Projecting Air Force Rated Officer Inventory Across the Total Force

📖 The Scoop

It has become more complex for the U.S. Air Force to manage its rated officer population, due to the lengthy and costly training pipelines, declining availability of aircraft to train the rated officer force, and the effects of external factors that affect the retention of Air Force rated officers. The Air Force has always had to manage the rated officers in the regular Air Force, balancing the flows into the force, distributing them among the various rated officer career fields and aircraft, and monitoring the flows out of the force. However, it has not had to manage the flows into the two reserve components, the Air Force Reserve and the Air National Guard, quite as diligently because the supply of rated officers into those components was both abundant and cheap. Recent changes, such as the overall reduction in the number of aircraft, the pending elimination of the A-10 aircraft, the arrival of the F-35 aircraft, and the increase in civilian pilot hiring from the major airlines, have made it more challenging to manage rated officers in all components. As a result, it has become increasingly important to adopt an overall-or Total Force-perspective on the rated officer force. In this report, the authors document efforts to develop a long-term career field planning model for all rated officers across the Total Force-the Total Force Blue Line model-that can be used to assess policy alternatives and inform decisionmaking in managing the rated officer force.

Genre: Business & Economics / Careers / General (fancy, right?)