maintenance crew, the cost of having dedicated f-16s and f-22s for training is probably included in there as well. Not to mention what is probably a high dropout rate. All that adds up. $5.6M still sounds high to me, but I imagine there are a bunch of other costs I'm not thinking about.
randcraw 8y ago
Weirdly, the article says almost nothing about the impact of drones on career pilots, especially their will to reenlist. The focus was fighter jocks, but I doubt most will end up flying commercially -- the skills of flying passengers or freight don't overlap much with dogfights, missile tech, or flying invisible. The article also says nothing about which kinds of pilots are in shortest supply (fighter, heavy, rotary, carrier-based fighters, VTOLs, etc), or which service suffers most. It briefly mentions the cost of training fighers, but nothing on non-fighter pilots, which must make up the vast majority of onboard pilots, much less the cost of drone pilots. Nor does it mention the rate of departure for all of these MOSes. IMO, this article went to press with far too little background research. That, or it was edited out later.
- Doxterpepper 8y ago
  > The focus was fighter jocks, but I doubt most will end up flying commercially My understanding from folks I've talked to in the airline business is that they generally want people who flew fighters. Those people who have previously taken aircraft to their maximum limits are not as freaked when things go wrong in the cockpit of an airliner.
- alexhutcheson 8y ago
  > The focus was fighter jocks, but I doubt most will end up flying commercially -- the skills of flying passengers or freight don't overlap much with dogfights, missile tech, or flying invisible. My understanding is that the main "skill" commercial airlines are looking for is flight hours - lots and lots of flight hours. The combat-focused skills obviously don't transfer, but an experienced fighter pilot is still very prepared to transition to flying commercial flights if they want to.
- thrill 8y ago
  Probably the majority of fighter pilots end up flying for the airlines once they leave active duty. For one thing, the airlines are just as desperate to find qualified pilots, though that's greatly driven by the ups and downs of the economy.
nradov 8y ago
The Army also has a pilot shortage, but they've done a little better than the Air Force due to allowing warrant officers to fly. Many pilots just want to fly, they don't want to deal with all the other management responsibilities and staff assignments that come with being a commissioned officer. When the Air Force split off from the Army they decided they only wanted commissioned officers as pilots and eliminated WO ranks.
- phreenet 8y ago
  The US Army has an interesting program called 'High School to Flight School' for Warrant Officer pilot candidates.
- richardhod 8y ago
  It's interesting how the US military copied the British class-based system of management, officers v other ranks. It does stymie a lot of creativity and talent.
  - aristophenes 8y ago
    The way I see this is that the US Air Force does allow enlisted to fly. First, get a college degree, and go through the application process to become an officer. Prior enlisted with the smarts to do it are seen as better officers. Then once you've done that you can get a pilot slot. Why would I want someone who is not willing or able to get a college degree pilot my $150 million dollar jet?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - souprock 8y ago
      You'd want that because a college degree is a 4-year delay during which the human body ages. Everything gets worse with age: hearing, eyesight, neck strength (needed for high-G pilots), etc. That cuts the career by 4 years, meaning that a larger portion of it is training and a smaller portion is being useful. There is then an incentive to let excessively older people keep flying, meaning a reduction in the physical standards (eyesight, etc.) for the people who fly that $150 million dollar jet. Good eyesight matters more than college gunk like "Art Appreciation" and "Intro to Humanities".
openasocket 8y ago
This is probably part of the reason why the USAF is leaning so hard towards unmanned systems in the future, because it opens up a lot of doors here. Drone pilots can be put pretty much anywhere in the world so they don't need to be forward-deployed, which will probably help attract people. The physical standards can be strongly relaxed, no need to worry about eyesight or their ability to handle 8Gs, which increases the pool of possible pilots. You can to some degree "oversubscribe" and have fewer pilots than aircraft (alternatively, fewer pilots on shift, meaning pilots don't have to work as many hours), since not all of your planes will be in the air at once. Some of the more mundane tasks can be automated or distributed (maybe have air traffic controllers control taxiing, takeoff and landing directly?) like in-air refueling. It's not a panacea, and there are missions drones will not be able to do anytime soon, but I imagine it will help with the pilot shortfall.
- jillesvangurp 8y ago
  All of that can be automated. For new drone systems it makes a lot of sense to strive for fully autonomous systems. Why have some human in the loop for things a computer can do faster and more efficiently? That stuff will eventually trickle down to civilian aviation as well. Just like self driving cars are likely to happen in the next years; self flying planes are just as feasible. The shortage for pilots is short term. Pilots starting today in their careers need to consider that they might be automated away some time during their career. Fortunately, a large part of the planes flying today will still be flying for years to come and they won't be flying themselves. E.g. the B52 program was just extended to 2050 I believe. Replacing that stuff will take decades even when it is feasible technically.
- averros 8y ago
  Drones are susceptible to electronic counter-measures (ECM). As it stands now, Russia has a lead in this field. So, (presumably) has China which is busy buying Russian military hardware in addition to developing its own. Drones are great for slaughtering camel herders armed with AK-47s and TOW missiles. They're not that great against a tech-parity adversary.
- aurailious 8y ago
magduf 8y ago
This story's title here on HN seems to contradict the actual news story. According to the HN title, there is no shortage of AF pilots. It says the outlook is grim for the shortage, not for the number of pilots, so it means that the shortage is probably going to go away.
vgoh1 8y ago
I can't fathom how the answer to the pilot shortage couldn't simply be "pay them more". They are flying $100 million dollar planes, pilot salary must be a drop in the bucket.
- HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
  The ultimate answer to any skill shortage is always going to be "pay them more." However, that falls apart quickly, so the problem is finding a better answer.
- a3n 8y ago
  But then you'd have pilots making more than Generals.
  - ken 8y ago
    I'm not sure I understand. The reason you pay more for higher ranks is because you want to incentivize people to work to be promoted to those ranks, right? If you have enough generals but not enough pilots, it ought to flip.
    - a3n 8y ago
      > The reason you pay more for higher ranks is because you want to incentivize people to work to be promoted to those ranks Also to compensate for more responsibility and experience. But we aren't logical beings, and pay is part of social status.
paulsutter 8y ago
Especially pilots with biplane experience, I'm sure. Why are we building manned warplanes?
- na85 8y ago
  We build manned warplanes because you want a human with decision making capability on the trigger, drone communications can be jammed, and AI is a myth.
afengr 8y ago
This is just as bad, if not worse, in other career fields too. I am an active duty EE. The Air Force paid for my undergrad then paid for my Masters. I am on my payback tour in a research lab, and I spend more then 80% of my time managing contractual requirements, finances, and other "inherently government functions" that they need a warm body to do (and that I have only gotten on the job training for). This is not even close to the unique story. Active Duty get tapped for all of the "odds and ends" duties because they can be tasked to, they either won't hire someone or taking the time to hire someone takes too much time/resources. I had a friend of mine (also with a fully paid Undergrad and Grad in engineering) with the same experience get tapped to do Honor Guard Duty for six months. Seriously.
ramenmeal 8y ago
Do they really only get paid $35k?
- jackfrodo 8y ago
  That's the incentive bonus.

81 points by spking 8y ago

The AF needs to look at the software industry. Bring in hordes of newbies and keep the ones that don't kill themselves for 3-5 years, then repeat.

dingaling 8y ago
That was actually how air forces adapted to the jet era. Attrition was horrific, about 35% of USAF F-84s and F-86s being lost in crashes through the 1950s. Actual combat losses in Korea were insignificant compared to accidents. The 1970s-designed F-16 has a loss rate of 3.4 per 100,000 flight hours. The two 1950s fighters were 52.6 and 44.2 respectively.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

This is interesting because the military pilots I know simply love to fly. It's an amazing opportunity to fly amazing kit, and to get tons and tons of airtime. The pay was never that great, and young people in their early 20's shouldn't mind deployments in the midwest or wherever. Also, it's a very aspirational job: "Jet Fighter Pilot". They make video games of that. Every little boy, at some point, considered wanting to do it. Something fishy in the system, maybe a broken pipeline, because I can't imagine anything easier to at least get people excited about.

ajmurmann 8y ago
"and young people in their early 20's shouldn't mind deployments in the midwest or wherever." That to me sounds exactly like the kind of thing someone in their early twenties who is ready to head out and see the world would mind. Maybe I'm just projecting?
- blunte 8y ago
  From my experience with pilots (family, NATO training base nearby), just the opportunity to flight high performance aircraft is a thrill. The name of the piece of land below you isn't as important as what aircraft you're in and what you're allowed to do with it.
  - matt4077 8y ago
    And the spouses, naturally, are supposed to get along with the program.
    - mmsimanga 8y ago
      I am guessing when you say "I do" you must have a pretty good idea of the person you are marrying.
      - Moru 8y ago
        Weren't we talking about people in their twenties? Do you people often get married at that age? I thought it was more common to delay marriage and kids to later in the career nowadays?
        souprock 8y ago
        That delay is common where many Hacker News people reside, in places ranging from San Francisco to northern Sweden. It is however unnatural, and people in more affordable locations are still starting families closer to the natural time. My wife and I had 5 or 6 kids in my twenties, and then about that many in our thirties, and then still more. This sort of family becomes impossible if you delay, and you might not realize you want it until well after you can't have it.
        ben7799 8y ago
        Not that many people have 10+ kids, or something is just wrong with your post.
rco8786 8y ago
When I was young and single the last place you were gonna catch me relocating to was some sleepy midwestern town. That was a weird thing to just paper over
- jplayer01 8y ago
  For the chance to fly a modern fighter jet? Wouldn't have hesitated at all, regardless of age.
karlkatzke 8y ago
The problem is that a lot of these guys are getting shunted from 'real' flying into drone piloting. They get front row seats to pushing a button and killing someone impersonally thousands of miles away, and they're managed like call center employees. In the words of one of my childhood buddies, "I didn't go through all that to fly a simulator, even if it's connected to something with wings somewhere else."
aristophenes 8y ago
That excitement has to last through years of training with crappy hours in crappy locations. Doesn't matter if you are cool fighter pilot if you can't be there for your family, move them out to the desert, don't have any say over when and where you will go for weeks at a time when you aren't deployed, gone for months or a year at a time when you are deployed, move from one crappy location to another every couple of years with sub-standard housing, and deal with a litany of red tape and BS not only on the ground but in the air. Assuming the stomach twisting maneuvers never get old and you still love the actual flying (many people have to learn to keep their puke in their stomachs). You have crazy hours and can't get regular sleeping hours, can't even drink when you want, but are still surrounded by functional alcoholics and professional bros. I could go on. The sheen wears off, the data backs it up. Imagine never seeing your kids even when you are at home because you are gone before they wake up, and home after they have gone to bed. The pilots often have to do more than fly. I hear it's much worse in the Marines since the pilots are also the officers in charge of the enlisted in the squadron, whereas in the Air Force you can be a pilot and an officer with no one reporting to you.
- closeparen 8y ago
  > if you can't be there for your family Aren't fighter pilots pretty young? I work in an office and I don't know anyone under 30 with a family. If SF cost of living is enough to delay marriage and kids, you'd really think the demands on the military would be too. I get that there are middle-aged career officers, but I don't see why guys in their 20s are having kids before they get out.
  - aristophenes 8y ago
    > Aren't fighter pilots pretty young Yes, that's the problem. They keep getting out before they get old. The retention problem is for field grade officers (think people in their 30's). If you get a pilot slot you are signing up for a 10 year commitment, you can't leave. The first couple of years are basically training. You then get worked to the bone and start counting the days until you can get out. A lot of military do have families early if they can (they are people who don't get hung up on making a commitment after all). Those that don't often want a family and can't get one because of their work. When your commitment is up you are in your 30's and thinking what do I want to do when I grow up? Re-sign with Big Blue and get transferred to God knows where, be out of the country a lot, etc? On top of that the real fast burners get promoted out of being a line pilot early and go on to be commanding officers in the Air Force. So the attrition is happening at the top and bottom. I don't know if this shows up in the stats because I'm pretty sure they are still counted as pilots even if they are flying a desk at the pentagon. In short, the Air Force wants their pilots to stay in for a career, 20-30 years. If you want to wait that long to start a family you're going to have a tough time.
imtringued 8y ago
The pilots quit because they don't get to fly. Isn't that obvious?
LeifCarrotson 8y ago
An aspirational job is a recipe for supply problems. Whether it's fighter piloting, game development, teaching, acting, athletics, or music, you'll find people who love the idea of the work and are willing (for a time) to be exploited and mistreated for the "opportunity". Employment, at its most basic level, is a business transaction: Employees sell their time and skills, employers offer financial compensation in exchange. This exchange is complicated by expectations of status, morality, patriotism, fulfillment, health care, education, high risk/reward opportunities, societal obligations, and so on into the sales pitch. It's also complicated when the actual job involves fewer fun flight hours and more paper-pushing, distant deployments, bureaucracy, and boot-licking (all revealed only after time in the job). problems are going to arise. Specifically, financial compensation can be reduced, working conditions made worse, and responsibilities increased, without immediate feedback from the starry-eyed recruits. But eventually, someone taking a critical look at their employment will say "This isn't as glamorous as I expected. It actually kind of sucks." A while later, starry-eyed recruits will hear about that and stop thinking that the job is Top Gun and think it's more like Office Space. And someday, way down the road, management will wonder why there's a shortage of people willing to work in the conditions they created for the pay they're offering.
ken 8y ago
"Job dissatisfaction, career dissatisfaction, frequent and long deployments, poor quality of life, non-competitive pay and lack of personal and professional development are among the reasons cited" It sounds to me like "fly jets" is the only upside, and every other part of the job is pretty lousy. > They make video games of that. Video game design is constrained by what is feasible to program, and what makes a decent game. Tetris and Minecraft are incredibly popular, but that wasn't because brick laying was ever an aspirational job. Apparently fighter pilots only fly ~16 hours a month [1]. Against a typical 40-hour work week, that's less than 10%. No matter how much I love flying, it's tough to sell me on a career where I'll spend more than 90% of it doing the parts I hate. For techies, working at a startup is cool ("aspirational"!) these days. How many programmers would you still get if they earned less than $50K, would spend less than 10% of their workday writing code, and had to basically retire from coding altogether by 45? [1]: https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/03/01/secaf-air-force-pilots-are-flying-17-hours-per-month-but-its-still-not-enough/ https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/03/01...

umvi 8y ago

Seems like the Air Force is trapped in a vicious underhiring/overhiring cycle. When I was in college I did Air Force ROTC. A lot of my peers had pilot slots; I was poised as a 17D (Cyber Ops). After graduating, my training date was put on hold virtually indefinitely. Eventually I got an email that the Air Force had commissioned way too many officers and were looking for people to voluntarily leave with no commitment/obligation - seemed like a good deal, so I took it as did a lot of my non-pilot friends. Later I found out a bunch of my pilot buddies were reassigned to other career fields because of overly stringent medical requirements (the real reason was likely a shortage in the other career fields?). For example one friend indicated he had pollen allergies on a form and was instantly disqualified (like you would ever be breathing pollen at altitude). Another wasn't even poised to be a pilot but a CSO - nope, disqualified because it turned out he had a tiny benign cataract in one eye (he has 20/20 vision otherwise). The USAF brought this upon themselves

nabla9 8y ago
> had pollen allergies on a form and was instantly disqualified (like you would ever be breathing pollen at altitude). Any form of rhinitis (nose irritation or inflammation) after age 12 is disqualifying (allergic, nonallergic or vasomotor). The reason for this is because anyone who has rhinitis has higher risk of getting the reaction at least sometimes from changes of humidity, barometric pressure, irritants like chemicals, dust, stress, etc. Having runny nose or puffed eyes is no-go for fighter pilot in a breathing mask. Spending millions to train someone who has a change of not being able to fly is not a good investment. It's the same for the eyes. They estimate how the eye conditions develop for the rest of the career. Small things that don't matter now can become problematic later.
fbelzile 8y ago
Canadian Air Force, but same issues with the overly stringent medical requirements. A minor form of scoliosis disqualified me from ever using an ejection seat. Although I wanted to fly transport planes, the training required the use of an aircraft with ejection seats.
- 52-6F-62 8y ago

usapatriot111 8y ago

country doesn't need that many pilots if it doesn't wage endless wars, though.

tenpies 8y ago
Except they do. Pilots also fly in humanitarian aid, fly out civilians and medical casualties, carry out Search and Rescue, and perform reconnaissance during natural disasters.
- lutorm 8y ago
  That all applies to transport aircraft, not to combat aircraft. An F-35 is pretty useless for any of the roles you outlined.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  Civilian pilots can, and do, all those things. And in much cheaper aircraft to fly/maintain.
  - WkndTriathlete 8y ago
    I'm skeptical that when disasters strike that any private/civilian organization has the capacity to actually mount an effective relief operation. (Excess capacity is unprofitable and would be trimmed out before the disaster happened.) The military, on the other hand - by definition, in times of peace - has plenty of excess capacity to execute an effective relief operation.
    - Gene_Parmesan 8y ago
      Excess capacity and, for sure, logistics. Despite their other failings, there's still no one else with the experience and infrastructure necessary to carry out huge-scale international relief efforts quite like the US military.
brixon 8y ago
how else would we go into deeper debt? the budget deficit and debt is not going to grow on it's own.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

jwally 8y ago

An Anecdotal "I quit" I read a couple of years ago about the (then impending) pilot shortage: https://www.jqpublicblog.com/punching-out-latest-dear-boss-letter-decries-air-forces-lack-of-true-leadership/ https://www.jqpublicblog.com/punching-out-latest-dear-boss-l... Dear Boss, I’ve fucking had it. I’m finally giving up on my Air Force and I’m throwing in the towel. Flying fighter jets is no longer cool enough to outweigh the bullshit, and so I’ve broken the mach for the final time. You’re going to believe that I’m leaving because I’m tired of deploying, that I’m sick of the queep, and that I seek the money bags and greener pastures of the Airlines. I’ve heard you on TV spouting those same lines over and over. Boss, I probably will join the airlines, but that’s not why I’m leaving. I’m leaving because my wife (I love my wife) got tired of hearing me come home every night and bitch about how the leaders of my Air Force are running it into the ground. I’m leaving because you took the coolest job on the planet, you, the leaders of this job, and you ruined it. You took one of the few jobs left in the world that kids hang posters of on their walls, and you made it so damn miserable that thousands of guys like me are calling it quits. And the worst part is, you have no idea HOW you made it miserable, and even less of an idea how to fix it. You are focusing on the second and third order effects, but not the root cause. Boss, you were a fighter pilot. You were trained for years in how to identify the root cause. I know you have the ability to dig past the airlines, ops tempo, queep, and other reasons you’re currently focusing on, and find the DFP. I know that you know what it is, I just don’t think you have the stones to call it out in public and do something about it, so I’m pulling the handles. Yes, life in my Air Force has gotten tough. But the real reason I’m leaving boss, the heart of the issue is this. I’m a leader, I always have been. People follow me because I’m good in the Air, I have a strong act in the bar, and I give a shit about the people that work for me. And because I’m a true leader, I will never lead in this Air Force. Instead, the guys that are leading in my place, and in the place of all of the others like me, are boot-licking, risk-averse, yes men who have spent an entire career being faithful followers and couldn’t lead a 2 ship to the end of the runway. They’ve been rewarded their entire careers for being non-confrontational, making only safe decisions, punishing downhill and protecting uphill, and most importantly, being loyal to the bad leaders above them. That’s the real problem here, boss…. loyalty has become the new CURRENCY of your Air Force. More than integrity. More than excellence. More than tactical ability. More than taking care of the people in your charge. Absolute loyalty to your superiors is what gets you promoted. And in return for that loyalty, you get protection. Protection by your bosses for every stupid, unethical, illegal, hair-brained, vindictive decision you make that degrades morale, drives people out, and makes good leaders like myself write this letter.

driverdan 8y ago

> A recent RAND study found the cost of training a basic qualified fighter pilot ranges from $5.6 million for an F-16 pilot to $10.9 million for an F-22 pilot. Those numbers seem outrageous to me. Why does it cost so much? Are there frequent plane crashes?

kgilpin 8y ago
Jets cost a ton to operate, in fuel, maintenance and personnel.
vasco 8y ago
Just a single sortie is very expensive in just maintenance + supply. You need a whole crew to prepare a plane. Not to speak of the whole infrastructure required to train pilots, having places to fly from, teachers to learn from. It all adds up to a huge number, that when you divide by the number of pilots trained, doesn't get reduced by a lot.
jcurbo 8y ago
- Years of training on multiple platforms (initial pilot training, follow up training on the platform itself, possibly others) - Maintenance and logistics of those platforms - Probably amortizing the cost of those planes across each pilot using it for training
- adestefan 8y ago
  The cost of the people to support all of that, too.
openasocket 8y ago
I'm guessing it has to do with flight time. Flying a jet is expensive. A jet will consume something like $10,000 of fuel per hour of flight time. Not to mention maintenance costs, the costs of the maintenance crew, the cost of having dedicated f-16s and f-22s for training is probably included in there as well. Not to mention what is probably a high dropout rate. All that adds up. $5.6M still sounds high to me, but I imagine there are a bunch of other costs I'm not thinking about.

randcraw 8y ago

Weirdly, the article says almost nothing about the impact of drones on career pilots, especially their will to reenlist. The focus was fighter jocks, but I doubt most will end up flying commercially -- the skills of flying passengers or freight don't overlap much with dogfights, missile tech, or flying invisible. The article also says nothing about which kinds of pilots are in shortest supply (fighter, heavy, rotary, carrier-based fighters, VTOLs, etc), or which service suffers most. It briefly mentions the cost of training fighers, but nothing on non-fighter pilots, which must make up the vast majority of onboard pilots, much less the cost of drone pilots. Nor does it mention the rate of departure for all of these MOSes. IMO, this article went to press with far too little background research. That, or it was edited out later.

Doxterpepper 8y ago
> The focus was fighter jocks, but I doubt most will end up flying commercially My understanding from folks I've talked to in the airline business is that they generally want people who flew fighters. Those people who have previously taken aircraft to their maximum limits are not as freaked when things go wrong in the cockpit of an airliner.
alexhutcheson 8y ago
> The focus was fighter jocks, but I doubt most will end up flying commercially -- the skills of flying passengers or freight don't overlap much with dogfights, missile tech, or flying invisible. My understanding is that the main "skill" commercial airlines are looking for is flight hours - lots and lots of flight hours. The combat-focused skills obviously don't transfer, but an experienced fighter pilot is still very prepared to transition to flying commercial flights if they want to.
thrill 8y ago
Probably the majority of fighter pilots end up flying for the airlines once they leave active duty. For one thing, the airlines are just as desperate to find qualified pilots, though that's greatly driven by the ups and downs of the economy.

nradov 8y ago

The Army also has a pilot shortage, but they've done a little better than the Air Force due to allowing warrant officers to fly. Many pilots just want to fly, they don't want to deal with all the other management responsibilities and staff assignments that come with being a commissioned officer. When the Air Force split off from the Army they decided they only wanted commissioned officers as pilots and eliminated WO ranks.

phreenet 8y ago
The US Army has an interesting program called 'High School to Flight School' for Warrant Officer pilot candidates.
richardhod 8y ago
It's interesting how the US military copied the British class-based system of management, officers v other ranks. It does stymie a lot of creativity and talent.
- aristophenes 8y ago
  The way I see this is that the US Air Force does allow enlisted to fly. First, get a college degree, and go through the application process to become an officer. Prior enlisted with the smarts to do it are seen as better officers. Then once you've done that you can get a pilot slot. Why would I want someone who is not willing or able to get a college degree pilot my $150 million dollar jet?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - souprock 8y ago
    You'd want that because a college degree is a 4-year delay during which the human body ages. Everything gets worse with age: hearing, eyesight, neck strength (needed for high-G pilots), etc. That cuts the career by 4 years, meaning that a larger portion of it is training and a smaller portion is being useful. There is then an incentive to let excessively older people keep flying, meaning a reduction in the physical standards (eyesight, etc.) for the people who fly that $150 million dollar jet. Good eyesight matters more than college gunk like "Art Appreciation" and "Intro to Humanities".

openasocket 8y ago

This is probably part of the reason why the USAF is leaning so hard towards unmanned systems in the future, because it opens up a lot of doors here. Drone pilots can be put pretty much anywhere in the world so they don't need to be forward-deployed, which will probably help attract people. The physical standards can be strongly relaxed, no need to worry about eyesight or their ability to handle 8Gs, which increases the pool of possible pilots. You can to some degree "oversubscribe" and have fewer pilots than aircraft (alternatively, fewer pilots on shift, meaning pilots don't have to work as many hours), since not all of your planes will be in the air at once. Some of the more mundane tasks can be automated or distributed (maybe have air traffic controllers control taxiing, takeoff and landing directly?) like in-air refueling. It's not a panacea, and there are missions drones will not be able to do anytime soon, but I imagine it will help with the pilot shortfall.

jillesvangurp 8y ago
All of that can be automated. For new drone systems it makes a lot of sense to strive for fully autonomous systems. Why have some human in the loop for things a computer can do faster and more efficiently? That stuff will eventually trickle down to civilian aviation as well. Just like self driving cars are likely to happen in the next years; self flying planes are just as feasible. The shortage for pilots is short term. Pilots starting today in their careers need to consider that they might be automated away some time during their career. Fortunately, a large part of the planes flying today will still be flying for years to come and they won't be flying themselves. E.g. the B52 program was just extended to 2050 I believe. Replacing that stuff will take decades even when it is feasible technically.
averros 8y ago
Drones are susceptible to electronic counter-measures (ECM). As it stands now, Russia has a lead in this field. So, (presumably) has China which is busy buying Russian military hardware in addition to developing its own. Drones are great for slaughtering camel herders armed with AK-47s and TOW missiles. They're not that great against a tech-parity adversary.
aurailious 8y ago

magduf 8y ago

This story's title here on HN seems to contradict the actual news story. According to the HN title, there is no shortage of AF pilots. It says the outlook is grim for the shortage, not for the number of pilots, so it means that the shortage is probably going to go away.

vgoh1 8y ago

I can't fathom how the answer to the pilot shortage couldn't simply be "pay them more". They are flying $100 million dollar planes, pilot salary must be a drop in the bucket.

HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
The ultimate answer to any skill shortage is always going to be "pay them more." However, that falls apart quickly, so the problem is finding a better answer.
a3n 8y ago
But then you'd have pilots making more than Generals.
- ken 8y ago
  I'm not sure I understand. The reason you pay more for higher ranks is because you want to incentivize people to work to be promoted to those ranks, right? If you have enough generals but not enough pilots, it ought to flip.
  - a3n 8y ago
    > The reason you pay more for higher ranks is because you want to incentivize people to work to be promoted to those ranks Also to compensate for more responsibility and experience. But we aren't logical beings, and pay is part of social status.

paulsutter 8y ago

Especially pilots with biplane experience, I'm sure. Why are we building manned warplanes?

na85 8y ago
We build manned warplanes because you want a human with decision making capability on the trigger, drone communications can be jammed, and AI is a myth.

afengr 8y ago

This is just as bad, if not worse, in other career fields too. I am an active duty EE. The Air Force paid for my undergrad then paid for my Masters. I am on my payback tour in a research lab, and I spend more then 80% of my time managing contractual requirements, finances, and other "inherently government functions" that they need a warm body to do (and that I have only gotten on the job training for). This is not even close to the unique story. Active Duty get tapped for all of the "odds and ends" duties because they can be tasked to, they either won't hire someone or taking the time to hire someone takes too much time/resources. I had a friend of mine (also with a fully paid Undergrad and Grad in engineering) with the same experience get tapped to do Honor Guard Duty for six months. Seriously.

ramenmeal 8y ago

Do they really only get paid $35k?

jackfrodo 8y ago
That's the incentive bonus.