Air Command and Staff College Research

[fireman_jake]

Greetings all, I'm writing a paper for ACSC and I need a little help. I'm not a pilot, but I try real hard to speak pilot so forgive me if I get some things wrong.

Here is what I am looking for tonight: I have always been told that there is this magic number of mission pilots that a wing would like to have and that it has always been expressed to me as a ratio of MPs to aircraft. For example, a wing might have 10 aircraft but would want 50 qualified MPs (5 MPs per aircraft). What is the actual requirement and where can I find it?

Second question, is there a way to find out or a person to ask to see how many mission pilots we have nation wide?

I'm making the case that we are short mission pilots and that we have had an increase in our operational tempo but I need facts to back up my assumptions.

Thank you all in advance for your help.

[coudano]

what you would really want, in order to make this case, would be the total number of mission pilots every year for, say, the past 10 years,

and additionally, the total number of "missions" (opstempo) every year for the past 10 years

then you can compare pilots to missions

unfortunately, you probably aren't going to find that kind of data...


also, keep in mind that 'missions' in terms of air opstempo winds up counting everything, including things like cadet o-rides...  for which you don't even have to be a mission pilot at all...    but you do have to have varying amounts of pilot quals depending on the various different types of cap/jrotc/rotc cadet or even aem.


i'm afraid the kind of data you need to do this kind of paper is probably not going to be available to you.

[Al Sayre]

Think about it like this.  Ideally we put 200 hours per year on each aircraft.  If you have 5 MP's per aircraft, that's 40 Hrs per year per pilot or 3.33 Hrs per MP per month.  Just about the minimum required to stay current as an MP in the aircraft...  This is one of the reasons the USAF is funding MPPF (Mission Pilot Proficiency Flights).

[THRAWN]

what you would really want, in order to make this case, would be the total number of mission pilots every year for, say, the past 10 years,

and additionally, the total number of "missions" (opstempo) every year for the past 10 years

then you can compare pilots to missions

unfortunately, you probably aren't going to find that kind of data...


also, keep in mind that 'missions' in terms of air opstempo winds up counting everything, including things like cadet o-rides...  for which you don't even have to be a mission pilot at all...    but you do have to have varying amounts of pilot quals depending on the various different types of cap/jrotc/rotc cadet or even aem.


i'm afraid the kind of data you need to do this kind of paper is probably not going to be available to you.

It's not impossible to find. To the OP, you might want to shift your focus from a national view to a local or regional view. The metrics are a bit easier to obtain. This reply is good though. You need to identify the number of missions and then justify the number of pilots and planes using that metric. If there are no missions, there is no use for MPs, or planes, of dogs or flashlights...

[RiverAux]

Although I'm not aware of this being codifed as any sort of official goal, on the Commanders Dashboard on eservices you are in the green if you have more than 5 mission pilots per aircraft, yellow with 4-4.9 per aircraft, and red if you have less than 4 MPs per aircraft.

[BuckeyeDEJ]

Jake, you're doing ACSC now? I'm contemplating it. I took SOS, and was glad I did, but there seems to be a bit more to ACSC. I'd like to pick your brain — PM me?