This seems to be the AF’s official position on the pilot shortage. I have never understood it. Guardian nailed it with “best way to fill a bucket with holes is to pour more water in.” Looking at this from a money standpoint, I don’t see how the AF gets away with it. They’re going to spend millions over 2-3 years to make a single rookie pilot, but they can’t spend more than 35K a year to retain an experienced one. If I was in the CSAF’s shoes, I would march straight to the hill and demand a revision to the law to let me pay my people more. “I’m going to dial down production, and use the extra resources to retain. This is a money allocation problem, not an ‘I need more money problem.’ It makes no sense to spend 50 times the money to make a product than you could spend to retain one with 10 times as much experience.” If that could be realized, a six figure bonus would be reasonable. Make that an option, I bet you’ll see a lot more folks consider staying in. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app