President Donald Trump's nominee for assistant secretary of the Air Force manpower and reserve affairs, retired Air Force Col. Richard L. Anderson, sailed through his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee May 13.
pilot shortage
An upcoming Netflix documentary promises an inside look at the Air Force’s premier aerial demonstration team. Premiering May 23, “Air Force Elite: Thunderbirds” will showcase the skill, trust, and hard work it takes to fly six F-16 fighters in tight...
Combat airpower requires more planes and more pilots to fly them. The U.S. Air Force is stretched thin by unrelenting rotational and contingency response demands, and its chronic pilot shortage just won’t go away. For more than a decade, the Air...
Fixing the Air Force’s chronic combat pilot shortage will require more aircraft in the fleet, more flying hours to squadron operations, and retaining more pilots within Reserve components, according to a new paper from AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
Holistic approaches, rather than individual good ideas, will help mitigate the Air Force's chronic pilot shortage, panelists said at AFA's Air, Space & Cyber conference.
Recent changes to the training pipeline for helicopter and mobility pilots are helping the service address a persistent pilot shortage, Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. James C. Slife said July 29.
The Air Force flying hours program—which has suffered steady declines in recent years to the alarm of observers and lawmakers—will stabilize in the coming years as leaders focus on making sure pilots and aircraft alike can actually fly all the hours that are funded, the ...
The head of the National Guard warned that a shortage of fighter jets, pilots, and maintainers in the reserve component could leave the military short-handed in a possible conflict.
The Air Force’s Rated Officer Demonstration Program, announced Aug. 15, will offer pilots assignment preferences in addition to monetary bonuses, a service spokeswoman told Air & Space Forces Magazine on Aug. 18. In addition, pilots will have to sign at least an eight-year contract to receive ...
As the Air Force struggles to ease its pilot shortage, it can still fill all its cockpits, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said June 7. But that has come at the expense of staff jobs normally assigned to pilots, leading the service ...
The Air Force is bumping up bonuses in its quest to retain pilots, the service announced June 5. Aviators—including pilots, air battle managers, and combat systems officers—can now receive up to $50,000 annually for agreeing to stay on in fiscal year 2023, a significant increase ...
As the Air Force battles a persistent pilot shortage made worse by aging training aircraft, the service has started approaching its current pilots earlier in their careers to offer retention incentives, hoping to convince them to stay in the military longer, Vice Chief of Staff ...
