However, if you missed that boat youre far better off taking an Active Duty UPT slot than trying Stans way and doing 5 years as in a non-flying job. The increased ADSO shows that senior leaders fundamentally do not understand the issues, and it will do nothing to address the attrition as the years go on. Weve seen, If youre headed to pilot training, you absolutely must read our 3-part series on Winning UPT. I would have stayed in for another 10+ years if I had the opportunity to revert to Warrant Officer and fly more, but that opportunity doesn't exist. I'm thinking Army will start pushing dates to the right as much as possible to achieve its newfound maximum retention. Ultimately, the Army needs to focus on the retention of quality talent; not on retaining mediocre talent for a longer period of time "because they can mandate longer ADSOs.". for a discussion of these options and their advantages.) After AFIT, Stan would owe a payback for school and might have to serve longer than his 5-year non-pilot ADSC. I like the idea of the Ultimate career path because it still allows you to earn a 20-year military retirement.. and our But ifonline discussions are any indication, this ADSO will turn away a lot of prospective pilots. 10 years after flight school graduation. Back in the 1950s, the Army ask for a waiver in not paying flight pay for its pilots. They can surely find that amount in the Enlisted ranks if WARRANTED. More career Enlisted apply than street to seat on a yearly basis. It never ends. Lets compare these options to see why. Thats at least 2 moves and several TDYs in the space of about 2 years. , I knew to ask lots of questions and take the time to dig down to the primary factors motivating this line of thinking. This doesnt exactly seem legally right. I would be inclined to say that your contract is still 6 year ADSO. Change flight school where primary flight training is done by civilian contractors via fixed wing. The Army must also capture the opinions of those it can still retain. Due to the extreme demand produced by the GWOT, ground formations are insatiable with their demand for aviation support. Thank you for your time and have a great rest of your day! I got out because I wanted to fly, but kept getting stuck in staff positions where I either couldn't fly, or had limited opportunities to fly. By I at least expected a survey or something from the Aviation branch to ask why I was leaving, but again, nothing. I'm retiring in two years and it's not even to go to the airlines! Reading your first paragraph and skimming the rest I couldn't agree more. However, I dont think its worth passing up a nearly guaranteed Active Duty UPT slot in hopes of possibly getting a Guard or Reserve slot 5 years from now. The consensus seems to be that if you graduate flight school in FY 2021, you accrue the 10 year ADSO. If Stan becomes an engineer in the Air Force, hed probably have to attend some sort of training right after graduating from college. This eventually allows you to retire a full four years earlier than any other military aviator. It didn't help that the CSA took advantage of his own program by taking private military flight lessons and was awarded his pilots wings while a 4 star. Subject to the needs of the Army, newly rated aviators should be used in operational flying duty positions immedi-ately after their successful completion of Army aviation flight training. Also new is that time in grade for WOs doesn't start until you graduate flight school. You cannot paste images directly. Reading this in Jan 21, after 10 months of pandemic lockdown. This call to action comes amid challenging times, with many civilian airlines running on reduced flight schedules, said Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jon Koziol, the Armys command chief warrant officer to the aviation branch, during a Facebook livestream in June. The 10-year service obligation is the result of a numbers-related calculus related to Army manning and will not address the problems that make Aviators leave. I just want to stop leaving my family all the time! But then again, it's 4 more years of employment or should I say deployments. Commercial airlines offer higher salaries, more career control, and stabilization. Therefore, this option is virtually free for Aviation officers. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. There is still an aviation bonus for mid career tracked guys, and while some success has been had with that, I dont know if theyve gotten the response desired for the blood money though. Very true. Anyone who does a modicum of research will quickly discover that our aviation culture is objectively inferior to the other services. Branch of Choice: Your BRADSO obligation runs consecutively with your flight school ADSO and your commitment will run out to about the 10 year point. It only increases your overall training costs because typically you have less time available to retain these people. I remember similar drama during my Fourth Class (freshman) year at the USAF Academy as we were forced to sign a paper accepting a similar ADSC increase in case of getting an Air Force pilot slot. 9 month rotations are followed by field time, followed by gunnery, followed by EIB, followed by a CTC, etc. (Read. Anyway, I just clocked 20 years, 5 1/2 years of that has been spent in the Middle East and for what? This means that aviation formations get screwed doubly they have to support everyone's demands, while being vastly outnumbered. The Army likes to have a balance between the two but they can change that over night. Raising the service commitment ignores the actual root causes. The Army says it needs the UH-72 for training because it teaches the use of glass cockpit and other advanced technology. Although its less common to get more than 6-12 months of your ADSC forgiven under this program, that still gets you off Active Duty sooner than expected. Clear editor. Powered by Invision Community, https://www.reddit.com/r/Armyaviation/comments/gxcx3o/10_year_adso_is_official/. Its shocking that the Army doesnt have any institutional memory about what causes pilot shortage, which are primarily two broad topics: quality of life in the Army, and economic opportunities outside the Army. Even just a year or two of delay erases any possible advantages of this career path. Stans Active Duty pilot peers would have spent 8-11 years since graduating from college flying for the military full time. Lasting solutions must come in the form of quality of life and quality of service improvements. Exit surveys are important, but those only capture the opinion of those whom the Army has already lost. They require more time for people to gain experience. Perhaps it's just for RLOs but don't count on that. The future of Army aviation depends on retaining the pilots in whom it invests so much. Glad I retired when I did. Whether you elect the Branch of Choice or Graduate School Program, there are slight differences to your commitment for those who branch Aviation. If I am a scholarship Cadet, I understand that upon completion of my initial 4 year ROTC ADSO, I . NO WOFT POSTS. Not difficult for the Army in finding 300 additional NCOs for the WOFT program if need be. Did ROTC, then Aviation, allegedly 6 years upon completion of flight training. This is both expensive and time-consumingtough to fit in around a 9-5 as an engineer, especially if he has a family. While I completely understand the desire of people to fly, there is more to it than that. BrADSO - I signed for one, but then I know for a fact that it wasnt required/taken but its still on my iPERMS. Prospective warrant officers can see that the Army is having trouble retaining pilots, and they can also see that increasing the service obligation by four years works against their best interests. For example, if there are 100 ROTC Aviation slots, only 20 can . My formation barely ever conducts social events. That's my 2 cents. In order to figure out the pros and cons of these different options, we first need to compare the timelines side by side. Holla at yo boy and lemme know what y'all are thinking. For example, its the only service that allows people to go into flight training with only a high school degree. Excerpt from your enlistment contract which every one of has (or will, if selected) signed. Age should be liftedI'm in my mid fifties and still fly helicopters (civilian market) for a living. In congressional testimony it was stated that at that time (2019) around 40% of the pilot population was within 3 years of being retirement eligible. This means keeping up with at least two airplanes and dealing with two potentially very demanding bosses. In recent discussions with some USAFA cadets, Ive encountered several who actually turned down pilot slots because of that 10-year ADSC. This plan assumes that Stan can get hired by a Guard or Reserve unit at this point. However, he missed out on that Ultimate Military Pilot Career Path and is concerned about a 10-year UPT ADSC. Then 10 year service obligation put me right at 20 so Im not too worried about that. Army Aviation Leaders should. It will harm recruiting and we will continue to bleed talent into the civilian aviation market. But at what cost? Probably a 11-11.5 year commitment. It will give you a recruiting advantage because a person out of high school or a year of college could position themselves for later on in life. With 21 years as a Soldier and 10 years reviewing cost estimates for all equipment tests, Mr. Ysa Garza said everyone always has to be safety conscience in his role as an additional duty safety . If the Army rescinds this ADSO and reverts to the original six-year obligation, it will have six years to develop solutions to increase retention. C-17 formation from the ramp: https://www.dvidshub.net/image/6100141/c-17-air-drop. Its important to note that Stans theoretical plan might have allowed him to obtain the 750 hours needed for an R-ATP about 7 years after graduating from college, but thats not competitive for getting hired at a major airline. For anyone facing a 10-year military pilot ADSC/O, this means asking yourself: What is it about military flying that made you want to do it in the first place?. I'm good at doing Army things and I enjoy them too, but I don't know if I can commit so much of my life before I've even had my first real taste of being an officer. The ARMY should allow ATP for all prior service men willing and fit to fly. Note: The waiver authority for this requirement is the Commanding General, U.S. Army Aviation Center, Fort Rucker, AL 36362-5000. . If the civilians don't want to join, not a problem. Since classes are generally pretty well mixed with people with respect to when they commissioned, the first couple of classes must have been a mix of people on the old 6 and the new 10. Stan figured that even spending 5 years in a non-flying job, this track would make him a military pilot well below the USAFs current age limit (33 years old), and would actually get him to the airlines sooner than his Active Duty pilot peers. There are some other prerequisites they have to meet. Again, 70 percent of Army pilots are warrant officers, while Air Force pilots are all officers. Start date has no impact on this. review for a restaurant or somethingonly those who either #LOVEDIT or #hatedit:( ever write reviews, so it's hard to know what the experience is like for the average man. Sounds great! I was just curious if the numbers are stillsimilar. If the civilians don't want to join, not a problem. Especially if they view retention as a big enough problem to justify an additional 4 year commitment from aviators. Paste as plain text instead, The US Army recently changed its aviation Active Duty Service Obligation, from 8 to 10 years and created an absolute uproar. (Yes, they say ADSO instead of ADSC because the Army and the Air Force refuse to do anything the same since they divorced back in 47.) If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. 10 year ADSO started FY21. Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible. I remember when they tried to get aviators out of the "sack" flight suit and into Nomex BDUs to make them more soldierly. This mindset is far from universal, but its prevalent enough that the Academy actually had pilot slots go unfilled a few years ago! This used to be unheard of. My ORB says a date 6 years from my AD start date, which Im pretty sure is wrong. I'm very healthy and fit, I would like to fly helicopters. If hed gone to UPT right after college, its more likely that hed get a lot of his deploying done before his kids were that old, or even before they were all born. In the report provided to Congress, however, increasing the service obligation was not mentioned as a possible solution to pilot retention shortfalls. ADSO stands for Active Duty Service Obligation. During this time, Stan would at least need to obtain his Private Pilot Certificate. Warrant Officer Candidate School is a five-week program. The severity of the decline in recruiting will be unknown until the recruiting data comes in from the first affected class of cadets and warrant officer candidates. As long as hes getting a lot of flight time, Stan should have enough hours for a Restricted ATP rating and a shot at a regional airline job a couple of years before his Active Duty pilot peers. Anyhow, a 10 year ADSO is an ungodly amount for a branch without a proper Aviation culture. Serving on Active Duty is also the only way to get an overseas flying assignment. There are also discussions within the Army aviation community of additional changes that would make becoming a warrant officer even less appealing. I honestly don't believe that the way out of this is getting more people to fly that have less time available left in their military careers. TheGovernment Accountability Office reported, for example, that it can take two years and three to eleven million dollars to produce a mission-ready fighter pilot. The 10 year ADSO was based on whether or not you pinned WO1/2LT by a certain date, not by when you started or graduated IERW. The Army has more career Enlisted soldiers willing to cross over for the opportunity in being an Officer, pilot and increasein pay for their families, with or without a degree. . That's the Army's ace in the hole. USMA graduates accepting an appointment in the Regular Army incur a 5-year ADSO (10 USC 4348). We are very, very interested in seeing more applications, he added. Just to end it and walk away.. victorious..? A RAND Corporation studyfound that even $35,000 a year would not be sufficient to stem the flow of Air Force pilotsthe study concluded a bonus cap between $38,500 and $62,500 would be necessary to make a meaningful impact. The Army is making those who want to go through flight school incur a 10 year active duty service obligation (ADSO) as it's "fix" for pilot retention. I want to do it for as long as I can. The Army may producean averageof 1200 Warrant Officers pilots annuallyincluding the Guard and Reserves. Final thoughts the social aspect of the Army has never been worse. More money for tents and rifles, I suppose. You get to the airlines sooner, and you spend more years at a major airline. These trips have to be funded at his own expense and would require him to use leave that wont be available for family trips. The upper age limit to enter flight training is established in law and requires Congressional action. SUPERSEDED AR 600-8-29, 02/25/2005; SUPERSEDED ARMY DIR 2019-30, 10/01/2019: Footnotes: https://armypubs.army.mil 03-APPLICABLE TO ARNG UNITS: Security Classification : UNCLASSIFIED: Dist Restriction Code : A APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE; DISTRIBUTION IS UNLIMITED: Changes Due to the flight school ADSO and timeline, you will be on active duty for about 7 years in order to fulfill the obligations incurred through flight training. Fixed wing is cheaper. At least in the early 2000s, there was the ARFORGEN cycle. Deployed Civil Engineers https://www.dvidshub.net/image/491088/deployed-civil-engineers. I'm not ignoring anything that has been posted within this thread -- again, it's all been awesome -- but I want to feel as sure as possible that the opinions expressed here are an accurate assessment of the average Army Aviation experience. Once Stan finally gets qualified in his aircraft, hed get seasoning orders with his Guard or Reserve unit. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts, https://thefrontlines.com/comics/army-pilots-beware/. Even during a deployment when demand for flight hours was high, the more senior Warrant Officers were flying double that of the more junior pilots. The same goes for great deals like going to Test Pilot School, flying the E-11A BACN, and much more. At the same time it could drive a shortage of Aviation Officers, but if they're going to leave the Army anyway. Welcome back, fellow aviators! A chief warrant officer 3 with eight years of service earns $5093.70 per month, whereas a captain with eight years of service earns $6435.00 per month, a difference of $1,341.30 in favor of non-Army pilots. The program offers an incentive to remain on active duty in aviation service for either 3 or 5 years, beginning at ADSO expiry or contract approval date, whichever is later.

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