Our guest speaker for our June 29th meeting was Colonel Terry 'Katt' Frady, who is the Deputy Director of the Aircrew Task Force. Col Frady discussed the current mission of the Air Force Aircrew Crisis Task Force and the blueprint in development for fixing the chronic shortage of pilots for Air Force cockpits. The end state desired is to attain 95% pilot manning by the end of 2013. The Task Force has presented their plan to the Secretary of the Air Force and included language for the FY 2021 Strategic Choices document. There are three areas in the Pentagon working on the Task Force. These include Talent Management, Outreach, and the Operational Analytics and Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution team. Col Frady emphasized that this is an enterprise challenge requiring an enterprise wide solution. Currently there are six lines of effort in the plan ...

• Professional Pay — increase bonuses beyond current $35K per year (AF can’t compete with airline pay)
• Talent Management — reduce 365 day deployments
• Undergraduate Pilot Training Syllabus restructure — 5 to 9 week reduction with the same quality and safety
• Light Attack Aircraft — will help with absorption and increase fighter pilot experience
• Plus 100+ FM options on best way to get +100 more pilots per year beyond other 5 lines of effort
• Reorg/Recategorize — not getting rid of fighter billets, but looking to fill them more with 18A RPA Community

Col Frady acknowledged this is a complex problem and there is no silver bullet and that pilots are a National Asset. The Chapter presented Col Frady with a certificate for a donation in his name of $50 to AFA Airmen and Family Programs.