Briefed lawmakers on a Pilot Shortage affecting all four of the services. This House Armed Services subcommittee hearing runs about an hour 1 2. And a half. Comes to order. I want to welcome everyone to the hear on the shortage of pilots in military services. Today well hear from the services on their progress towards increasing the retention of military pilots both officers and warrant officers. We know pilot demands are increasing in the commercial sector and the demand to hire qualified military pilot is this higher than the available pool of candidates. With the problem being particularly acute in the United States air force. With the deficit at one point of over 1,000 total pilots. We are here to hear from the Armed Services on their plan. We know we cannot buy our way out of the problem since the military does not compete with the potential salary and some cases of the lifestyle of commercial airlines. So we must make sure the services are using all the levers in their control. From an increase in bonuses to changes in the assignment system to changes in promotion to incentives, these pilots to incentivize these pilots to remain in the military. The military subcommittee will review and discuss the way forward to stop the outflow of military pilots. I look forward to hearing from the witnesses to understand the retention problem and to assess the proposed resolutions for the services and increasing retention. Before i introduce our panel, let me offer Ranking Member spear an opportunity to make opening remarks. Chairman, thank you and thank you to our witnesses who are here today. The Armed Services committee has been receiving quite a bit of testimony over the last few months on the issue of readiness. There remains some debate on the severity of the ready new zeala zealand readiness crisis. The shortage of military pilots does, of course, have a direct impact on readiness, so the reaction to the shortage has typically been along the same veins to throw more money at the problem in the form of cash Retention Bonuses. But without addressing the root causes, this will do little to stem the departure of valuable experienced military pilots. As witnesses and several members of the subcommittee are well aware, our Service Members are not in it for the money. Military pilot serves for the love of country and the love of flying. There are many reasons besides money that military pilots leave the service for the private sector including family concerns and a desire for more stability too few flying hours and too many assigning task unrelated to flying. Today, im interested in hearing how each of the services working to identify the root causes and how you use that analysis and authorities that congress provided to better target non monetary incentives as well as monetary in order to increase retention. I am interested to hear joint initiatives of what you maybe taking under. It costs millions of dollars to produce just a single aviator. Im not telling you something you dont already know. We need to ensure we are thinking broadly and creatively about how to best retain the skilled aviator the nation needs. Thank you and i look forward to your testimony. Thank you, miss speire, well give each witness an opportunity to present his or her testimony and an opportunity to question the witnesses for five minutes. We remind the witnesses to summarize and the high point of your written testimony in five minutes or less. The written comments and statements will be made part of the hearing record. Let me welcome our panel. Lieutenant general lakist and vice admiral robert p. Birk. Lieutenant grossel. Major general eric c. Peterson. With that, general brilakis, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, chairman coffman. Distinguished members of the subcommittee i will be providing you an inventory overview. Since the first aviator flew in 1912 our pilots like all marines have answered all the nations call, faithfully serving the American People and maintaining firstclass standard of excellence. Today, we need critical support to combat operations. We operational commencement and tempo and challenging deployment dwelled ratios. While the marine corps does not have a shortage of Aviation Personnel we are experiencing a shortage of trained aviators particularly in specific platforms and gaps in the necessary qualifications over existing maintenance personnel. This is exacerbated by our Current Issues of aircrafts. Addressing this issue is one of mind. Aviation readiness in the form of ready basic aircraft and the resources to operate them is the single most important factor in alleviating our manpower challenges and contributing to retain. Our responsibility to train and retain the best aviators is imperative for us. We vigorously attack the retention of our aviation field. And doing so is particularly important due to the time and expense required to train these marines. Well closely look at the trend of our aviators and take action should we see retention problems so that your corps remains the most ready. Thank you for the opportunity to present this testimony. Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity to discuss this status of Naval Aviation retention. I am honored to represent the men and women of the United States navy. Aviation today is strong of the Maritime Air Force in the world and our deploy unit is ready to response to any challenge. Its made up of more than 190,000 military and Navy Civilian personnel including 10,250 naval pilots and flight officers who safely maintain, operate, and train with approximately 3700 aircraft and support a worldwide carrier based expedition neighbor missions to support combat operations. On any given day, two or five of our nine carrier air wings are deployed. We are prepared to deploy and our ability to sustain the effort depends on a number of factors among the most critical of which is our people. So im here today to outline the current risks of projected manning challenges facing Naval Aviation and what we must do to sustain peak combat readiness. Our able to attract our young men and women our nation have to offer is central to maintaining Aviation Personnel readiness. A number of factor making this challenge increasingly complex of low unemployment and increasing opportunities for employment in the private sector of the commercial Airline Industry. Additionally naval aviators have expressed a dissatisfaction of Quality Service. Which have inhibited a team of tactical qualifications and subsequent career progression. Those who wear the cloth of this nation do not do so of the money but rather to be part of something bigger than themselves. We have been able to positively influence retention behavior by providing a fair compensation package but more importantly we provide an enticement a few other employers can offer, a call to service. The allure of service is diminished. Today aviation depots struggle to get our airplanes through maintenance on time. These delay the time that pilots have to train for their deployment. Such challenges are further exacerbated by low stats of critical parts and aging shore infrastructure while our first team on deploy is always ready and our bench and the depth of our forces at home is growing increasingly frustrated and additionally operational tempo on certain deployment schedules, expressive administrative burdens and quality of life for sailors families including late permanent change of station orders and housing option especially in nonfleet concentration areas affect peoples decision to stay navy. Restoring short term readiness will require predictable funding which will allow our pilots flying the hours needed to maintain optimal efficiency. Ensure our ability to conduct timely maintenance on our airframes. It would enable the navy to restore parts and returning to aircraft operational status and better prepare them to remain deployed as required. And finally it would allow our pilots to the what they want do, which is to fly. Well continue to aggressively pursue resolution of aviator retention challenges through use of available resources and plans and refinements of plans and process for recruiting and addressing the Quality Service needs of our aviators. We welcome our assistance and looking forward to working with you. We appreciate your continued support for Initiative Design to help us achieve our optimal personnel readiness, and rain the best and brightest young men and women this nation has to offer. Thank you, i look forward to your questions. Thank you, general burke. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the status of the air force Pilot Shortages and our efforts to address it. Americas air force has been globally engaged for the last 26 years in combat operations. During that time, we provided air dominance through global vigilance, global reach and global power for our joint force. Make no mistake, your air force is always there. However, being always there comes at a cost to equipment, infrastructure and most importantly, our airmen. We are now at a decision point. Sustained global commitment and recent funding cuts affecting capacity and capabilities for a full spectrum fight against a near peer adversary. Upcoming surge of mandatory retirement of an increasing market of Global Commerce is causing civilian industry to begin hiring at unprecedented rates. This confluence of circumstances has birthed a national air crew crisis. It is a result of multiple factors. High operational tempo over 26 years. Demand for our pilots from the commercial industry and cultural issues which affect the quality of life for our service airmen. The total force including our active guard and reserve components were short 1,000 pilots across all mission areas. It should be noted that the cost to train a fifth generation Fighter Pilot to prepare him or her for their first operational quad are on is approximately 11 million. A 1200 fighter shortage is a 12 billion capital loss for the air force. Civilian Aviation Companies are recruiting the worldclass experience of our rated airmen. Out pacing our 2016 studies, Major Airlines hired more than 4,100 pilots last year and increased the salary of their pilot force by an average of 17 . These annual hiring levels are expected to continue for the next 10 to 15 years. Civilian job prospects are not the reasons that jobs are lost. The air force plans to address these shortfalls, reducing requirements, increase production and retention. The air forces plan ruses the forum of operation in order to maintenance and flying. We are leveraging our partners to staff and planning positions deployments and inPilot Training units as appropriate. The air force recognizes the need to increase pilot production and will expand undergraduate Pilot Training to Maximum Capacity at 1400 pilots a year. Future increases in flu put will require additional manpower and infrastructure operation and maintenance resources. From a retention perspective, the air force is improve the quality of life for our airmen. For example, we reduced additional duties and eliminated nonessential courses and outsourced select routine tasks just to name a few. All of these are to give back time to our aviators so they can focus on flying. We are grateful of your support of the 30,000 bonus a year. We identify areas of greatest need to retain pilots and exchange commitment beyond their service commitment. The air force is committed to a holistic strategy to maintain our pilot inventory. While we aggressively pursue creative means to respond to demands on our pilots our focus will be on developing annage jill set of solutions. We appreciate your support as we address the competition for our talented aviators and move out on bold and innovative solutions. Thank you for your time on this important matter. I look forward to your questions. Thank you, general grosso. Thank you for your testimony. Major general peterson, youre recognized for five minutes. Chairman coffman. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss Airline AviationPilot Shortages and our mitigation strategy. Army aviation is an asymmetric advantage providing the reach, protection and lee falsity and understanding required to win. At the foundation or a highly trained Army Aviation professionals, the pilot component of our total Army Aviation consists of 14,000 rated aviators across the regular army, the Army National guard and the army reserve. Several years of sustained fiscal constraints have required the army to make difficult resorting choices. Out of necessity we prioritize short term readiness over longterm recruiting and training. We simply could not afford to train the number of new pilots we need to sustain a healthy force, a growing challenge that is masked by relatively healthy current aggregate strength. Specifically we have accumulated a shortage of 731 regular Army Aviation warrant officers across your group 2010 through 2017. We are temporarily sustaining acceptable aggregate pilot manning by relying on senior aviation warrant officers to fill junior positions over 25 of which are retirement eligible. We are addressing these challenges and well build longterm readiness through three lines of efforts. Retention, training throughput and of sessions. Retention of pilots is key of mitigating seven years of con strained training throughput. Overall army retention, is healthy, we have seen an increase of Army Aviation warrant officer attrition from 7 to 9 annually. Given growing commercial demand. We expect this trend to continue unless addressed. In anticipation we are formalizing targets that encourages pilots to continue and retaining those who achieve advance qualifications. Additionally, we are correcting the accumulated deficit in our training throughput by pulling resourcing our Flight School. Fully resourcing our Flight School is not a quick fix, it must be phased in for several years. It will require consistent funding at increased levels to be successful. We are increasing our aviation warrant officer sessions in concert with the increased throughput of our Pilot Training. Over the next three years we will increase our throughput by nearly 170 students annually. In umry we are addressing our pilot manning challenges. We currently have the sufficient authorities to inchment our pilot retention, training throughput and a sessions increase. However, sustained, protect addictable, ontime funding and relief from the budget control act are vital to any enduring solution that we attempt to apply. Mr. Chairman and Ranking Members and distinguish members of the committee, thank you for your enduring support of our army and your shared commitment to our nations defense. Thank you, Major General peterson. I wish to thank not yet. So let me, if we look at the biggest reasons on the demand side of this equation, i think there are two factors and i dont know which one is dominant. One factor is youve got an aging population of pilots on the Civil Aviation side and that might have been aggravated by the fact that they increased the retirement age for pilots and now were hitting that increased retirement age so we are seeing significant retirement. A significant part of demand side, too, i would think is that in response to an aviation, i am trying to remember which year it was, i think it was in new york state, 2012, the reaction to that was to plus up the number of hours required. I believe 1500 flight hours for civilian and airlines faa retirement. And so quickest way to get there, is to look at the military because thats very hard to get on the civilian side. And so and i dont know if if the faa needs to revisit that number, if that was an overreaction to that accident or not. But, that does seem excessive, so thats on the demand side. And then so on the supply side, i believe that i know Lieutenant General grosso, you briefed me on a Retention Bonus structure that you want to put forward. You want to tell the subcommittee about that . Before we do let me preface it by saying i think within the Defense Authorization act there needs to be a reevaluation of that number on an annual basis that will adjust accordingly. This is the situation the situation is not going to last forever. Its a demand and supply curve and eventually the demand is going to be sateuated at some level. Sir, you are correct. In accordance with the guidance we came up with a Business Model to understand where our greatest need was. This model is the model that we use to give across air force which is about manning is but it has four factors, manning, retention and replacement time. Manning is weighted at 40 , retention at 40 , replacement cost at 10 and replacement time at 10 . You put all of these numbers together and you get a ranked ordering and based on the increase in the bonus which you gave us in the 17 nda as well, we looked at the greatest need and we stair stepped it down to match the weapon systems that were most in need in accordance with your direction. And we will do this every single year. So the program we come out with this year could look different than the program next year. To your point, the environment may change and the people that c