ViperMan

PSA, no one needs to make a decision until the 31 Dec 2018. So don't rush yourself.

I agree with a lot of what you said, but we definitely view the problem in different terms. I don't think that every hospital in the USAF should be deprecated, and I didn't intend to imply that. But, you can't seriously tell me that we NEED a base hospital at Luke AFB (Phoenix, AZ), hospitals in Dallas, San Antonio, Washington D.C., Salt Lake City, all the redundant and overlapping medical facilities the Navy has in San Diego and elsewhere in garden, costal locations with millions of civilians around. Holloman AFB? Sure. Cannon AFB? Sure. There is valid need for certain locations to have necessary support functions where there is no realistic alternative. My point is that we have EXCESS capacity that could easily be farmed out. Tricare doesn't pay enough? Blah, they can fix that with a flick of a pen. No one (or few) here thinks that pilots alone could accomplish the mission themselves in a vacuum. The point I was making was to say exactly what you said in your post: that it is stupid to compare doctors to pilots in the AF. What's a pilot worth to Microsoft? How bout a Computer Programmer? I'm sure the relative value of each person changes when you swap context, and that is the bottom line: the USAF needs pilots a HELL of a lot more than they need doctors - ANY doctors. Money talks. As far as finance goes, we could do a lot to streamline and simplify their jobs using technology, etc. I don't for one second buy that they aren't capable because they are understaffed. They need to work smarter, not harder. The AF loves to resist change though, and while I'm full of great suggestions for how they can fix themselves, that's not the point of this post.

Sortofish. What I am saying (which deserves its own post), is that the Air Force (as is true with any very large enterprise) needs a bureaucratic means (which it currently has) of selecting from a group of highly qualified and highly motivated individuals to select for their most difficult training pipeline. This ensures a higher probability of success which is vital with extraordinarily expensive training. Requiring someone to have a college degree (any college degree) is in NO WAY too high a bar to preclude someone from competing for pilot training - READ: those people who can't (or don't) make it through 'X' State University, very likely, have ZERO business flying a fighter aircraft, let alone any aircraft in the USAF. This, by definition, precludes much of the enlisted force. The above is in no way saying their are enlisted individuals who "couldn't" 'fly' a fighter or heavy aircraft - lord knows. I know there are many individuals around the world flying fighters who are less than capable. I feel ardently about this because I feel that our national advantage isn't grounded in our Army. It's grounded in our Air Force. And when we give up that advantage, we're asking for F$@%ing trouble. What I see this as is grasping at straws and a mediocre "attempt" to solve a problem. Ultimately the AF needs to stand up and tell the Army to do it's job (another post). This, of course, requires national-level leadership buy-in to a strategy (hasn't seemed like we've had one of those for a while), but why else are these people wearing stars?

Way behind in total salary (maybe), but are you accounting for the amount of insurance required of private doctors? It can be enormous from what I understand, whereas the cost to someone accepting any of those bonuses equals precisely $0.00. You account for $200-300K of med school debt, are you doing the math on $0.00 of med school debt to a mil doc? Difference between these positive and negative numbers begins to add up pretty quickly. We always talk about bringing doctors "in". Do doctors need to be in the military? Does a base located in city X "need" a whole ing hospital? Why don't we just outsource our healthcare to the civilian sector and pay market price? I grant that there are certain specialities that the military needs for reason X, but we do not need the medical infrastructure that we currently have set up to be able to accomplish our mission. There is an awesome (sarcasm) thread on the CAF Fighter Facebook page that is basically just a swinging dick contest between doctors and 11Fs. The point missing from the whole thing is that there is a separate 'sub-economy' in the USAF wherein pilots > doctors: because mission. So it doesn't matter what the USAF pays doctors relative to pilots. If this was a janitor's union, and our mission was sweeping the hallways of junior high schools, no one would care if some of the "help" who checked janitor's balls (who had tons of expensive education) wanted more pay or "deserved" more pay. The mission is hall-sweeping, not ball-checking. Yes.

Sarcastic post aside, I'll answer the questions literally (for sarcastic fun): They won't. Enlisted pilot retention will likely be lower than officer pilot retention. Nail on Cranium, though I will say that it's not so much the 'process' that the academy/rotc/ots puts "you" through (capable people are capable people); rather, the pool of candidates that make it through the other end of those said training pipelines have shown they have the metal to handle the USAF UPT pipeline. This 'cheaper' process enables the USAF to select (from an already select group) individuals who are likely to succeed in a challenging program (which is extraordinarily expensive), which is, arguably, the point of those accession processes. My point is, the whole purpose of accession programs is to save tax payer money by sending the people most likely to graduate through the most expensive training known to man...having a "college degree" and 90 days of marching is not too high a bar to granting that privilege, IMHO. Interesting point, made me think. What does OTS cost relative to the Academy? A penny on the dollar? It costs next to effing nothing to send a bro through OTS, commission a bitch after 90-days, staple a gold bar on his shoulder and proudly salute. What I (cynically) think is that now the leadership is looking for more control. Can't control Capts/Majs/Lt Cols who don't give a F$#% what a two-star says because they realize that that guy is effectively their peer with a few years more experience. Better to have a SSgt F-35 pilot or C-17 pilot who just CAN"T say no, and who can't (legitimately) scoff your ideas. Control. Read Catch-22.

I haven't seen the sweeping push, yet, either, nor do I think their is one. My comment is mostly directed towards all the internet geniuses (/trolls) that come up with bright ideas which haven't even been put through the most basic and obvious thought experiment available to someone with half a brain.

But seriously, not one post on this here internet (anywhere) has successfully addressed the VERY low hanging critique that a lesser-paid individual has LESS incentive to stay in the AF long-term. Read: enlisted pilots have a greater incentive to separate at their first opportunity than do officer pilots. So, given that, how does having enlisted pilots solve our manning problem?

GD I was just "Hall and 'rolled' Oates" - well played, very well played. "using the bodies up as we go" "waking up to fantasy" Yeah, I will not listen to that song the same way again.

Really, REALLY want to get jiggy with it? How bout we let dudes flying trash operate "single seat"? That'll fix MAFs problem overnight. Slides = GREEN. I mean that is the lowest hanging fruit with ultra-high payoff, right?

Production of what? X and XX rides?

By who? The staff? That should be fun for me...

Confirm what we're talking about is doing T-6s, and then prof advancing to F-16s? No T-38s whatsoever?

The "reason" you get "retirement" benefits is precisely so they CAN place you back on active duty.

I would send one more (polite) message, and then take the assignment if I was you. 6 months of active duty can effectively be reduced to 3 months if you have 90 days of leave. Yeah, this. Dig into AFI 36-2110. There is some verbiage in there that explains when you can and cannot 7-day-opt an assignment. The basic rule is if any extra training (AFT in your case), PCS, or whatever would result in an ADSC that takes you beyond another (different) ADSC, you can decline that "thing" and then establish a DOS. The fact that it happens to be 3+ years in the future is immaterial. That said, in your case, 3+ years is a long time to "hang it out there". I'd be very wary of doing that if I was in a place that could then summarily give me screw job after screw job. You basically have to ask yourself if the cost of that is > than the cost of 6 more months in an assignment that you want.

7-day-opt. There's your solution.

Kill the nerd!!

Fixed wing opportunities > Helicopter opportunities RPA opportunities > Helicopter opportunities It simply boils down to economics/available choices. It's not at all complicated. Right now we're watching people bail who are being paid $100K+ to do a job (RPA): you can observe that fact. It's happening right now. Nor will "moral" fix it. The suggestion that paying someone ~$60K to do that same job because of "moral" ignores another fact that you can also observe right now: fighter pilots are bailing faster than they can be replaced. "Moral" will only keep you around so long. What I feel like people should be discussing, is why the AF insists upon placing a job that can literally be accomplished anywhere, in some of the worst real-estate the AF has. Want to keep people around? Let them live in Hawaii, Guam, Japan, England, Florida, California, Colorado - don't shovel them off to Creech, Holloman, Shaw, etc.

This solves nothing - as a "solution" it will only exacerbate the problem. For the reason identified below: Shack.

Yep. In my case, when I witnessed the forced separation of 160-some majors back in 2011 (ish) followed almost immediately by the activation of TERA authority, for a nearly identical group of people, I realized just how important the AF viewed its people, and also how arbitrary and fickle continued service could be. "Hmm. I just got the boot, but the other 15-yr major across the street gets to retire? Exsqueeze me? Baking powder?" AF leadership needs to realize that their decisions enacted through AFPC and other entities are watched very closely and create a certain lasting "tenor" within the force that have effects on retention for many years in the future. This latest decision may be in a similar vein.

Which of the four who doesn't know jack $hit about the F-16 wrote the article on the Thunderbird mishap?

That guy went to Harvard? Seriously? With some of the arguments I've seen from him, that's pretty surprising.

Good. But only because it's necessary to take away the AF's shiny toy in order to impose a refocusing on its core functions.

I agree in principle, and also would want to walk in informed. I just think it begs the question "why"? i.e. Why do you need to speak to guys flying the line to "get the ground truth", but put certain "truths" off limits? The only thing I can think of is it was just an information gathering session to support pre-conceived conclusions for a (unknown to us) course of action that has already been mapped out. Kind of like my technique for completing ACSC papers - which we all know are bull shit: here's what I think, now I just need to find a couple of quotes that will support that...and, box checked, on to what I really care about. Makes me think these pilots were used.

So I guess they must have talked with the congressional staffers beforehand?

I can think of no better way to get to valid lessons learned than to skip the shot val, quarter back a root cause, and then chalk it up to a couple of execution errors. Sounds like a winning formula. Too bad it sounds like the Senator wasted some valuable time with those flying the line by putting up the lane bumpers before hand. I just wonder who it was who "briefed" them as to what the man was open and/or not open to hearing. Was it congressional staffers or AF people? Fvck it. Dark visor down. Banzai. ETA: I'm convinced the strategy is to buckle down, attempt to weather the storm, avoid setting a (high) bonus precedent, and hope for the best.