JTO,
You aright on the money there. I was warning about this just about ten years ago, but a troublesome SO1 raising issues was not what was needed despite being able to prove the looming problem mathematically. A year later it was starting to happen. Now it's pretty much irrecoverable.
The FAA fixed wing cadre in isolation is going to face a nightmare, a product of the same decade of decay and the gap between Har and F-35. Will the RAF be called upon to fill the supervisory and dilution gaps? I think their problems in those areas are already bordering on crisis.