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> Why would I want someone who is not willing or able to get a college degree pilot my $150 million dollar jet? You could ask this same question about almost a

> Why would I want someone who is not willing or able to get a college degree pilot my $150 million dollar jet? You could ask this same question about almost any requirement. You just finished saying that prior enlisted are seen as better officers. So why not require all officers to have previously enlisted? (in addition to college or instead of college) And there are blanket answers to your question that apply to just about anything. souprock pointed out that a college degree takes four years, cutting short their career. And any extra hoops or delays reduce the candidate pool. Remember, the article is discussing a shortage of pilots. The answer might be "because otherwise no one will fly your $150 million jet" or "because otherwise your very few, very perfect pilots will make poor decisions from exhaustion".

aristophenes 8y ago
Requiring officers to be enlisted first would be a great idea, in my opinion. And yes, most jobs nowadays require a college degree, and flying F-22s is one of them. Again, the problem is not that they can't find enough people to train, show me anything that says that. It's that they can't retain the people they have already trained. Since their incoming pipeline is completely full, if you want to use enlisted pilots you are going to have to pull some officers out of line to replace them with enlisted. I'm not saying enlisted guys can't do the job, just that this is the way the system works, and this part doesn't seem to be too broken. If you're enlisted and want to do it, the government will pay for your entire college and give you a stipend on top (ROTC, GI Bill), you can even do it part time while you are still enlisted in the military[1], then give you a nice raise to become an officer. Pretty good deal. The numbers might not always add up for free tuition, but there are a lot of schools in the yellow ribbon program that will cover additional costs for servicemembers[2]. [1] https://www.military.com/education/money-for-school/air-force-tuition-assistance.html https://www.military.com/education/money-for-school/air-forc... [2] https://www.benefits.va.gov/GIBILL/yellow_ribbon/yrp_list_2018.asp https://www.benefits.va.gov/GIBILL/yellow_ribbon/yrp_list_20...

aristophenes 8y ago

Requiring officers to be enlisted first would be a great idea, in my opinion. And yes, most jobs nowadays require a college degree, and flying F-22s is one of them. Again, the problem is not that they can't find enough people to train, show me anything that says that. It's that they can't retain the people they have already trained. Since their incoming pipeline is completely full, if you want to use enlisted pilots you are going to have to pull some officers out of line to replace them with enlisted. I'm not saying enlisted guys can't do the job, just that this is the way the system works, and this part doesn't seem to be too broken. If you're enlisted and want to do it, the government will pay for your entire college and give you a stipend on top (ROTC, GI Bill), you can even do it part time while you are still enlisted in the military[1], then give you a nice raise to become an officer. Pretty good deal. The numbers might not always add up for free tuition, but there are a lot of schools in the yellow ribbon program that will cover additional costs for servicemembers[2]. [1] https://www.military.com/education/money-for-school/air-force-tuition-assistance.html https://www.military.com/education/money-for-school/air-forc... [2] https://www.benefits.va.gov/GIBILL/yellow_ribbon/yrp_list_2018.asp https://www.benefits.va.gov/GIBILL/yellow_ribbon/yrp_list_20...