It was six years ago that USAF set up a new introductory flight training program, utilizing civilian flight schools to indoctrinate and screen those who wanted to be USAF pilots. (See our article “The Pre-Pilots Fly Again” from June 1999.) Now, USAF plans to recast IFT into a new shorter program taught at a centralized location—to be named—that will more resemble USAF-type training. The current IFT runs 50 hours, but Air Force Education and Training Command chopped that in half. The current civilian schools conducting IFT will use the new 25-hour AETC syllabus to screen pilot candidates—at least until the new program—dubbed initial flight screening—starts up in October 2006.
The Air Force is planning to spend $2.19 billion over the next five years to acquire new C-37 jets for transporting military and civilian leaders. That’s on top of another $1.17 billion in projected funding for the VC-25B “Air Force One” replacement.