PPRuNe Forums - inews - 'RAF admits ‘urgent’ need to solve shortage of trained pilots''

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- - inews - 'RAF admits ‘urgent’ need to solve shortage of trained pilots'' (https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/650786-inews-raf-admits-urgent-need-solve-shortage-trained-pilots.html)

Concerned civilian here, so what uyouare saying is the RAF is NHS mark2 . If you havent got enough pilots its no fit for purpose.. Isnt there any concern at your management levels that even without being deployed, involved in exercises but just keeping current youare responsible for some very very expensive kit and if youare unlucky it can still kill you oa bad day. Why not go join EZ ? Alarming to an outsider

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Originally Posted by downsizer (Post 11372317)

As a recent PVR'eee money wasn't the only factor, it was one of many. The main driver for me was the amount of sh1t that had nothing to do with my actual job that I was spending time doing, or chasing my subordinates to do. You could have thrown more cash at me and it wouldn't have changed my mind, indeed I was offered promotion so I guess in a way they did.

So I left for a job with a decent defense company on more money than I was on (I actually asked for less, they came back with a bigger offer) with a much better quality of life.

Good for you, we all have that limit, the balance between pride and need (salary). I faced blatant ageism, and went for less upfront money. I’ve made it work with pension stuff, but I had to stick to a plan.

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Originally Posted by pax britanica (Post 11372359)

Alarming to an outsider

Unable to retain experience or train replacements and not enough resources to do anything well.

Pretty alarming to insiders as well. But not, apparently, to the management.

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Originally Posted by Timelord (Post 11372371)

BV, It’s actually even worse than that. Since the officer from a less demanding profession will not have spent 5 years in training post IOT they may well have been promoted by time the your newly minted QWI turns up without flying pay.

This was an own goal by Branch and Trade, but hey there’s a big pay out later, but for some a huge tax take…. then there is a pending Labour government.
Branch did not get this correct at all, jam will come tomorrow, but the Labour bear will most likely have taken over 50% in tax and NI.

Unfortunately, nothing has changed in the last 33 yrs. They didn't learn then and they still haven't mastered it. I was commissioned from NCO aircrew back in 1990. Back in the day I had a 3 year plus hold waiting for a METS Jetstream course. I held all over the place doing numerous GD duties. I even worked in MOD sixth floor for a stint. Met the CAS at the time on numerous occasions who was oblivious to the fact that all these under training pilots were in the holding system. The JP was removed from service and each year we were eventually invited back to do some flying - Tucano groundschool in a couple of days then 10 hrs with a QFI cos we weren't qualified on type. Then a "bye bye' we'll see you next time!! If I'd have gone to Chivenor or valley on the 100hr mirror image course I'd have got back to the frontline probably in less than a year - who knows might even have made it fast jet!! During this time they sent out redundancy letters - all the same but they hadn't done their homework. It stated "As you have only been in the Air Force a short period of time".............. wrong I'd been in over 6 years at this point.
Then in 2003 came the pilot retention bonuses - not tax free but taxed at 40% all aimed at the wrong age group and time served - I say no more. Then Spec Aircrew demise and the PA spine - what a great system to receive pensionable flying pay.
To cap it all - at Waddington in 2007 when the CAS was in the tea bar preaching to the troops - he stated "And we are not going to pay any of our pilots any more retention bonuses, if they don't like it they can leave" well that was it, next day 12 mth PVR was in including boss OC 8 and we move on..............! 33 years on and still nothing has changed. In this generation they cannot recruit the school leavers like back in the 1980's times have changed and lessons have not been learnt!! Oh what fun we had in the RAF - best job ever back in the day!!
Could write a book about this - wonder if it would be a best seller?

Certainly, SLJ are an influencing factor, particularly as these secondary duties become more than your primary duty. Being a little lax I allowied smarter more experienced people to advise me. It was quite interesting on how pay increases worked with promotion (maybe not nowadays). FLTLT pay, promoted = more tax and ohh, now the self-same house you are in is going to cost you more as you are now a SQNLDR and your wage has gone up. Same for WGCDR but as a CO of a Squadron with X number of aircraft, equipment, men under your control, staff car etc all great. Posted to a ground job, flying pay lost and now a paper pusher. For young chaps looking at this line of progression where you are often taking a step back it is little wonder that the commercial sector looked very good.

And now the PM has offered to train Ukrainian pilots. How on earth can we do that when we don't even have the capacity to train our own?

Maybe he intends to keep them here.

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How on earth can we do that when we don't even have the capacity to train our own?

Perhaps the funding comes from different budgets?

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Originally Posted by SASless (Post 11383140)

Perhaps the funding comes from different budgets?

It's not just a budget problem, it's more equipment, supply, trained instructors and capacity problem. That said, the right budget could fix most of that...

Just my few penn'orth but, simply, how can you properly train an FJ pilot who spends more time holding and then revalidating to basic standards, than becoming Combat Ready ? And up to SEVEN years ?!
In the sixties, we went from EFTS to Hunter completion (which was a joy) in eighteen months........ and then frontline aircraft OCU (which was a bit of a jump) .... to complete in just over a total of TWO years....... and hardly a moment without FLYING.
This is what we joined to do.
Can someone explain why the training schedule cannot be the same ?
When I left the service, we could still train civilian pilots up to 250 flying hours, then Multi and Instrument Rating qualified, in EIGHTEEN MONTHS.
No wonder the RAF has such a problem with encouraging young lads to take up flying these days and no wonder that, presently, these young lads who want to FLY do so as airline pilots and mortgage themselves up to £110,000 just to achieve it.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a73bf1c27a.jpg
Pan right for another 12 Vamp.T11s ! Where did we go wrong ?

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Originally Posted by falcon900 (Post 11366084)

Plus ca change……..
The age old problem. If it is any consolation, the same situation applies in the civilian world. Even where the consultants aren’t employing your former staff, the first thing they usually do is interview your existing staff who almost invariably tell them the answer to whatever the problem is.
It is a hallmark of weak management that they can’t implement difficult choices without paying someone external to tell them to do it. It allows the option of scapegoating the consultants if it all goes wrong, but horribly undermines organisational self confidence, and introduces often fatal delay to remedial action being taken.
I can only imagine how it feels to serve in the RAF at the moment with insufficient aircraft and even then, insufficient pilots to fly them. I suppose we will be in to a new recruitment year shortly, so at least they will soon be able to recruit all shapes sizes and colours again….

No different in civvy street. In the late 80's BA got rid of a lot of pilots under its New Horizons plan. Crew planners told them how many they needed but were ignored by management who released too many. It's not a planning problem that needs a software tool, it's a change of senior management.