2024 Air, Space & Cyber—Pilot Shortage: A Chronic Problem

The “Pilot Shortage: A Chronic Problem,” panel at AFA’s 2024 Air, Space & Cyber Conference, featured Lt. Gen. Adrian Spain, deputy chief of staff for operations; Lt. Gen. Brian Robinson, commander of Air Education and Training Command; Maj. Gen. Randall Efferson, acting commander of the Air National Guard Readiness Center; and Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, USAF (ret.), vice president of strategic campaigns for aeronautics strategy and business development at Lockheed Martin. The panel, held September 17, was moderated by Heather Penney, senior resident fellow at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. Watch the video:

Panel Moderator: Heather Penney, Senior Resident Fellow, AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies:

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, I’m Heather lucky penny, senior fellow at the Mitchell Institute, and welcome to Mitchell Institute’s panel. The pilot crisis a chronic problem while our adversaries grow in strength, the Air Force continues to grapple with an unsustainable pilot shortage. The service desperately needs more pilots, but it also needs to retain the experienced pilots it already has in the force the United States cannot afford for the problem that persists if we are to effectively posture ourselves for the demands of great power competition. Now, let me be clear, this issue matters not because pilots are cool. We like our toys or protecting some white scarf society. Solving the pilot shortage matters because crewed aircraft provide the human cognitive advantage in combat, and experienced pilots are the foundation of that combat advantage, and history has consistently showed this to us from World War one on, that the nation that is able to field and sustain experienced air crew in the battle space will secure the advantage in the air, and that’s why I’m honored to host this panel with some visionary senior leaders who can provide us some unique insights regarding how to address this issue. Please welcome, excuse me.

I don’t have this in order, so just raise your hand. Please welcome Lieutenant General Adrian Spain, Deputy Chief of Staff for operations for the Air Force.

Lieutenant General Brian Robinson, Commander air Education Training Command.

Major General Randall Efferson, special assistant to the director of the Air National Guard and retired General Jeff Cobra Harrigan, Vice President of Strategic campaigns for Aeronautics strategy and business development at Lockheed Martin and gentlemen, thank you so much for being here today. So, John Harrigan, this pilot crisis is not a new issue. It’s an old one that begins in the 1990s when the nation cut the Air Force in half rift and banked pilots and shuttered many pilot training bases. So could you walk us through the history of the pilot crisis to help us understand how we got here. This isn’t a new issue.

Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, USAF (Ret.), Vice President of Strategic Campaigns for Aeronautics Strategy & Business Development, Lockheed Martin

Yeah, sure, Thanks, Heather, and thanks for the opportunity to be here today. I think the chief framed it pretty well yesterday when he talked about what has occurred over the last 30, 40, years to our Air Force. And as you highlighted, when the wall came down, from a political perspective, there was a peace dividend to be, you know, sorted out. I went back and looked at the number of bases that were closed, and then the implications, naturally that occurred from a pilot training production perspective.

Probably not a lot of you guys in the back or gals in the back will remember this. But, you know, in the early 90s and mid 90s, we were doing things like banking, folks, there were rifts. I remember when I had my first approach to signing the bonus, it was either you sign the bonus, or you’re grounded. I’m like, okay, my wife’s having a baby. I think I’ll sign the bonus. And that was the reality. And so over time, we learned that there were second and third order effects from a pilot, production and absorption retention perspective that we needed to better understand because of the implications to the force. And that’s across the force. It’s not just a fighter thing. It was. It was across the force. And I think what we learned is that we needed to be more thoughtful and deliberate with respect to understanding what the levers of each one of those did to our pilot production. And when we talk about PILOTs, I think it’s also important to remember that we also are talking about families, because each one of those played a role in whether we were going to be able to retain somebody and then ultimately be able to meet the combatant commander’s requirements. Because think we would all acknowledge the demand signal has not gone away. In fact, you could probably argue it’s gotten greater. Elmo will hit that here, I’m sure in a minute. But suffice it to say, it remains a chronic issue, as you have highlighted, and one that these gentlemen, I’m sure will have great solutions how we’re going to fix it. It’s all easy. We know it’s not. It’s very complex, and frankly, takes input from across the force to understand best how we do what the nation requires of us as an Air Force.

Panel Moderator: Heather Penney:

Thank you, General Spain, the Air Force pilot shortfall has remained between 16 102,000 pilots for years. Would you describe the impact that this shortage has had on the broader force and how the service is working to mitigate the impact of the shortfall?

Lt. Gen. Adrian Spain, Deputy Chief of Staff of Operations:

You bet. So, thanks. Lucky. Great to be up here with the. Some friends and former bosses, and great to see that the Air Force cares about this topic. And thank you all for being here to engage with us on it. So, I want to kind of tee off on what general Regan said. This is a one. It’s a complex problem. There are multiple facets and multiple levers that are at play in this and it’s also very brittle. You know what we’ve you know, stealing from an NFL line, right? You are what your record says you are. So regardless of what our goals were in production over the last 10 years or so, we’re pretty much a 1300 plus or minus 100 production engines, right? And we’ve tried many, many ways to do above that, and we’ve really stretched ourselves and gotten to over 1400, but we haven’t really gotten to 1500 ever, not since we closed down some plant capacity. So, we kind of have to look at how we do things a little bit differently, but it’s in general. Robinson will talk a little bit about that, but because of all the levers, and because of how brittle it is, solving one element of it doesn’t solve the problem. You have to actually tackle all of the things that contribute to it to get to a holistic solution. And that’s what we’re really trying to work on now, is, how do we look at this problem from all of the angles that are applied to it, and ensure that the solutions that were, we were implementing are actually holistic. So, the second thing that we’ve we’ve done is we’ve taken risk over time, right? And so, implications from the, you know, from the shortfall, is that we have prioritized for a number of years, if not a decade or more, operations, test and training. You know those are. We have a rate of Manning document that I sign each year that says, hey, here’s how many, here’s what our priorities are for the year. And the chief obviously blesses that. But we go out and we say, hey, we want to man operations, line, training up and test as fully as we possibly can. 100% is the is the goal, and that means we take risk everywhere else, and where is everywhere else. In fact, I had a when I was out talking with some of the, you know, from some of our pilots who are eligible for the bonus this year.

And one of them said, hey, I don’t, I don’t think we really have a pilot shortage. And there, you know, at their location, they were right, you know, they’re at an F 35 base that was over, man, because we had, you know, delayed deliveries, and so they had 130% Manning at their bases. Like, what pilot shortage? I’m like, well, you know, let me tell you about the pilot shortages on the staffs, and it’s in AOCs. That’s really where we’re taking all of the risk and at a time when we made those decisions that was appropriate, right? We didn’t have this return of great power, competition, strategic environment that we were dealing with. Well, now every staff is a campaigning staff. It’s not a in case of war break glass staff, where we’re going to augment it at the last minute. And day to day, we’re keeping you know, we’re just making donuts and keeping the powder dry. No, you’re campaigning day to day in every staff at the NAF level, at the matchcom level, at the combatant command level, and in AOCs, which is our war fighting command and control entity, right? And so those are also limited, so the risk is in all these other places. And I had to remind them that, hey, and the staff is where actually all the things that you want to get fixed happen. So, when we’re short, you know, it doesn’t work out for the line very well from a policy perspective. And so, we have to, we have to contribute to that.

And then, and then third, we, you know, we have done a lot to try to tackle the pilot shortage, and we’ve done that over time with the goal of increasing production, right? So, 1300 plus or minus 100 helicopters only track Air Mobility, fundamentals, simulator civilian path to wings, accelerated path to wings. The expectation was that we would gain 200 to 250 additional pilots per year using those initiatives. The problem is, they were offset by, when I go back, when I talk about it being brittle. They were offset by disturbances in the force right, anomalous weather events that take you down for two or three months at Laughlin, supply constraints, because we’ve taken risk in our readiness accounts. J 85 engine problems that you couldn’t really anticipate and that you have to work your way out. Of all counteracted all of the initiatives that we put in play over the last 10 years. And so, the effect of that was we didn’t get better.

We stayed at exactly about the same level, 1300 plus or minus 100 so those initiatives worked. They just kept it from getting worse. And so, we’ve got to, you know, continue to find a way to innovatively look at new, new methods and means holistically, to try to tackle this, this problem, for the future.

Panel Moderator: Heather Penney:

Thank you. I don’t think anyone can criticize prioritizing ops, test, training and so forth, but the staff is really important. It’s not only because we need to have that kind of wisdom and experience in the staff for everything the staff does, but also because the staff is historic. Acted as a force accumulator to be able to help the service as it’s gone through various permutations with the fielded force. And as we look at great power of competition, where we have to be ready for attrition, that’s where the staff becomes important, because that is your force accumulator. So, it’s both a combination of wise leadership and judgment on the staff, but also it gives the Air Force tremendous flexibility, as it has to grow surges force or be able to cope with attrition. General Robinson, we just heard from general Spain about sort of 1300 plus or minus 100 but you’re looking at how you increase throughput, not necessarily through volume, because we do have plant constraints, right? There’s only so many bases, only so many airplanes, but you’re looking at innovative approaches that use everything from aggressively using virtual reality and asynchronous training to winging undergraduate pilots after t6 Would you tell us more about how you are compressing that cycle?

Lt. Gen. Brian Robinson, Commander, Air Education and Training Command:

Thanks, lucky and again, thank you for the opportunity to be part of this panel with this esteemed group of friends and former bosses as well up here. You know what I would say, before I go into what we’re doing is it was explained by General Regan and general Spain that it’s complex, but really what we’re dealing with is a system of systems. And in the past, when we did the bank pilot in the early 90s, you know, I was in that space as well, and we just decided to kind of pull a lever and set in the early stages of the system of systems, without really any understanding what was going to happen in the next segments that really do not become apparent until time passes on. So, we’re working really hard as a foundational aspect of to be able to understand the system of systems digitally. And we can work with the myriads of variables that exist. And by the way, inside each one of those segments is another set of systems, of systems, logistics, supply, manpower decisions, you know, airspace access, air traffic controllers at some of our bases, and on and on and on. The ability to see those and sit down and tinker with a model. Some might call it a digital twin. And go, if we change this valve or this lever by X percent, what do we think will happen? And then adjust this next valve to offset that if we can by y percent, to try to make sure we get as laminar a flow through the system as we can possibly get. And understand the lag time of those there. But to your question, specifically lucky a couple things we’ve done.

One within AETC, we decided there’s things we can control and things we can’t. So, we took a stab at the things that we can control. What can we do differently outside the this is the way we’ve always done it, quote, unquote, in up reasonably, at a reasonable level of risk, and not solely on the backs of the airmen there. So, I don’t want the maintainers or the instructors, for example, working 70- or 80-hour work weeks to try to achieve an output, it’s got to be sustainable. So, we really took, we applied to theory of constraints. Look, started at Laughlin Air Force Base, and what we found out with the consultancy that we had is the first the main constraint was the t6 phase. Not shockingly, that’s where it was. But if we don’t, if we didn’t get an adjustment in manpower, civilian sim instructors or flying hours, or maintainers, etc., etc., what could we do differently with the resources we have at hand? Which is what we have said. And so, then the time Colonel black, now the Wing Commander at Columbus was the OG at Laughlin, really took that to task and figured out how, by changing how we schedule at Laughlin, as opposed to scheduling by flight. And centralized scheduling in a squadron is one of several things, but that was sort of the main effort. We really upped the input throughput in the t6 phase and maintained the quality of the instruction. In some cases, the quality of instruction got better as the feedback that came back from the instructors and the students alike.

So, to cut to the chase, we’re now scaling that approach out to Columbus Air Force Base now, and next, after that, we’ll take a look at applicability advanced Air Force Base, but year over year, with what we’ve done. And this is where it comes back to the system of systems, the t6 phase across of eight across ATC has will have upped FY 23 to 24 to include instructor pilots at Randolph, a net increase of about 111 pilots getting their get in their wings and or become an instructor to go back and instruct.

Now the question we have to ask ourselves, what does that mean for the next segment of training. So, the T 38 from that perspective. So that’s been fortuitous, and we’ve, we’ve got a good outcome there. We’ve documented that with data the whole time, the winging, people, airmen, at pilots, at the t6 phase. That’s been, that’s been successful. We’ve done some things with we looked, looked early before I got there with amfs, there were some unique challenges there, and sustainability and scalability there too, as well as the instructor force actually accumulating flying hour credit or gate months credit in that particular simulator, device, Air Mobility, fundamental simulator. So, we figured out we need to find a different way. So, what we’ve done is and that was coupled with the reason amfs came on. It’s because the t1 was programmed to be divested. Critical Skills are going to be lost, or mobility pilots, we’re going to be crew, resource management, automation, use things of that nature. We’ve moved some of that training now through some small group tryouts that we’re losing in that space into what we’re calling out initial pilot training, which is, think initial flight training today, scaled out to where you can actually have a student pilot earn their private pilot certificate, their instrument rating, their multi engine land certificate, and CRM in that phase in about 90 hours. And just about just short of four months, two small group tryouts are complete there, and that results in that are pretty good. You’ll be happy to know out of the 35 that have gone through, three of them busted check rides on the first go in a variety. So, the quality and the rigor are there. It’s a part 141, FAA program from that perspective. And I can talk more later. I know I don’t want to use all the time. We can talk about how we’re using automate augmented reality and virtual reality and tools of technology like that to enhance and advance cognition in the training environment, which we’ve seen, that was all part of upt 2.5, so we’ve seen the outcomes of those, and those have all been very, very fruitful. So, I’ll pause there but thank you for the question.

Panel Moderator: Heather Penney:

No. Thank you gentlemen. The Air Force has recently released a memo that will assign graduates of T 38 to other aircraft, not simply fighters and bombers. And this, I believe is primarily because of the ftu constraints. Would you mind speaking to what’s instigating this policy shift and how you see this as actually an important way to continue pilot production and regain health within the pilot core for the service?

Lt. Gen. Adrian Spain:

Yeah. So, it’s important, as General Robinson and general Hein mentioned, we got to talk about the whole ecosystem. So, it’s a session. It’s production, undergraduate production. It’s graduate production through the FT, use, fighter, mobility, SOF, bomber, et cetera. It’s absorption in the op’s units. And it’s seasoning throughout a pilot life cycle when you’re in the op’s unit. And then you get to retention at the end of that. And then we have old folks that stick around when you’re beyond that point, but, but all those things need to be optimized to smooth flow a human through the system. And what we found is a week we are break in training between t 38 and fighter ft use got excessively large, like to the point of waiting a year to go on to your next phase of training. Now we typically phase the break in training so that you can do things like IFF and survival and so it’s not, you know, it shouldn’t be a one month break in training, but it should be somewhere between three and five months. Allow for a PCS, get your family to the new place, get some additional training done in the interim, and then smoothly go into your next training assignment. Well, it was taken a year specifically in the F 16 to get to the ftu and your next class. And so rather than doing what we had been doing, which was just waiting and stacking people up like cord cordwood to go into these ft use, we have capacity in other airframes and other ft use. And so, the enterprise decision, the thing that was best for the Air Force is to keep the graduates moving. What we don’t want to do is slow down production, right? We have a session. We have plenty of people that want to go to pilot training, that are qualified. We want to continue the flow through our undergraduate production engine to maximize that. And if at that point I have a, you know, a fork in the road, I have one constraint, well, if I have an offset to that constraint, then I need to continue to maximize those offsets, and that’s in the other ft use. And so, so that’s what we’re doing. It doesn’t mean that if you go to T 38, you’re not going to get a fighter. It means that you might not get a fighter. And it means that we have to deliberately manage the number of fighters, particularly F 16, for the next several months, ftu slots that we hand out to get that break in training down to a manageable level, which we want to be again, in the three-to-six-month range. So, we’re going to continue to do this right now. If you’re paying attention to the F 16 enterprise, particularly in the training environment. It’s a stressed stress situation, right? So, so this is not going to end anytime soon. And what it does mean now is, instead of being fenced from mobility aircraft or soft aircraft, for example, those aircraft will continue to will now start showing up in T 38 drops. And you need to expand your dream sheet to include, okay, what if at the at the high, middle or low end, this opportunity comes up to go do something else, to continue you on the seasoning part of this, right? I need to get, to get pilots to OP unit, ops units, as soon as I can, to grow them into the field, grade officers. I eventually need to come back to the staffs where we’re short, right? So, I can’t afford to wait and hold on hope that we’re going to fix the ftu problem. We have to continue to produce and get them into those environments where we can keep them moving through a through an ecosystem effectively. Now, the other benefit, you know, so. One benefit to the member is that you continue to move through your pipeline more quickly, and you get to a flight line and an OP squadron sooner than you would have going another direction, we’re looking at ways to ensure that there’s still some element of choice and that merit matters, and so how well you do certainly will matter and in some of these selections. But we also need to be aware that this is this is good for the Air Force, and we have to fight against those things that are that are hurting this pilot shortage and contributing to it and find ways to overcome it. So, this is one.

Panel Moderator: Heather Penney:

So, over the past 25 years, as the service has grappled with shortage and protection, one of the main things they’ve also grappled with is absorption. Are there constraints within the operational units today, absorbing and experiencing pilots? The absorption process is where pilots, once they leave the FTU’s and they get to their operational squadron, they have to fly so many hours and execute so many events before their experience. And that’s a proxy, a quantitative proxy, to say this individual has the airmanship, the leadership, that we need in order to be able to continue to progress within their career. So, are we experiencing any constraints within the service?

Lt. Gen. Adrian Spain:

Yeah. So, so we talked two of two of three, in the in the in the conveyor belt, if you will. Right? So, production, undergraduate, production, graduate, absorption into the OP squadron. So yes, it is stressed in the op’s unit. So, the experiencing level is really what an aircraft availability drives our ability to absorb over time. One of the constraints that we’ve had on the system over the last decade is our foundational accounts have been a bill payer for other things for a number of years, meaning our supply parts, support equipment, accounts, our flying hour programs, have all been used as risk reducers for other priorities that the service has had deliberately. We’ve done this on purpose, the net effect of that, because it plays out over a period of years, is that in the short run, you don’t see the cost. In the long run, though, you start to see aircraft availability go down. You can’t experience your pilots fast enough, and so you don’t have instructors to teach the young pilots. And if I get out of balance with my experience levels in an OP Squadron, then I have a really hard time absorbing So, so what are we looking at for this? And so, you may have heard yesterday a little bit from the chief and from our panel about the unit of action and the wing as the as the Combat Element going forward, as he is a unit of action going forward. Well within that is the mission layer, and a mission Gen force element that we’re talking about that we typically describe as squadrons. Within the squadrons, we’re looking at different constructs for how we maximize the resources that we have to try to increase the absorptive capability in these squadrons, given the resources that we have now, general Iverson is working on some things for us out in Korea, with super squadron operations, is what we would historically have called it, but larger squadrons with more airplanes, more humans in them. One scheduling apparatus. You don’t bifurcate your instructor cadre into two really small squadrons that don’t have enough. You combine resources and try to optimize the scheduling for the entire population, which is a different way of describing kind of the constraint theory of constraints that General Robinson has been experimenting with down at Laughlin, if you lift it up and you get to a macro level schedule, you can actually use those resources more effectively for the whole and so we’re working on ways to do that with the current resources.

Panel Moderator: Heather Penney:

Thank you, General Officer, I’d like to bring you into the conversation, because retention is a key component to the service’s ability to be able to keep these experienced warfighters, and as I mentioned, experienced matters in combat, inexperienced pilots have higher attrition rates and less successful sortie outcomes than experienced pilots. But as pilots make choices to exit the active duty, they often make the choice to continue their service in the Reserve component. So could you speak to the critical role that the Reserve component plays in the Air Force’s global missions? The 1990s transformed the guard and the reserve from a strategic reserve to an operational reserve, and how can the Reserve component continue to address and fill global demands through this pilot shortfall?

Maj. Gen. Randall Efferson, Acting Commander, Air National Guard Readiness Center:

Yeah, a lot of good stuff there. I’m Randy Jefferson. Go by juicy boy. I’m an Air National Guard guy. Career F 1612, years active duty, and then in the Air National Guard. And I had a two-year break in service because I didn’t know anything about the Air National Guard or the Reserve component. So, one thing is education, right? We want to make sure that the pilots that we do train understand that there’s a place that they can go after that service. General Healy’s in the audience here for the Air Force Reserves. So, I’m kind of representing the Reserve component today. But you know, I’ll throw out an actual partial solution today, which is, you know, everybody’s life changes as you move through service and. And you start business, you have kids, you know, family doesn’t want to move around, whatever the reason is, the Reserve component offers a position for you no matter what phase of life you’re in and whether it’s full time or part time, it doesn’t affect your I’ve been like, eight years as a part time guy, so you can still have a very successful career coming to the to the Reserve component. And the other thing I’ll jump into is it’s, it’s a, it’s, it’s a synergistic relationship between the regular component and the reserve components, right? We are kind of like a catcher’s mitt. Like you gentlemen have described, you spent all this time and money and energy training these people, and if the Reserve component doesn’t have a place for them to affiliate, they’re gone into the ether. And I kind of call it a catcher’s mitt. So if the so, like in the F 35 recent RAND study that we did, the Air National Guard through 2031 is only going to be represented at about 17% of the F 35 fire force, and it says that you’re not even going to be able to capture half of the F 35 pilots, if you stick with the traditional attrition rates coming out, there’s nowhere for them to go, and we’re experiencing that in cyber right now. So, the so the kind of punchline is, any mission that the regular air force is in the reserve components ought to be in it, so that they can capture that experience or raise the AFS or the what do you call it active-duty service commitment, you know, so that you hang on to them longer. But that, and we’re kind of getting out of balance right now because of the recapitalization, because there’s a lot of units that aren’t up on step right now, because they haven’t received all their airplanes. It takes a long you know, you don’t have all the airplanes at once, so it takes a long time to get the next squadron up on step. And I’ll use the Vermont example. Vermont was like, one of the very first squadrons to get F 35 but they’re starting with super experienced folks. So instead of having a bunch of B Courses, you’ve got a bunch of TX courses, much shorter time period, and then after two to three years, man, they are up on step, and they’re like, the best F 35 unit on the planet. It’s really phenomenal. And then the work that they’re doing with the state partnership. So, punchline there is, there’s a there’s a lot that the Reserve component can offer. And back on the RAND study, I mean, it’s all about money, until you want to talk about money with the AA, and then it’s not about money. It’s probably, it’s usually about something else, you know, maybe it’s access. But the data shows. And again, I’ll just throw these things out, because it’s the most recent study done. But we looked at security forces cyber, which are manpower missions, right? And then KC, 135, and F 16. And just the numbers the manpower missions, if you include a six-month deployment in a one to five mode, deploy mode to dwell cycle, the manpower mission is half of what it costs in the reggaf, and that’s because we have a 7030 construct, right, where you have 70% of your people are part time. I own a civilian business, so this isn’t even my real job. I mean, it is, and I love it. But, you know, I make, I make my money in my regular job so I can pay your exorbitant salaries out there, so you’re welcome. So, there’s the security forces cyber right? When you get into the aircraft, same 7030 construct, you look at the F 16, the Vipers, right? To me, this is like when you go to the grocery store. And I’ll explain that in a minute. But so, it costs 72% more to operate an F 16 in the regular air force than it does in the Reserve component. And again, that’s based on the 7030 construct, and it’s very durable, whether you go up and down numbers in a squadron or however you expand it, the KC 135 are 52% more expensive in the regular air force than they are in the guard. So, huge value, and then we can get it. I think there’s going to be a question later. We’re going to talk about what they bring for a combatant command, and I’ll get into that. But the punchline is, man, it’s good for America to have a healthy reserve component out there. And remember, we all train to the exact Yeah, bring you down the house. I love it so. But it’s just such. It’s such. Oh, and then last thing, I’ll quit on this. But we have over a 95% retention rate for pilots when they join, if we can recruit them, when they come from the regular air force, and we get a lot off the some off the street, not, not too many. But if we recruit a man, they stay, and that’s because you can be combat mission ready for 25 years. Man is awesome, and that’s what I did, and now I’m doing this, you know, because I’m paying back, but we can put your salaries with there.

Panel Moderator: Heather Penney:

Thank you. But we there’s no catcher’s mitt if there’s no unit and there’s no iron and there’s no ability for the guard to be able to or the reserves to be able to flow forward and support the active component in the demands that they have. And we’ve seen historically from the 90s to today, especially as we ginned up to go over to the Middle East, that as the force shrunk and got smaller, units spun faster and faster and wore out. Iron. So, the fighter jets, you know, well, all of the aircraft, frankly, ended up aging prematurely, but it was also incredibly hard on our warfighters and our families.

Lt. Gen. Adrian Spain:

Lucky if I can just,

Panel Moderator: Heather Penney:

Absolutely.

Lt. Gen. Adrian Spain:

Just to augment some of what juicy boy is talking about. So, it’s in, it’s in the interest of the of the Air Force to have a robust reserve component. There’s no doubt about that. You know, I think it’s there’s also no doubt that much of the experiencing that that the Reserve component relies upon happens in the active duty, which makes it cost effective at the end to catch them as they’re getting ready to leave the active duty. So, so we need this symbiotic relationship. It’s not active duty versus reserve component, or reserve component versus active duty. We want the right balance there. And you know my message, and John and I have talked about this many times, and we’ve gone out together to wings to say, hey, I really hope you stay. You know, as the Air Force ops guy, I really hope you stay on active duty, but if you can’t, I really need you to go to the Reserve component so that I have access to your skills when the fight comes, because that’s really all. I give a shit, crap about to be really honest with you, right? When the fight comes, will we be ready, and will I have the forces to go, to go implement our nation’s interests with kinetic air power, right? And so, the Reserve component allows us to tap into that experience in a way that’s very cost effective. It takes a lot of our best folks and puts them in a place where they’re kind of in a warm status that I can pull back very quickly if I lose them to the Reserve component when they leave, then they’re not really available to us. They technically are, but the spin up time is much, much greater, and so, so I want them either on active duty or in the Reserve component so that when we go, we can go quickly with the active duty unit and 12 to 72 hours, and then I can quickly follow that up with a reserve component unit who is equally up on the step as we as we go. And some, clearly, some of the reserve component units are ready to go in that same initial window. So there’s it’s, this is a combined effort here, which is another change from, I think, when you know, when I first came into the Air Force, and when General Regan is talking about where, you know, that was also a bad word, and people were sneaking around trying to join the guard because their bosses weren’t going to let them keep flying if they found out about it, and so, so we are not in that situation anymore. We need to work together on this, and it’s a combined retention strategy. Stay on active duty for some if that fits your you know, the season of life that you’re in. And if you can’t pray to God, you go to the Reserve component. So, we have access to your talent if the balloon goes up.

Panel Moderator: Heather Penney:

I’m glad you brought that up. I mean, the Reserve component very much relies upon the active duty for all the foundational elements of generating and building and experiencing a warfighter from pilot training through their ftu, through the experience, and frankly, it’s an important piece for our culture. Being in the active duty is an important piece of generating that warfighter culture that then gets caught in the Reserve component and remains available to you when needed. We’re getting close on time. But I do want to before we go into our lightning round general Craig, and this is really, I mean, if you think about the shortage, and you think about how pilot training is a pipeline, it’s a numbers game, right? So, if we just divested aircraft, we could fix the pilot shortage?

Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, USAF (Ret.):

No.

Panel Moderator: Heather Penney:

Thank you. Thank you.

Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, USAF (Ret.):

So pretty straightforward question, by the way. No, you know, I think in the big scheme of things here, first off, my takeaway, and for everybody in the crowd, is there’s a lot of senior leaders that care an awful lot about this. So, if you know, you think these decisions are getting made in vacuum. They’re not. And one of these points that you bring up with respect to Okay, when we talk about capacity and capability, my experience in my 37 years is when we got rid airplanes, we never got them back. Fact. So, when we make those kinds of decisions, it’s got to be very deliberate and clear eyed. And I know there’s a lot of senior leaders that have made the hard call, but that’s the reality. And you know, as we talk, as you know, great power competition, I’d argue numbers are important, and I don’t think you guys would argue with me. And so how we do that going forward? And we can talk about mixes of man and unmanned, but people matter. War. Fighting is about humans, and humans are required to fly airplanes, and so we got to think our way through that.

Panel Moderator: Heather Penney:

And if we look at the future and we say, having, you know, decisions or what’s going to make us successful, it’s not just decisions, its effects, and human cognition will always be the asymmetric advantage that we has have as America’s Air Force. So having humans in the aircraft, in the Ford Edge of the battle space, at the scale and scope the great power competition and, oh, by the way, everything else our nation needs us to do, from Homeland Defense to other operations around the globe, it will require people, and it will require airplanes. So, gentlemen, thank you so much. I want to go quickly into the lightning round, so we’ll just go Cobra and then on down the line, smokey Elmo and then juicy.

Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, USAF (Ret.):

Okay, I think I hit my lightning points there and that. Hey, this is a hard problem, and there’s plenty of people sitting here in the front rows that has spent hours and hours in a bazillion meetings thinking through how we solve this. So, for everybody in the back, it’s all because we do give a what you said and what I almost. Yeah, Elmo said it not me. And that’s important, from a messaging perspective, for you all to understand that it’s not made in vacuum. There’s a lot of people that care, and it’s important and for our nation to lean into this in a manner that we work collectively across the entire Air Force. In fact, I know we’ve talked to commercial companies, and this is a problem that has made its way across the United States, and now our partners are having the same kind of problems. So, we will continue to work together to figure out how we solve this because it’s that important to what we’re doing.

Lt. Gen. Brian Robinson:

Thanks. You know, you know, how do you really feel about it? Elmo, no. The good news is, he’s a wonderful partner in this process and trying to solve this problem, and he’s actually passionate about it. You got to see that we’re all passionate about it. I guess what I would say for lighting around is, today, the average pilot train officer is going to go to pilot training, from a commission to pilot or being mission qualification in their platform. 528, days, give or take if you’re going to mobility, it’s about 400 and some, about 430 days and it, you know, that’s way too long. We need to get airmen on their mission, in their platform, in their combat squadron. That’s our goal. So specifically, a couple things that have happened. We went to IPT, as I described before, because we found that corporate or civilian companies run at about a 90% efficiency model, unlike us, as alluded to here earlier, the Air Force and the government tends to under resource the things that really, really matter, and how they use their physical plan. The t6 direct program. We’ve had 16 folks go through the KC, 135 portions all have passed their check rides. Q1, couple, not on the first time through, but that’s normal. And the CU, 130 j, we’ve had 22 go through, and again, all at low risk have met on time and passed their check rides. I flew as a passenger in one of those with one of those airmen a weekend or so ago. She did great, and I got a chance to talk to her afterwards. So, we’re not worried about that. We’re just thinking outside the box. How do we influence this going forward and make the situation better, ultimately, for our airmen? So, thanks for the opportunity to be here and chat with you.

Panel Moderator: Heather Penney:

Thank you, gentlemen. Faster, funnier.

Lt. Gen. Adrian Spain:

Yep, you bet so. So, the chief yesterday talked about one Air Force, right? So, this is an example of one Air Force. We’re all part of this together, and we have to, we have to see the value in each other as we work forward on these really hard and complex problems. I had directed the A threes to go out to the wings to talk to folks who are coming up on the expiration of their pilot training commitments, to tell them, thanks. We care about what you do. We value what you bring to the fight, and we want you to stay and if that’s in your heart, and if that’s where your family is and in your season of life, then I appreciate you sticking around with us on the So, side. If you can’t, if you can’t stay with us, then I really hope that you affiliate with the Reserve component and the guard or the reserves, and we keep a hold of your talents. And if you can’t do that, thank you for your service. You’ve done a lot, you’ve upheld your commitment, and you’ve served your time. And if you want to go do something else, you’ve earned the right to do that. And so I hope, I hope we can keep you, if we can’t, I hope we keep you in the Reserve component. If we can’t do that, thanks for what you’ve done. We appreciate it and and we will have been better for it. Thank you.

Maj. Gen. Efferson:

Yeah, and I’m tickled pink, you know, to talk about the whole Air Force, right? That is awesome. And I’ll tell you a story. A long time ago, I had a three-star regular Air Force General say man guard people should have circles around their rank. And what he meant was his feeling was that we guard people, right? We’re not experts in whatever that field was. And at the time, I think it was staff work, you know, imagine that. But the punchline is that all of us are recruiters, and there needs to be no stigma attached with Oh, you’re going to the Reserve component, you’re a quitter, or you’re, you know, off the fast track, or whatever you know. And what I see reflected in the leadership today is exactly the opposite. So, there’s nothing wrong with it. I did three combat deployments, reggaf I’ve done seven since I’ve been in the reserves, and it’s been awesome. I do it again tomorrow, and I really appreciate the chance to talk today. Thanks.

Panel Moderator: Heather Penney:

Thank you.

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