VOA
Exclusive: Air Force Has Too Few Fighter Squadrons to Meet Commanders' Needs
November 28, 2016 12:50 AM
When Iraqi troops began the operation to retake Mosul last
month, fighter pilots in America’s F-22 Raptor jets struck the first Islamic
State targets there. But that kind of operation may be in jeopardy.
The U.S. Air Force says a shortage of fighter pilots has become
so dire that it is struggling to satisfy combat requirements abroad.
“We have too few squadrons to meet the combatant commanders’
needs,” Major General Scott Vander Hamm, the general in charge of fixing the
fighter pilot crisis, said in an exclusive interview with VOA.
The Air Force is currently authorized to have 3,500 fighter
pilots, but it is 725 fighter pilots short. And with fewer pilots, the number
of fighter pilot squadrons have also dropped, from 134 squadrons in 1986 to 55
in 2016.
As a greater percentage of the force has needed to be deployed
over the past 10 years, readiness -- the ability to accomplish missions at home
and abroad -- has dropped 20 percent.
Some
'unpalatable options'
“We’re having to look across the board and offer some pretty
unpalatable options as we get after it,” Vander Hamm told VOA, “and we may have
to, within the next calendar year, start to take some degradations in the
frontline squadrons."
“What that would mean to us is that we would have to accept not
being able to get forces to theater in the same time we could, which to a
warfighter, that means it could cost lives in a conflict,” he said.
Each pilot needs years of training to maneuver high-tech
aircraft, which have evolved into flying supercomputers.
The
number of fighter pilot squadrons have dropped from 134 in 1986 to 55 today. As
a greater percentage of the force has needed to be deployed over the past 10 years,
readiness has dropped 20 percent.
The Air Force is now training about 135 more pilots than two
years ago, but that effort appears to have been undercut by the number of
fighter pilots who have chosen to leave the Air Force.
After about 10 years, pilots are offered a bonus payment as
incentive to stay on in the force. But in fiscal 2016, only 40 percent took the
bonus. Vander Hamm told VOA the Air Force needs to retain about two-thirds of
its fighter pilots up for contract renewal in order to fill the slots needed in
the force.
Deployments
At Joint Base Langley-Eustis, pilots who fly the F-22 Raptor say
that longer and more frequent deployments have devastated morale.
“We were on 45-day rotations. Then they made it 90-day
rotations. Then they made it 120-day rotations. Now it’s six-month rotations
with one-year rotations sprinkled on top of it for key positions,” said a
lieutenant colonel who asked only to be identified by his call sign “Buz” due
to his commander’s concern about potential retaliation from enemy terror
groups.
The deployments aren’t the only thing causing pilots to quit.
While stationed at home, pilots often have to work extra hours to finish
administrative tasks, in addition to maintaining their flying skills.
“All of the same responsibilities fall on about half the number
of people who were there before, and that creates a pretty high demand on these
guys and their work life,” Colonel Pete Fesler, the commander of the 1st
Fighter Wing at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, told VOA.
The fighter pilot shortage has spiked at a time when commercial
airlines, which offer more stable schedules at home and the potential for
higher pay, are looking for more pilots.
“If it’s up to just me, I definitely would stay in, but my
family has a vote,” a major who asked to be identified by his call sign “Jack”
told VOA. “If they want me to leave to do something else, then that’s probably
what I’ll end up doing.”
Solution
to crisis
Tom Hunt, a former fighter pilot who left the Air Force in 2013,
says he decided to leave for several reasons. He says he now earns more money
as a Washington, D.C., lawyer.
He says the solution to the crisis does not have to be complex.
“Some people say you can’t throw money at everything, you can. You absolutely
can. If you said, the pilot bonus is now $500,000, single-lump sum payment, (I)
guarantee you will solve your pilot shortage,” Hunt said.
However, he also noted that paying one group so much more than
another group might cause tension within the force, no matter how much the pay
increase might be deserved.
The Air Force is asking Congress for money to raise the bonus
from $25,000 per year to $48,000 per year, the first such bonus increase since
1999. They also have pledged to decrease administrative duties for fighter
pilots in the squadrons.
The
Pentagon hopes it will be enough to retain experienced pilots needed to keep up
the Air Force’s fast-paced operations as well as train new recruits.
Original post: voanews.com
This
Map Shows How Many More Military Aircraft The US Has Than Every Other Country
On Earth
Jeremy Bender
Jan. 28, 2015, 2:26 PM
It can be difficult to
grasp the scope of US air superiority compared to everyone else.
To put the US
advantage into perspective, Reddit user whiplashoo21, who runs the
map-creation website Map Chart,
made the following map depicting the total number of military aircraft in every
country. In absolute numbers, the US is far and away the world's dominant
aerial power.
The US boasts approximately 13,000 military aircraft.
Comparatively, China and Russia, the world's next-largest aerial powers, only
have a total of 2,000 to 3,000 military aircraft each.
But this map is only a quantitative measurement of air power,
and there are several additional factors beyond total aircraft that need to be
taken into account when measuring countries' air forces against one another.
For instance, the map does not display the presence of various
countries' air-force bases. Overseas bases are critical for US force
projection, as they allow America to station its various military aircraft in
locations all throughout the world.
The map also
does not differentiate between the various makes, models, and ages of the
military aircraft each country has on hand. This means that an aging Soviet-era
MiG in North Korea is given the same weight as a US fifth-generation fighter
such as the F-22 or the F-35.
Those issues
aside, the map still provides a fascinating glimpse into the pure power and
size of the US Air Force as a whole, even compared to its closest competitors.
Source: businessinsider.com
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