warrant officers

The army has them. They fly helos. They fit between the enlisted ranks and officer ranks. They are technical specialists, meaning that that tend to stay in their area of expertise, and don't often move on to other things. This goes against Air Force service culture, which believes anyone who flies a plane should be an officer (and should eventually move out of the cockpit and try to be a general). But I believe this is a mistake. Given the pilot shortage we are currently suffering from, I think it would be a good idea for the Air Force to create them in this service. They would take less time to train, and they return more value over time since they stay in the cockpit, rather than moving on to desk jobs. I will have to do some research, but I am pretty sure we used to have them, back when we first split from the army.

A pilot takes about 7 years (4 years of college + 3 years of training on active duty) to create, that's a very long pipeline to try and manage in terms of meeting present demands and future needs.

When I was the Academy (10 years ago!), there were several of us who used to discuss the Air Force's problems and speculated that warrant officers might be a good idea.

Inspired to write this entry along with previous entries by Mr. Gates' encouragement of un-traditional thinking.




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original email entry, same date:
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more to come on this topic...

history, af,