A Total Force Solution for an Active Duty Fighter Pilot Shortage

Download or read book A Total Force Solution for an Active Duty Fighter Pilot Shortage written by David W. Walker and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Active Duty (AD) Air Force has a shortage of fighter pilots and cannot recover until fiscal year 2013. Producing more fighter pilots is problematic given post Cold War fighter force structure. Only 12.6 fighter wing equivalents (FWE) are currently in the AD force, while 7.6 FWE are in the Air Reserve Component (ARC). This research analyzed the proposition of assigning 80 fighter pilots per year to ARC fighter units for absorption. The researcher gathered flying hour metrics including sorties, hours, and utilization rates (UTE) from AD, Air National Guard (ANG), and Air Force Reserve (AFR). The researcher next calculated annual sortie and hour requirements for AD fighter pilots. After comparing these two sets of data, the researcher concluded 80 fighter pilots could be absorbed per year by the ARC. The ARC would have to increase UTE rate by slightly more than three sorties per month across the entire operational fighter fleet. This equated to a 25 percent increase in flying hours. Given the extreme cost to the ARC in terms of airframe lifespan, the researcher recommended absorbing some number fewer than 80 in the ARC to balance the benefit of reducing the fighter pilot shortage with the costs."--Abstract.