4 ms·

And...there is the other end. My brother is a pilot and was retired by the Air Force because he had been in so long...so out he goes. Now he is a contractor fly

• chrisseaton 7y ago
  > Now he is a contractor flying drones for them getting paid 3x as much while drawing a hefty retirement. Contracting him could easily still be cheaper than having him still be in.
  • tomohawk 7y ago
    Not in this case. He's already going to get retirement benefits. Now, he's being payed a lot more, and part of that pay is for an additional retirement benefit. Contracting is really for short term needs. You pay short term wages (which bundle in insurance, retirement, profit, etc) for contractors. However, if the organization will continue to have that same need for several years, then paying people short term wages for that long is very expensive.
    • fatbird 7y ago
      But now he doesn't fly planes, which saves them a lot of money, and I doubt he'd have voluntarily transitioned within service from jets to drones, no?
      • jessaustin 7y ago
        ,,,voluntarily transitioned within service... My impression is that very little about the military is voluntary. If they need pilots to fly different craft, the pilots will fly different craft.
        • chrisseaton 7y ago
          Large job changes like that aren’t forced in my experience. If the person isn’t happy doing it the results are unlikely to be good, so they always try very hard for volunteers. It’s a volunteer service after all.
          • mbrameld 7y ago
            Hi, have you heard of the NCORP? It's how the Air Force levels out enlisted career fields. Since the Air Force sets force-wide promotion rates, some career fields end up with too many folks in some of the NCO grades. When that happens, they take the most junior folks in the grade and force them to retrain into another career field. They give you a short list to choose from. Most of the jobs are special operations and aircrew. You have a short period of time to make a choice and submit a package. If you don't act, they pick one for you. They picked airfield management for me near the end of an enlistment that earned me a 5.0 SRB when I re-upped as a 3C072. I self-promoted myself to Mr, instead. This was in 2008. The Air Force has been bad at staffing for a long time. Once you have volunteered, the needs of the service are what matters. They attempt to accommodate, but in the end if they need you somewhere they're going to put you there.
            • chrisseaton 7y ago
              > force them to retrain into another career field. They give you a short list to choose from. Most of the jobs are special operations and aircrew. How can that possibly work? How can you force someone to retrain into special operations? How does anyone build the motivation and determination to pass the qualification courses for that when they don't even really want to be there? Why would special operations even want someone who wasn't remotely a volunteer?
              • true_religion 7y ago
                The big hurdle is volunteering to be in the military. Once you have though, you can’t quit whenever you want and can’t skip without serious punishments.
• joering2 7y ago
  Would you please add to you message whether he flies lethal drones or just pure reconnaissance? While some people could be tempted with "paid 3x as much..." most will pass on this opportunity, learning you actually have to drop bombs and undoubtedly kill people for your tripled pay rate.
  • opencl 7y ago
    What makes you think that most people who join the military would be strongly averse to killing people? Even if you're flying pure reconnaissance you're helping and enabling the people doing the killing.
  • mikestew 7y ago
    While some people could be tempted with "paid 3x as much..." ...3x as much as an Air Force pilot whose job is to...wait for it...sometimes drop bombs on people and kill them. Let me know if you need a step ladder to help you off that high horse.
  • drharby 7y ago
    There are so many core misconceptions you have about the nature of volunteer service in an armed profession, its people, and your statement is so tangential and charged with auxillery purpose that i question whether you actually care about the pilot shortage at all