Air Force Fighter Pilot Shortage

[AdlerDriver]

Well not completely true, 45 years ago flying around Vietnam my PPC was a LTJG with only two years of college, got out went on to a fantasic career at DAL. In 1981, Secertary of the Navy Leman dropped the college degree requirement for Navy pilots and NFO's and went back to the Cadet program. And of course the Army has been cranking out pilots for years without a degree. BTW From my expereince a college degree also has nothing to do with leadership

You can split hairs if you like. IMO, 45 years falls in the "give or take" slop. I know there were a few oddball situations in the 60's. The title and subject of this thread, however, is fighter pilots. I don't put rotary wing and fighters in the same category, so I really don't care what the Army does - they don't operate fighters.
Can a person go out today and join the services that fly fighters and get commissioned as an officer therein without a college degree? No - so they may have all the natural flying talent in the world but that doesn't matter if they can't get past the first hurdle.

As far as leadership - I agree, simply attending college doesn't magically instill leadership skills. Officer candidates are given leadership training during the course of their curriculum at the service academies and ROTC. Success in college is just another layer in the filter. It's been a long standing requirement for commission and probably gives some indication of an individual's ability to discipline and apply himself in whatever specialty he chooses to pursue in the military.

 

[Paradoxus]

Pilotyip is correct in all respects. I can't think of any degreed aviator that I know with a particularly scholarly-bearing. Most seem to be readily-equipped with an deplorable penchant for dick-and-fart jokes and think Claire Chennault is a brand of hair gel.

 

[pilotyip]

You can split hairs if you like. IMO, 45 years falls in the "give or take" slop. I know there were a few oddball situations in the 60's. The title and subject of this thread, however, is fighter pilots. I don't put rotary wing and fighters in the same category, so I really don't care what the Army does - they don't operate fighters.
Can a person go out today and join the services that fly fighters and get commissioned as an officer therein without a college degree? No - so they may have all the natural flying talent in the world but that doesn't matter if they can't get past the first hurdle.

As far as leadership - I agree, simply attending college doesn't magically instill leadership skills. Officer candidates are given leadership training during the course of their curriculum at the service academies and ROTC. Success in college is just another layer in the filter. It's been a long standing requirement for commission and probably gives some indication of an individual's ability to discipline and apply himself in whatever specialty he chooses to pursue in the military.

Sounds like fighter pilot envy. The Army pilots don't count kinda of gave it away. A quick fighter pilot story, it is 1976; we have been at sea for 6 weeks. We being Ships' Company, "the career enhancing tour". We pull back in to Cubi Point. We are at the club for liquid refreshment. We are discussing "going ugly early?. You know all women are beautiful when you have not seen one in six weeks, "we kept women recognition photos in our staterooms so we recognize one when we saw one". This one fighter pilot was making moves on the ugliest creature you had ever seen, round eyed school teacher. So we decided that going ugly early did not apply to fighter?s pilots that had no standards. Another fighter pilot over heard this and said he was offended, kinda like people on this board hearing about the college thing. He said we should respect him because he was the defender of the fleet and how he would be the first one launched to intercept an incoming air raid, etc. Please we are sitting in a bar in the Philippines, enjoying a beer far removed from reality, thinking about women and this fighter pilot gets all bent out of shape because we made a joke about fighter pilot standards when making moves on women. He never understood. BTW the Threat from a submarine was much greater than the airborne threat, but we didn't bring that he would not have understood that either.

 

[AdlerDriver]

Both of you seem to have tunnel vision. I'm agreeing with you!!

I don't think it's necessary to attend college in order to be a good pilot. Period. dot. Okay? I think it might help some and not have much effect on others. It really depend on the person and their strengths/weaknesses.

My engineering degree made UPT easier for me than if I had just gone straight out of high school. Aerodynamics, systems, mental math associated w/ instrument flying all came very naturally as an extension of my college courses. So, I feel like I was better equipped to succeed thanks to my college experience. Was it absolutely necessary for me to get my wings? Probably not - but maybe I wouldn't have done as well and not gone to fighters. I'd rather be a little over-prepared than just scrape by any day.

Either way, this is all moot. Officers have to have a bachelor's degree to get commissioned - and they're the ones who fly fighters(and any other USAF, USN, USMC fixed wing). It's the officer part that requires college. Not the pilot part.

P.S. Yip, We must have posted at the same time because I just saw your last post. I don't understand your fighter envy comment and your whole story doesn't seem to have much relevance to what you and I were posting about (other than this whole thing started with a post about a fighter pilot shortage).

 

[B-J-J Fighter]

Rotary wing guys have more piloting skills overall than fighter pilots.

 

[AdlerDriver]

Rotary wing guys have more piloting skills overall than fighter pilots.

I'll have to take your word on that since I have only flown fighters and various airliners - no rotary wing. So, I wouldn't feel qualified to make such a definitive statement.

Since you must have flown both fighters and rotary wing to develop such an opinion, maybe you can give us the scoop on why that is.

 

[B-J-J Fighter]

No I haven't flown fighters but I have flown both fixed and rotary. I can assure you I can fly a fighter better than you can fly a rotary. You wil barely be able to keep a rotary in the air the first few times.

 

[Paradoxus]

Both of you seem to have tunnel vision. I'm agreeing with you!!

Acknowledged. I like to fight though, and love exposing the acccounting/economics/business majors as the dollards they are when their/there/its/it's/your/you're confuses them whilst atop the soapbox.

(?‿?)凸

Obviously, you're not a hostile. Cheers.

 

[AdlerDriver]

No I haven't flown fighters but I have flown both fixed and rotary. I can assure you I can fly a fighter better than you can fly a rotary. You wil barely be able to keep a rotary in the air the first few times.

It sounds like you're saying that if a person had only rotary wing experience, they would be able to use that skill foundation to have some basic success during a first attempt flying fixed wing. But, the reverse would not be true. A fixed wing pilot can't take his skill set and extend it to rotary without some additional training. I can buy that.

How about a total novice with no training in either? Does it take longer for them to master rotary or fixed or is it about the same?

About your comment: In my experience, it's usually a mistake to make such one-way, absolute statements like you did. It's probably better to avoid big generalizations and not assume everyone with a certain type of training is better or more qualified than others who are in a very different line of work. I don't doubt that the skills required to fly a helo are substantial. From what I hear, it's sort of like rubbing your head and patting your stomach and you always have to be doing one or the other or both? No gliding either.

If you want to take your personal fixed and rotary wing experience and come to the conclusion that your average rotary wing pilot possesses "more piloting skill" than your average fixed wing pilot, I won't argue. Like I said, I don't have the experience to form an opinion. It seems to me that you might make your point better if you defined what you mean by "more piloting skill". There are lots and lots of varied and unrelated skill sets in both rotary wing and fighter aviation that have nothing to do with each other.

Once you start specifically addressing fighter pilot skills and the quality of those skills, you lose credibility since you've never done it. When you talk about you being able to fly a fighter, you're really just talking about flying it around the sky, from A to B or maybe taking off or trying to land. That's just flying an airplane, just like you do now but probably a bit faster. Employing a fighter as a weapons platform against other aircraft and all that goes along with that would be just as foreign to you as rotary wing would be to me. The skills required to do that well are developed over years and years and have nothing to do with rotary wing flying.

One final comment: the first guy to wash out of my Air Force pilot training class was a former Army Cobra pilot. Among his many struggles in his failed transition was being able to think fast and stay ahead of the jet. Maybe he had some great piloting skills as long as he could keep the T-37 at helicopter speed - we'll never know - He didn't even make it to the first solo. That particular individual obviously did not benefit from his rotary wing training in the way you claim others might. It probably comes down to each individual and their strengths and weaknesses rather than what category of aircraft they happen to be trained on.

 

[pilotyip]

Helo pilots are looked down upon because they fly low and slow. But having hired a bunch ino the fixed wing world I can attest to their flying skills. Army training is the best rotor wing in the world, more corporations are using helos, they will hire almost only ex-military, because where else does someone turbine helo PIC? I know the fixed wing brotherhood looks down on the helo drivers as lessor pilots, I mean they have never been to FL410, or done a M.78 descent. Hovering into a dark LZ on goggles is much more demanding of a pilot?s skills than shooting a Cat II approach.

Someone has to figure out why uninformed management knuckleheads don't view a multi-crew PIC in a multi-engine turbine glass cockpit time in an advanced IFR helo like the H-60, H-46, H-53 or H-47 is not real flight time. However, PIC in a VFR only C-150 in the traffic pattern is the breakfast of champions for an airline career by those who set hard fixed wing limits and ignore helo time in total time. Why are most management and insurance company?s sooooo waaaayyyy out of touch with reality? Ops I am sorry I was management bashing again.

 

[JimNtexas]

Are fighters really that hard to just fly around compare to say, an R-22? I think not.

Taking off, flying around, landing a fighter? My impression is that the modern generation of fighters are pretty straightforward to just takeoff, fly somewhere, and land.

Fighting a fighter so as to win against another fighter...that's hard, very hard.

 

[SIG600]

Are fighters really that hard to just fly around compare to say, an R-22? I think not.

Taking off, flying around, landing a fighter? My impression is that the modern generation of fighters are pretty straightforward to just takeoff, fly somewhere, and land.

Fighting a fighter so as to win against another fighter...that's hard, very hard.

Jim gets it. Modern fighters are very easy to fly. Employment is a completely different world, and running intercepts at 1000+ knots closure, in a dynamic 3D environment, running 5 radios, multiple sensors, managing your three wingmen, executing CAS, and SEAD, etc etc etc. And yes I've flown helo's and in particular the R-22 mentioned. Night traps with pitching deck are FAR more challenging and completely terrifying, every single time.

Yip you're a broken record. A college degree is required, get over it. I'm pretty sure Adler has no fighter pilot envy, as he's an Eagle homo. Go back to fleecing aspiring pilots.

No I haven't flown fighters but I have flown both fixed and rotary. I can assure you I can fly a fighter better than you can fly a rotary. You wil barely be able to keep a rotary in the air the first few times.

http://toolmonger.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/CM_camotoolbag.jpg

(Hint, It's a picture of a toolbag)

 

[AdlerDriver]

I'm pretty sure Adler has no fighter pilot envy, as he's an Eagle homo.

Thanks for the support..... I think.

 

[JimNtexas]

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth I was an EWO in an F-4 Weasel Squadron that converted to the F-15A (Go Fighting Cocks!).

When I'd run in to my front seats friends after the conversation I'd ask them about the difference between flying the F-4 and the F-15. To a man they would always say that the F-15 was much easier to fly than the F-4.

The Eagle just didn't have the weird quirks and convoluted switchology that characterized the F-4 and other earlier generation fighters. It also had way better visibility and vastly better ergonomics.

Employing it as a weapon was said to be more challenging in a lot of ways than the F-4 because for one thing, they didn't have me to keep them out of trouble.

And because the airplane presented a lot more information and involved a much higher net energy level during engagements (and the F-4 was no slouch in the energy department).

From the little bit I know about the F-16, it's probably a bit more of a handful to just fly around than an F-15.

 

[pilotyip]

Yip you're a broken record. A college degree is required, get over it. I'm pretty sure Adler has no fighter pilot envy, as he's an Eagle homo. Go back to fleecing aspiring pilots.

My doesn't that make the world a better place, a colelge degree is required for what? to be a good pilot? Nah! I suppose you think helo pilots are low lifes also because they can fly with a degree?

Night traps with pitching deck are FAR more challenging and completely terrifying, every single time.

And you have expereince with this? I spend 2.5 years on the USS Enterprise, if they are pitching very much you don't fly in peace time. So is this carrier pilot evny?