Conditions of Service
- Significantly higher pay scales (airlinesque),
- Permanent position/location,
- Regular working hours,
- FLTLT rank so as to focus on the core job of flying,
- Deployments only in order to maintain knowledge of current ops,
- General protection from high op tempo that should be carried/experienced by the young guys within their ROSO,
- ie. Clear job description (ie. you're responsible for these pubs, jobs etc.),
- Some sort of bid system allowing guys to bid for those jobs within the Wing or heaven forbid outside their FEG.
- Maybe they could be responsible to the OC/CDR so as to detach them from pressures from within the SQN?
While this may solve the problem in the short term, it will be no good in the long term because:- FLTLT QFI takes up said job with "airlinesque" pay, and all other conditions listed above
- He/she decides that "this is alright", and digs in for the long haul
- Sqn / Wing benefits from having a steady presence in the standards branch for a few years
- Up-and-coming QFI finally gets him/herself in a position where they have the experience to fill above position and make a valuable contribution
- Meanwhile, person who took the job to start with has no intention of leaving. "No vacancy" sign gets put up by the career manager, then:
- Up-and-coming QFI says "screw this" when ROSO has expired (due to being flogged because of point 6 above) and leaves to get the "airlinesque" pay the old fashioned way, with the airlines!
While this proposal would be good for a few, it will be just the same as it always has been for many. Just like the resources and construction industries are hurting defence wide recruiting, I can't see how the RAAF (or Navy and Army, for that matter) can compete with the airlines when it comes to retaining their pilots.
The Baffler 
Last edited by baffler15; 29th Jan 2008 at 05:48.