THE OPS DESK
Lack of technicians is major USAF challenge
BRINGING YOU THE LATEST TALK FROM AROUND THE SQUADRONS
THERE HAS ALWAYS been a fair share of ribbing between pilots and maintainers. While most of it can be chalked up as friendly competition, some of it is deadly serious. Who really owns the jets? Whose job is more important? Who deserves the credit when things go well? Who is to blame when things go horribly wrong? As long as there have been pilots and aircraft maintenance personnel, the goodhumored rivalry has been prevalent.
The truth is simple: with no maintenance, there is no mission. An air force stuck on the ground due to broken aircraft isn’t much of a force. It is rendered a collection of large, awesomelooking, but impotent machinery. A great deal of emphasis has been placed on the shortage of pilots across the Department of Defense. However, unbeknown to many, there is also a critical shortage of aircraft maintainers.
The shortage
Modern, high-performance military aircraft are incredibly complex machines. The F-16, for example, has more than 16,000 individual parts. Because the aircraft are so complex, because they operate in dynamic — even violent — fashion under extreme environmental c…
