After hitting pilot training goal, resolving shortage will take years, Air Force official says

WASHINGTON — The Air Force has revealed that the service will achieve a years-long goal of producing 1,500 pilots annually, a target that officials say is critical to reduce a shortfall of over 2,000 aviators. 

But even if the Air Force can keep up that tempo for the foreseeable future, it will be “quite some time” until the service’s pilot shortage is resolved, the Air Force’s top training officer said Sept. 15.

“I can’t erase that pilot deficit in a short period of time,” Lt. Gen. Clark Quinn, the head of Air Education and Training Command, said in a roundtable with reporters on the sidelines of the Air & Space Forces Association conference. 

Predicting how long it would take to make up the existing shortage is complicated by unpredictable retention rates driven in large part by fluctuating economic conditions, Quinn reasoned. Additionally, most of the current pilot shortfall is in staff positions, held by people well into their careers. That means replenishing those positions will take a considerable amount of time.

“It’s going to take 15 or 20 years to get those types of people. I can make them today, but those jobs won’t be filled for quite some time,” the general said. “I do know that if we don’t make 1,500, we’re never going to get that number down.”

The Air Force says that a new pilot training model implemented in 2024 has been key to achieving the 1,500 annual production goal. Under a new framework called the Future of Undergraduate Pilot Training, the service has partnered with civilian-led training programs for early stages, where students earn a private pilot license and learn the basics of flying. Students then move on to a military-led phase of instruction flying the T-6A Texan II, and candidates picked for fighter and bomber slots will also get time with the T-38 Talon.

“That new way of doing pilot training has allowed us to make the number of pilots that we need per year, which is the way that we intend to man those new platforms that are coming,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach said in a separate media roundtable Sept. 14, referring to training pilots for forthcoming aircraft like the F-47 fighter jet and B-21 Raider stealth bomber. 

The introduction of autonomous platforms like Collaborative Combat Aircraft drone wingmen could also reduce the manpower needed for flying missions, Wilsbach reasoned. 

“We’re a few years off from having to reduce the number of pilots that we have, but in the meantime, we’re making 1,500 a year,” he said. 

In the long run, Air Force officials have floated the idea of consolidating flight training onto one platform: the T-7 Red Hawk. Quinn said he believes the aircraft — previously the focus of an investigation by Breaking Defense that found a series of unreported issues with the in-development trainer — will be “an outstanding airplane” that officials are “eager” to receive.

Asked about consolidating all training on the Red Hawk, Quinn emphasized that no decisions have been made, adding that doing so would carry “pros and cons.” An upside, Quinn reasoned, would be reducing the footprint necessary to operate more than one aircraft, pointing to elements like logistics and manpower. But a downside, he said, is that “if something ever happens to that aircraft that would prevent it from flying for an extended period of time, I really don’t have a backup plan to that.”

Quinn stated that the Air Force needs to give instructors more flying time in the aircraft to determine whether it might be suitable for all stages of pilot training. Up to now, T-7 flights have mostly been led by developmental test pilots, though instructor pilots are starting to get their time in the jet too.

“Until I get the confidence that my instructors think that we can do this, that opens the door to then make that decision,” he said.