Aggregated by AuxBeacon News
[Editor’s Note: We received this story from a CAP member in the Northeast Region. Thank you for your contribution. The U.S. Air Force recently approved $2.4 million additional funds to help the Civil Air Patrol recruit, retain and train new pilots and aircrew. The old timers know what happened during the NASCAR fiasco when the Air Force gave the CAP extra funds to promote and recruit cadets. Several million dollars mysteriously disappeared, the NASCAR idea went bust and in the end, the CAP had a big drop in membership. Currently, the CAP is having a very difficult time in retaining pilots and members, but yet the Air Force has entrusted our tax payer money with the CAP again. Will history repeat itself? AuxBeacon will be watching this very closely.]
Highly qualified flight crew are already in short supply as airlines around the world soak up the existing supply and fewer military pilots become available. That leaves the business aviation industry wondering how to attract corporate pilots.
Major forecasts recently released suggest the shortage has only just begun. Boeing’s 2018 Pilot & Technician Outlook says aviation is looking at an “unprecedented” demand for 790,000 pilots over the next two decades and 754,000 new maintenance technicians. It also forecast a combined demand in the business aviation and helicopter sectors alone for 155,000 pilots and 132,000 maintenance technicians over the next 20 years.
Research firm Cowen & Company estimates that “more than 42% of active U.S. airline pilots at the biggest carriers will retire over the next 10 years, roughly 22,000 of them.”
Maj Gen Mark Smith, CAP National Commander, and Margarita Mesones, Aviation Group director for Cadet Programs at National Headquarters, discuss the Cadet Lift Program with no enthusiasm.
More taxpayer dollars wasted. This will NEVER solve the pilot shortage problem in the Air Force since a college degree is required. Yet another dumb idea to keep the CAP around.
“The Air Force and Civil Air Patrol are trying out a new joint approach to help tackle the service’s pilot shortage. Pentagon Aircrew Crisis Task Force boss Brig. Gen. Christopher Short created the initiative as part of his effort to dig the service out of an approximately 2,000-pilot shortfall.”
http://www.airforcemag.com/Features/Pages/2019/August%202019/USAF-CAP-Program-Aims-to-Lessen-Pilot-Shortage.aspx