New wars in Asia demands, more UAVs mean fewer fighter pilots

At least 100 fewer young Air Force officers will be calling themselves fighter pilots this year because of a shift in flying assignments made to handle both new combat demands and a logjam of students caused by plane groundings.The service aims to assign 234 officers to the fighter/bomber track of undergraduate pilot training in 2009, compared with 334 in 2008. Even those student pilots in the fighter track could end up flying propeller-driven aircraft because of growing missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.“We have new demands from the combatant commanders. ... We’ve had a lot of requirement growth,” said Col. Scott Forest, deputy chief of the Air Staff’s operational training division in the Pentagon. “That’s good that they want Air Force capabilities.”Defense Secretary Robert Gates created the need for 1,100 more pilots in war zones a year ago when he directed the service to more than double the number of unmanned aerial vehicles, MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers over Afghanistan and Iraq to 50 orbits by 2012. Of the 324,500 active-duty airmen serving, about 13,250 are pilots.The latest draw for pilots is the MC-12W, a twin-propeller military version of the Beechcraft King Air 350 that will be used for reconnaissance flights. The Air Force intends to buy up to 37 of the planes in the next year and needs 300 pilots for the aircraft, Forest said. Groundings that started nearly 18 months ago also factored into the service’s decision to move more officers into the helicopter and tanker/transport tracks since the planes idled were fighters, Forest said.The Air Force grounded 259 of its 441 F-15 Eagles from November 2007 to January 2008 while it looked into the breakup of an F-15C over Missouri. Investigators pinpointed the cause as a support beam inside the fuselage that was built thinner than specified. Gradually, all but four fighters with thin beams were allowed back in the air. The service retired the four jets in mid-2008.Last May, the service parked all 500 of its T-38 Talon training jets — it’s the plane fighter and bomber students fly — after an investigation into a fatal crash found cracks in a lever that moves the wing flaps. For four months, maintenance crews worked to replace levers in all the wings.Last October, the Air Force ordered more than half of its 356 A-10s fighters to stay put because of cracks inside the wings. About 100 of the air-to-ground fighters were still parked at the end of February. The service expects all the planes to be back in the air by the end of June.Today’s student pilots aren’t the first to deal with turbulent career times. Nearly 20 years ago, the Air Force struggled to deal with a shrinking number of planes in the aftermath of the Cold War and Desert Storm.The service took a multipronged approach to the glut back then — assigning new pilots to training wings for as long as six years flying as first-assignment instructor pilots, sending new pilots to nonflying jobs and slashing the pipeline to about 525 students a year.In 1991 alone, about 1,100 undergraduate pilots received word they would be doing three-year, no-flying tours instead of moving to formal training units that teach the ins and outs of specific aircraft. Even formal training unit grads felt the pain: F-16 Fighting Falcon pilots waited almost a year to join operational squadrons.By 1996, though, the Air Force was scurrying to fill fighter cockpits, encouraging pilots to cross-train into fighters from other aircraft and allowing officers to reapply for pilot school.Right now, as many as two student pilots from each class at the four training sites — Columbus Air Force Base, Miss.; Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas; Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas; and Vance Air Force Base, Okla. — are moving into fighters, Forest said. A couple of months ago, some classes had no student pilots assigned to fighter cockpits, the colonel said.The only control that the captains and lieutenants have to get their dream sheet assignments is placing high in their class, instructors said. The student who finishes at the top usually gets his first choice, but there is no guarantee. Even the No. 1-ranked student pilot could find himself flying a remote-controlled plane instead of an F-16 if that’s where the Air Force needs him. Students who finish in the middle or at the bottom of their class can figure on having little or no say about their assignments.Training student pilots is an expensive proposition.From initial flight screening to graduation almost two years later from a formal training unit, the Air Force spends about $4.95 million to create an F-16 pilot, according to Air Education and Training Command.In aircraft where simulators play a larger role, the costs are lower. The service spends about $1.2 million to prepare a C-17 Globemaster pilot.The students know they can’t control which planes they fly.“We all understand the Air Force has specific needs right now,” said Capt. Joel Thesing, a student in the fighter/bomber track with the 87th Flying Training Squadron at Laughlin, who hopes to fly the F-22 Raptor or F-15E Strike Eagle.Instructors say their student pilots understand that Air Force requirements have changed since they began pursuing pilot careers as college students.In one class recently, 15 percent of the students requested remote-controlled aircraft, said Col. Glen Lawson, who helps oversee student pilot training as deputy commander of the 80th Operations Group at Sheppard.Lawson recalled a recent assignment night celebration where students learned which operational aircraft they were headed for.“It was impossible to tell who got F-15s and those who got UAVs,” Lawson said.Another student aiming for the F-22 is 2nd Lt. Terry Fregly of the 50th Flying Training Squadron at Columbus Air Force Base.“I’d be disappointed, but if I don’t get it, I don’t have anyone to blame but myself,” Fregly said about missing a fighter slot.Both students are in small classes, each with five active-duty students competing for assignments. Thesing sees the contest bringing the students closer.“I suppose we are competitive, but we really have a strong bond among us,” the captain said.Other students want an assignment to special operation, airlift or small planes.Second Lt. Erica Olson of the 48th Flying Training Squadron at Columbus chose C-17 Globemasters first, and U-28s, a military version of the single-engine Pilatus PC-12 used for insertion missions, second.Both aircraft are in the sky daily over war zones, and Olson likes that.“They are in the mix right now,” she said.Recommendations from other pilots and the special operations role of the U-28 steered Olson toward the plane. “I have friends who fly the U-28 and what they do is something that appeals to me,” she said.Second Lt. Jackson Dashiell of the 85th Flying Training Squadron at Laughlin is aiming first for special operations.“My first choice is the MC-130,” Dashiell said. Second is the HH-60G Pave Hawk rescue helicopter.“The mission is what appeals to me,” Dashiell said of the aircrafts’ infiltration roles.A few days after talking with Air Force Times, the two Columbus pilots got their follow-on assignments. Fregly heads off to train in the F-15C Eagle, a plane high on his list, and Olson will learn to fly the C-17.At Laughlin, Thesing earned an F-15C spot. It wasn’t his first choice, but that didn’t make much difference to the captain who started his career as a maintenance officer.“Hard to believe,” Thesing said. “I’m very honored.”Dashiell’s selection day is a few weeks away.On the horizon is another change capable of driving down the demand for fighter pilots — an Air Force proposal to retire 314 fighters — 137 F-15s and 177 F-16s.In one assignment status update distributed to operational fighter pilots, an officer who matches pilots with units warned that the assignment picture is “extremely turbulent and dynamic.”The proposal for 2010 is not figured into this year’s cuts to fighter/bomber training assignments, Forest said. He declined to speculate on the effect the drawdown would have, if approved by Congress.Air Force officials advocating the cuts believe retiring the jets would let the service trim its maintenance budget and spend the money to buy F-35 Lightning IIs or F-22s. However, it will be several years before the Air Force buys an equivalent number of new fighters and the requirement for fighter pilots returns to today’s level.

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