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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.

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.
        ben509 8y ago
        Women marrying into the military tend to be more conservative.
        magduf 8y ago
        As the other poster said, women marring into the military tend to be more conservative, and they're generally looking for a financial set-up. They marry the military guy because he has a regular job that's hard to get fired from, usually paid housing, etc., and she won't have to work. Of course, a huge number of military marriages end in divorce, but then the wife gets a nice payout from that too.
        alexhutcheson 8y ago
        People in the military tend to marry early, at least partially because there are a bunch of benefits that the military provides to spouses. If you get re-assigned to a base across the country, the military will pay to move your spouse, but not your girlfriend/boyfriend. If you need to be picked up from the base after work, that's a lot easier for a spouse to do (they have an ID) than a girlfriend/boyfriend. You also get a bigger housing stipend, they get medical benefits, etc. If you're in a long-term relationship anyway, there's a big financial benefit to making it "official".
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  For many people, moving to NYC/LA is not the end-all. That said, I think times are changing. As we become more urban/suburban, the notion of living in the middle of the desert has less appeal, I should admit. But for many folk, it's not a problem, or, it should be an adventure in itself. As the commenter above states, it can get dry and boring, but I'd hope that the combination of maturity and 'sense of duty' help prevail over that. Maybe the entire US Army / Forces should re-oriented how they move people around. Maybe they should try to have multifaceted bases instead of having to move people around constantly. Maybe 1 year long deployments can be broken up with bits of vacation and rest (that might have operational benefits as well). Maybe they should beef up their bases near urban areas. Toronto had a massive airport sized base, they closed it and it's now civilian. They should have kept it, it was big enough for a lot of kinds of training, and it could have allowed way more forces people to be in Toronto, the big city of Canada.
- imtringued 8y ago
  The type of person that joins the military doesn't mind deployments. In fact the entire point of becoming a pilot is to fly those damn planes and shoot stuff.
  - lghh 8y ago
    That "stuff" is usually either people or things with people in them. Please don't trivialize that.
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...

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.
      - ben509 8y ago
        Women marrying into the military tend to be more conservative.
      - magduf 8y ago
        As the other poster said, women marring into the military tend to be more conservative, and they're generally looking for a financial set-up. They marry the military guy because he has a regular job that's hard to get fired from, usually paid housing, etc., and she won't have to work. Of course, a huge number of military marriages end in divorce, but then the wife gets a nice payout from that too.
      - alexhutcheson 8y ago
        People in the military tend to marry early, at least partially because there are a bunch of benefits that the military provides to spouses. If you get re-assigned to a base across the country, the military will pay to move your spouse, but not your girlfriend/boyfriend. If you need to be picked up from the base after work, that's a lot easier for a spouse to do (they have an ID) than a girlfriend/boyfriend. You also get a bigger housing stipend, they get medical benefits, etc. If you're in a long-term relationship anyway, there's a big financial benefit to making it "official".
sonnyblarney 8y ago
For many people, moving to NYC/LA is not the end-all. That said, I think times are changing. As we become more urban/suburban, the notion of living in the middle of the desert has less appeal, I should admit. But for many folk, it's not a problem, or, it should be an adventure in itself. As the commenter above states, it can get dry and boring, but I'd hope that the combination of maturity and 'sense of duty' help prevail over that. Maybe the entire US Army / Forces should re-oriented how they move people around. Maybe they should try to have multifaceted bases instead of having to move people around constantly. Maybe 1 year long deployments can be broken up with bits of vacation and rest (that might have operational benefits as well). Maybe they should beef up their bases near urban areas. Toronto had a massive airport sized base, they closed it and it's now civilian. They should have kept it, it was big enough for a lot of kinds of training, and it could have allowed way more forces people to be in Toronto, the big city of Canada.
imtringued 8y ago
The type of person that joins the military doesn't mind deployments. In fact the entire point of becoming a pilot is to fly those damn planes and shoot stuff.
- lghh 8y ago
  That "stuff" is usually either people or things with people in them. Please don't trivialize that.

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...