In a war with a peer-level adversary, US Air Force leaders are increasingly concerned about large-scale pilot and aircraft losses.
The Air Force needs to be aware of its sustainment capacity, particularly when it comes to pilots and the advanced aircraft they fly, according to Gen. Mark Kelly, head of Air Combat Command.
During World War II, both Germany and Japan ran out of pilots before they ran out of airplanes, according to Kelly.
Air Combat Command is responsible for organizing, training, and maintaining combat- ready units for the US military's combatant commands, and Kelly, a career fighter pilot, echoed a sentiment that Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Brown Jr. expressed in his first major strategic document.
Brown, the service's top officer, wrote at the time that future airmen are more likely to fight in highly contested environments and must be prepared to fight through combat attrition rates and risks to the Nation.
The pilot shortages in the Air Force are not new. All of the military's service branches are experiencing pilot shortfalls due to several years of underproduction in pilot training.
The problem is particularly acute for the Air Force. The service has a goal of training 1,500 new pilots each year and estimates that it needs to retain about 21,000 pilots.
It has been difficult to close the gap between the number of pilots it has and the number it seeks. There was a shortfall of over 2,000 pilots in 2019. The Air Force did not meet its training goal. In 2020 and 2021, it trained 1,263 and 1,381 pilots.
There are a lot of reasons for the shortfall.
It is very difficult to train new pilots. It can take up to five years to train a new fighter pilot.
The service has struggled to retain trained pilots who can get better salaries and benefits at civilian airlines. Replacing an experienced pilot can take eight years.
As aircraft have gotten more advanced, the time and expense of that training has increased. The pool of potential candidates is limited by the fact that the requirements for flight hours are largely unchanged since the 1970s.
The Air Force is worried about its ability to replace lost pilots and aircraft.
In a peer fight, we need capacity in both.
It would be hard to replace the Air Force's sophisticated aircraft like those used in World War II.
It's not like turning a Ford plant into a B-24 factory or turning a Packard plant into a Merlin engine plant.
Air Force officials have warned that the service's air-to-air weapons haven't kept pace with its advances.
As a result, those aircraft may have to get closer to their targets, exposing them to the increasingly advanced anti-aircraft weaponry that Russia and China are fielding.
If we have to push low-observable platforms into ranges where everyone is observable, we will not get a good return on that investment.
There are a number of initiatives underway by the Air Force.
To get more active pilots into aircraft more quickly, it is changing its selection and training processes.
A new program called Undergraduate Pilot Training 2.5 includes realistic virtual-reality simulations aided by artificial intelligence as well as remote instruction to help new pilots get through initial training within seven months instead of a year. After that, the pilots can move on to training in the specific aircraft they will fly.
The program is expected to become standard across the Air Force by the end of the year, as nearly 200 pilots have graduated since July 2020.
The Air Force is trying to expand the pool of pilot candidates by decreasing the amount of flight experience needed, encouraging ROTC cadets and enlisted personnel to become pilots, and speeding up training for civilians with flight experience through the Civil Service.
The Air Force wants to have better chances against rivals with advanced weaponry by getting longer-range fifth-generation weapons.
The short version is that we will enter a peer fight with the capability and the capacity in people, equipment, platforms, and resources that we have on hand and be very challenged, as every nation will be very challenged to surge industry to meet the demands of consumption that a peer.
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