The Air Force Pilot Shortage. A Crisis for Operational Units?

The Air Force has been losing unprecedented numbers of experienced pilots, who are leaving at the end of their initial active duty service commitment ADSC and at the end of the initial bonus-payback period. These losses apparently occur because 1 employment opportunities are excellent in the private sector and 2 continued high tempos for contingency support operations are degrading their quality of life. In the face of high losses and difficulty in training new pilots and absorbing them into operational units, the Air Force faces a growing shortfall. As widely reported, the Air Force reached a shortfall of 1000 pilots in FY1999 and projects a shortfall twice that size by FY2002, which will stay that large or larger through FY2007. Throughout the period, about half of the shortfall occurs in fighters. Moreover, because the Air Force hired and trained insufficient numbers of new pilots during its major force drawdown in the early 1990s, the shrotfall is most critical among those who collectively must fill key staff and cockpit jobs and provide instruction and leadership to newcomers in operational and training units. Because almost all new pilots must be assigned to operational units, experience levels in these units will continue to decrease.