Where are the Fighter Pilots?

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DYK that the Air Force has had a pilot shortage for 16 consecutive years?

Back in 2016, it got so bad that Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Goldfein publicly declared the service’s fighter pilot shortfall a crisis. The Air Force was 1,500 pilots short, most of whom were fighter pilots.

However, by the end of 2018, the tune had changed.

Goldfein declared the crisis over and stated, "I do believe we've successfully arrested the decline.” The Air Force had reduced the deficit to only 800 pilots short—sort of.

At the same time, Rand released a pilot manning model predicting the 800-pilot shortfall was a temporary blip and the shortfall would double by 2023 unless meaningful actions were taken.

Good News: There’s no need to wait until next year to see who was correct.

Bad News: The Air Force is now 1,650 pilots short—and 1,100 of those missing bodies are fighter pilots.

TLDR: The Air Force has a pilot crisis right now—though they don’t call it a crisis—that is worse than the 2016 crisis that was declared a crisis.

Retention

There’s a ton to unpack about pilot manning, but we’ll focus on one aspect of retention for now.

DYK that Air Force pilots must sign a 10-year contract when they earn their wings? This 10-year contract is important because the Air Force’s entire manning model relies on retaining 65 percent of pilots once that contract expires.

With this context, retention rates become excellent barometers for the state and morale of the force since pilots are voting with their feet year over year.

Spoiler: It’s not a good news story.

How the Air Force tries to retain pilots: In the final year of that 10-year contract, the Air Force opens a very narrow window to offer a multi-year financial contract to retain these experienced pilots. To be clear, it’s a contract—not a “bonus”—but the law calls it a bonus, so we’ll agree to disagree.

OBTW, this contract, which can span upwards of another 12 years—comes with no other guarantees.

So What

In this day and age, that’s pretty screwed up—and Congress thinks so too.

They’ve crafted a flexible retention tool called the Air Force Rated Officer Retention Demonstration Program.

This has bipartisan and bicameral support, which is a fancy way to say it’s all-but-guaranteed to become law whenever Congress gets around to passing the FY2023 NDAA.

You can read the language here on page 270, but there are three things that make this program different than the traditional “bonus:”

1. Control: the window of eligibility is wide to help with life choices (1-3 years before their service commitment expires)
2. Predictability: it includes a future assignment guarantee to help with life choices
3. Money: it will offer up to $50K/year for a 4-year minimum service commitment (the current law is capped at $35K/year)

FYI: The $50K/year number is pretty much the exact figure that a mountain of studies pointed to back in 2017. 

What Now

Once the FY2023 NDAA gets signed into law, the ball will be in the Air Force’s court to execute.

How good or bad this retention program gets executed will be interesting to watch, especially since the Air Force has a less-than-stellar track record of managing personnel programs.

Good thing Congress made this a five-year demo program and is mandating annual reports on the program’s retention progress.

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Lockheed Martin plans to invest $100m into pairing the F-35 with their internally-developed Speed Racer UAS. Known as Project Carrera, Lock-Mart envisions using these expendable, modular, multipurpose UAS to conduct manned-unmanned teaming with the F-35. That’s probably not too much of a big deal, but how they are doing it is. Speed Racer will be an air-deployed UAS envisioned to be chucked out of a C-130 ala Rapid Dragon. This would overcome the one significant issue will all smaller UAS—range. One more surprise: For teaming communication, they are developing network-enabled pylons to install on the F-35.

AFWERX is prepping to launch its newest “prime ”effort—Autonomy Prime. This innovation effort aims to create a purpose-built autonomy testing and development facility for TRL 4-6 kit to validate tech and establish a pipeline for rapid acquisition.

DARPA is doing something disruptive—and it ain't about tech. They are launching a pilot program to slay bureaucracy! Aptly named the Bringing Classified Innovation to Defense and Government Systems (BRIDGES) program, they will invite small non-traditional defense companies to join a consortium so DARPA can sponsor them for TS, SCI, and SAP access (security levels and compartments for the uninitiated). This isn’t just about read-ins, though. It also includes access to classified work areas and networks…and is paying participating companies $50,000 per year to help get security right.

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