USAF contract red air.
 

Well, where are the needed pilots coming from ? They're proposing a lot of flying. Their explanation seems naive and iffy. Those retired pilots they mention are the ones getting airline jobs:

'It’s still not clear what impact the growing industry will have on USAF’s pilot force. Senior Air Force leaders acknowledge it will be a challenge to have all these companies recruiting pilots at the same time as the commercial airlines while USAF tries to get a handle on its own pilot shortage.

' “Our core pilot is more or less a retired lieutenant colonel or colonel, who’s elected not to pursue an airline job or may be part-time at an airline and wants to maintain flying military aircraft,' said Poteet."

Absolutely on the money F16 Guy. They may counter that they have insufficient line pilots to cover the task, to which my reply would be use the budget to recruit more line pilots and expand your pilot pool.

The decision maker must have an MBA

I have watched this unfold for years, and quietly considered where it is going.

I think now there may be light at the end of the tunnel.

When you look at the relative serviceability rates (even allowing for complex capabilities) of civil / military airframes, the poor value is explained by the lack of commercial drivers in the process. The military client has had a bottomless pit of money to spend and a compulsory task to fulfill. That's why manufacturers can charge what they like for kit that is often unreliable and short lived with escalating prices all through development and production.

In the civil world, reputation is more important due to a larger number of potential suppliers, and people expect to get more than a few thousand hours out of a multi million dollar/pound purchase.

Bad as it seems for training and Pilot output, the business forces involved here might well drive down prices and improve the quality. Not overnight of course, as most of the first and second wave will be using ex mil products, but in time, if this new industry really takes off (groan) then higher standards will be demanded in order to make the return on investment that will be expected.

Heli Expo 2018 flightline Las Vegas
 

I get the issue about recruiting pilots to operate these ac, but isn't there a lot of benefit in operating non US ac in a truly DACT role? The fact that the companies run the financial risk in operating these ac, not the US mil is also a benefit in a squeezed budget.

To that end, that's 50K fewer block hours on USAF airframes. F16 guy does make a valid point however.

I must have the wrong end of the stick yet again...…..

I've always assumed that anything military, or wearing low-viz plumage was there as something that was A) expected to go into harms way as many times as possible before becoming collateral damage and B) have a very high attrition rate several orders of magnitude higher than broadly equivalent civilian kit.

Likewise the folks who sign up to sit in, sit on, or wear low-viz plumage themselves.

Seems today that they're all just too expensive to let them be used for their intended purposes.

This will have a money saving aspect....at least some proportion of that 50k hours will have been banked.

Surely the USAF should be using it's cash and time to train its pilots on it's own front-line aircraft - not a weird collection of odds & sodds??

Saying that's "50,000 hours gone" is silly - if hours flown is the only metric go out and buy a load of Cessna- 152's

Dissimilar training flown by guys who specialize in those types has to be a better answer than wasting a USAF pilot's time learning to fly a MiG-21 ...no?

Many factors have forced the USAF down the contract Red Air route.

It is hugely expensive to operate a front-line fighter purely in a permanent aggressor role when an almost equivalent task can be performed by a Contractor Owned Contractor Operated (COCO) aircraft suitable equipped with updated radars, ECM, ECCM and emulators - cost per flying hour, maintenance cost and aircrew and groundcrew overheads.

One of the first big crunch points for the USAF was the disbandment of the 24-aircraft 65 AGRS at Nellis AFB which operated the F-15C - there are multiple ongoing structural maintenance issues with the F-15C and funding was completely withdrawn for the 65 AGRS due to FY15 Budget cuts.

With a seriously ageing fighter force, anything that can be done to release a dwindling number of fighters back into deployable front line wings has to be done. The use of COCO aggressor aircraft is offset by costs savings in structural integrity modifications that would otherwise be incurred in trying to keep, for example, a larger number of F-15Cs/F-16Cs in service and of course a reduced military personnel establishment.

Draken got a foot in the door at Nellis AFB in 2015 to provide Red Air alongside the 64 AGRS which operates the F-16C.
https://www.505ccw.acc.af.mil/News/Video/dvpTag/Adair/

In 2018, Draken had their contract extended through to 2023.
http://www.drakenintl.com/blog/blog/...ir-ii-contract

There are always going to be a significant number of aircrew of the "right stuff" for this sort of role - particularly at the Lt Col and Col level who would either rather carry on doing this type of flying for as long as they are capable instead of advancement in the military in an ever increasing "desk" role or they have been forced to retire anyway under the US military "up or out" rules. However good an operator they are, not everyone can be a one-star or above.

Executive Team | Draken International
Management Team | Draken International
Aircraft Inventory | Draken International

The Draken A-4Ks have received upgrades to enable them to emulate the F-16MLU:
Douglas A-4 Skyhawk | Draken International

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....7c887ef24e.jpg

Amazing what turns up in miscellaneous spare parts.......

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/y...orida-airport/

MacDill EODs remove French air-to-air missile from Florida airport

..........Members of the 6th EOD team were called out to Lakeland Linder International Airport Friday after it was shut down in the wake of the discovery of the missile, which had been delivered to Draken International.

Based at the airport, Draken has a fleet of about 150 former military aircraft it contracts out to help train current military pilots.

“Our EOD team went out and secured the missile,” Air Force 1st Lt. Brandon Hanner, a spokesman for the 6th Air Refueling Wing, told Military Times. “It was live, but unarmed.”.....

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....4b58f19ce.jpeg

I hear that the Matra at MacDill is a training/acq round delivered in a 'live' box by mistake…..

Re Red Air, there's a number of factors in play. Primarily, as RAFEng points out, Aggressor flying wears out aircraft quickly - especially if you're trying to prop up your Tac Air front line with ageing aircraft as you didn't get as many Gen 5.1 (F-22) as you wanted and the Gen 5.2 (F-35) is still building its force structure. There are two other issues; the US Military is trying to drive down headcount across the board. This is because it's getting increasingly hard to recruit high-calibre individuals for certain roles and, with life expectancy increasing, the pension burden becomes greater year on year. Secondly, RedAir is a specialist skill, which does come at increased risk; the DoD has trained the pilots, amortised the cost over their service, and now gets to retain their skills and knowledge whilst passing the operating risk to a 3rd party - if there's an accident, whilst tragic if fatal, it doesn't potentially go down as a shortcoming in a CO's Efficiency Report. Finally, if an F-16 is fighting an F-16 in a fancy paint job it's not really DACT is it? The F-5 was a reasonable facsimile of Gen 2/3 Soviet hardware, but even then the USAF felt it needed the exotica of the 4477th to train selected crews effectively. Contract RedAir enables their pilots to 'fight' against a number of different types, fulfilling different (and scaled) threats - the Mirage F1, Kfir, A4, L-159, Hawk etc are all well embedded - and there may well be 'exposures' to 'other' aircraft still going on somewhere….. Ironically, the much-promised F16 AdAir aircraft have never actually appeared….

The point about DACT and like Vs. like is very valid, there was an excellent paper written on it by a previous Undersecretary of the Air Force. It would appear that the same company with the much-promised Vipers isn't happy about the recent Task Order awards for Luke and Holloman either. Did the RAF ever get that "demonstration of capability" they were offered for August 2016?

https://www.gao.gov/docket/B-418974.1

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....37109e0aea.png

Blue Air Training
 

Another new kid on the block... Check out Blue Air Training :) they have a unique iconic fleet.....

https://blueairtraining.com/air-craft/

OV-10D/G/BAC Strikemaster/OH-6 Littlebird/PC9/IAR23/A90

ok a question from the bleachers.......

USAF loyalty is to CIC, whomever that may be, depending on elections, you have a chain of command and UCMJ that polices behaviour and loyalty.

Now you are flying for a "private" outfit, lets say owners of a river named outfit, call it "The Ohio" and owner of a social meida outfit call it "Footbook" plus a news type outfit call it "Birdsong"decide they don't like CIC. They own majority shareholding in a couple of these companies with a couple on thousands aircraft and pilots from many countries. What happens when owners decide democratic process and population refuse to give them the result they want and act on it. What then ?

Say what now? Not even sure what i just read....

If companies do not like the politics of the day they can choose to suck it up and go on with business, or decide to close up shop, or do other types of business. If pilots and employees do not like what is going on they can vote with their feet. I am not worried about large numbers of rogue mercenaries with fleets of aircraft- but not sure if that is what your were implying.