USAF kan overlate uttak- og opplæring av flygere til kontraktører - Curt Lewis

 

Air Force may use contractors to train pilots

In a bid to finally overcome a chronic pilot shortage, the Air Force says it may use private contractors to train some of its fledgling aviators.

It has issued five “requests for information” that could produce 200 pilots a year over a five-year period.

“The idea is to reach out to industry and see how you all might be able to support, provide ideas and provide information that will help us as we formulate our plans moving forward,” said Maj. Gen. Craig Wills, commander of the 19th Air Force at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph.

“As you know, the pilot shortage is a worldwide phenomenon. It’s not strictly limited to the U.S. Air Force,” he added.

The decision to use private contractors, rather than Air Force instructor pilots, underscores concerns the service has long had about producing enough aviators. It has grappled with a pilot shortage for years and has tried to find ways to increase production.

The shortage at the close of the 2020 fiscal year Sept. 30 was around 1,925 pilots and reflected a 7 percent increase in retention, perhaps because fewer Air Force pilots were leaving for commercial airlines in the coronavirus pandemic. The Air Education and Training Command based at JBSA-Randolph produced 1,263 pilots in the same period.

Using contractors to train novice pilots is just one tactic in the Air Force’s overall strategy to dig its way out of what commanders call the “pilot crisis.”

The Air Force has cut as much as five weeks from the time required to teach novice pilots, a move that could help it replace rapidly departing veterans. In 2018, Undergraduate Pilot Training — called UPT — had been trimmed from 54.7 weeks to an average of 49.2 weeks, a prospect that alarmed some veteran instructors. The Air Force insists safety hadn’t been jeopardized.

On ExpressNews.com: AF to cut training time from 54 to 49 weeks, produce 1,500 pilots by FY 2022, Oct. 20, 2018

The Air Force also has developed a pair of new, innovative programs — Pilot Training Next and Undergraduate Training 2.5 — that have graduated small clusters of aviators in only eight months or so.

Pilot Training Next began in February 2018, and Undergraduate Pilot Training 2.5 started last July. Both are at Randolph and train novices by relying far more on sophisticated simulators that use “intelligent tutors” to instruct the students.

The training command expects to expand Pilot Training Next’s most successful concepts to all novice pilot training after classes now underway at UPT 2.5 conclude at Randolph and Vance AFB in Oklahoma and an analysis of its effectiveness is presented to Wills.

The Air Force hopes to ultimately take the lessons learned and apply them to all pilot instruction.

It isn’t yet clear how that would work in part because both experimental flying training programs rely on a near 1-to-1 student-instructor ratio. Ordinarily, pilot instruction requires three or four instructors for every student, said Lt. Col. Ron Knight, commander of Randolph’s 559th Flying Training Squadron, which is testing UPT 2.5.

“That’s really the objective, to take the success stories out of Pilot Training Next and implement them into an actual flying squadron with a more realistic student-to-instructor ratio,” he said.

Commanders at all levels say the changes are overdue to tip the scales in the battle to keep enough pilots in uniform.

“While we have the best-trained pilots in the world, we haven’t significantly changed Undergraduate Pilot Training in more than 50 years,” Gen. David Goldfein said before retiring last summer as Air Force chief of staff. “Now, by leveraging military, academic and industry expertise, we are on the cusp of a more modern and advanced pilot training program.”

On ExpressNews.com: Close calls and near-misses: Air Force chief has had highs, and at least one low

The latest concept was pitched late last month by AETC and the 19th Air Force, which hosted Flying Training Virtual Industry Days at Randolph. The event reviewed the current state of Air Force flying training and asked 100 industry representatives from 43 companies to suggest ways of improving pilot production.

Wills outlined the new “learner-centric” approach being used in Pilot Training Next and UPT 2.5. Some officers at Randolph have described the new training model as more akin to a relationship between coaches and athletes than instructors and students.

“We have a different mentality that says, why don’t we teach folks as much as possible so, at the end of their training program, they are as proficient as possible,” he explained to the gathering.

If all goes as planned, the Air Force could award contracts to companies that train UPT students in fixed-wing aircraft and simulators, as well as in helicopters.

A 19th Air Force spokeswoman, Aryn Lockhart, cautioned that the service is only requesting information from contractors at this point. She added, “We are only in the stage of seeing how industry might be able to assist.”

The idea of using contractors to train Air Force novice pilots isn’t new. They’ve been used in UPT in decades past, most recently in the 1950s, before being phased out, an Air Force spokesman said.

Wills said the government “is very much interested in coming up with solutions that are advantageous to the taxpayer. It is our goal to bring the very best that American industry brings to the table, and we are not convinced that we are the only people that have good ideas.”