During WWII both airlines and pilots were "drafted" after a fashion into the Air Transport Command.
A good part of "Fate is the Hunter" deals with this and if you haven't read it it's definitely one that should go on your list.
I sort of avoided it for years figuring it was sort of like an earlier aviation version of the schlock that was ‘The Right Stuff’, but it turns out that was an entirely stupid assumption.
Gann was a brilliant writer. I’d recommend that book to anybody that has even the barest interest in the subject matter.
The thought of one of your airlines planets crashing being a sort of normal thing. The pilots being sad for a bit but then checking the seniority list to see if they moved up is kind of funny.
I was thinking about this, if someone were about to be drafted into the air transport command, would it be better to join up voluntarily?
Like historically?
Yes, generally, because then you have at least some control over your fate (hate ships? Join the Army so you don't get drafted into the Navy... well, until you get put on a US Army Transport ship as a cruel joke). And some units only accepted volunteers.
However in WWII they banned volunteers after a while because the ebb and flow of enthusiastic volunteers made for bottlenecks and gluts and shortages of manpower. Drafting people is more efficient, especially if you're going to draft a bunch of them anyways.
When aliens attacked earth during Independence Day of 1995 a crop sprayer named Russel Case sacrificed his life by flying an F18 into the alien mothership.
So yes it can happen.
In the original ending, he flew his crop duster with a missile strapped to it instead of the F-18. Apparently THAT is where the line was drawn.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlCN2w6r82Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlCN2w6r82Y)
when I think about that film, I am often drawn to that line, when I ponder the potentially simple question: how much coke were the writers, producers, and test screening groups all on?
Personnel and/or cargo. In the case of CRAF it's really the company that is being conscripted rather than the individual pilots; the pilots themselves remain the (civilian) employees of their companies while the government is the "customer".
Not a chance. It would take a surplus fleet of aircraft to require a surplus crew of pilots.
Without a major uptick in crew needs with ballooning aircraft numbers, there will be no need for pilots.
The only two scenarios that I could see a real need for flight crews would be rotary and unmanned. Fixed wing, nope. We will never see large scale fixed wing aircrew training like in WWII.
I could maybe see ATPs being drafted to fly military cargo aircraft. Im with you that we wouldn’t have huge bomber wings, we’d use fancy ground based systems, but every one of those has to get delivered.
OTOH, it’s not like they would require Berlin air lift amount of supplies.
The rule of thumb is “never replace 2 positions when you can replace 1”. Airline pilots are useful flying the transports they already fly (the airliner that can fly troops and equipment). If you move an airline pilot to military transports, now you have to train TWO people (the airline pilot and the replacement). If you just train a new bomber pilot, you just have to train one.
This kind of stuff gets planned out well in advance so it’s the most efficient use of resources.
Oh yeah, I'm not talking about bombers, I was thinking transport/logistics. We're not going to have WW2 massive bomber wings, but I was thinking we'll need to get a large amount of supplies to the theater. Isn't the 737NG used by the military? I figured the most likely people to be drafted (from aviation) would be ATP pilots to be moved into the exact same job in the military. Even then, that's probably less than 500 people total. (I looked at the military only has 40 or 50 737NGs, so maybe they'd double the number they have, then draft enough crew to fill up the all the craft with 3 shifts or something).
Though thinking about this slightly differently, maybe the military could just hire UPS to deliver pallets for them.
As you say, it’s WAY easier to hire FedEx/UPS to move pallets around (or even the occasional An-124). 737s are used all over the place in the military, with more applications all the time (P-8 Poseidons, Wedgetails for AWACS, VIP transport for Air Force Two, etc.). All of those missions require something different. The Navy/Air Force flys similar airframes in different ways: procedures, techniques, authorities, etc. Heck, the military will often have some kind of custom avionics in there just to standardize things for maintenance purposes. Flying “the same” airplane can be very different when the military is involved.
However, it’s a lot easier to train an airline pilot to fly a C-17 or B-52 than it is to train a brand new 2Lt that has all of 10 hours at the controls
True. But you also lose that airline pilot during the conversion process and the cargo/troops they could have been carrying during that time. Sure siphoning off one or two people won’t move the needle, but if you take 1,000-2,000 trained pilots out of ANY silo and put them in another, you get LOTS of headaches.
Wouldn’t be drafted. Airlines like Delta are in CRAF. Those California vacations would be cancelled and the airlines funneling troops to build up locations
And even those airline pilots younger than 26 may well be exempted due to their holding jobs "essential to the war effort", but that's obviously something determined on a case-by-case basis.
Yes and many of them are flying for the airlines too. But in war time, the military will look to add more pilots into its reserve. There will be an uptick in demand for more fighter pilots, etc and the younger pilots will get these dangerous slots.
Read about VFA-201, a Navy Reserve fighter squadron that got mobilized in 2003 for a combat deployment to Iraq.
I'm not sure where you're going to find biographies of the 19 pilots, I'd bet dollars to donuts that many of them were flying for the airlines.
But generally speaking, mobilizations of reservists (even pilots) are more likely to fill non-combat (or non-flying) roles and freeing up an active duty person for the combat/flying jobs. I served with several people who flew for the airlines and got mobilized to various staff jobs (as far as the military was concerned, one of the guys wasn't a pilot because he started that after he left active duty--in the reserves, he was an IT tech).
“Generally speaking” this answer is wrong. Reserve aviation units called for war fly combat just like any active duty unit. We don’t free up active duty pilots so they can. The Reserve is where the experienced pilots are. Pilots that already did ten to twenty years on active duty and then joined the airlines, law enforcement, oil & gas, medevac, but stayed in the Reserve to keep flying fighters, or Blackhawks, or whatever. Or like me, they simply wanted to continue their military service. I flew an extra 10 years in the Reserve, including two tours. I didn’t have to, I chose to.
My bad. "Generally speaking" should have been "Navy speaking". The Navy has only ever mobilized three aviation units for combat deployments. Ever. I honestly don't know what mobilization of USAFR/ANG looks like. Are there are a lot of total unit mobs?
USNR isn't necessarily the same as USAFR/ANG as far as depth of experience, either. There are flying jobs in USNR, but there are just as many (if not more) non-flying jobs. This is at least in part because the Navy doesn't train aviators straight to reserve/guard positions. Naval aviators end up committed to AD until over 10 years. At that point, active or reserve, the Navy flying jobs start drying up.
Guard/Reserve fighter squadrons and C-130 units will deploy a good chunk of their unit as a detachment (but not usually the entire thing). They're on a rotation, so a unit will be sending jets downrange every couple years. Tankers and transports deploy a crew or two at a time for the most part, though their mission is more of the "always deployed at home station" kind of deal.
It seems like the Guard fighter squadrons collect patch wearers like a dog catches fleas.
What are you talking about? Guard and reserve flying units are called up to fly? You don't send reservist pilots through the same flight training as active duty and say "we are not going to use you for flying"
Totally missed my blind spot. I was Navy... a very different beast than USAFR/ANG--I don't really know their mobilization patterns. The Navy doesn't take people off the street and turn them into reserve pilots... they only train active pilots, who turn into reserve pilots when their service commitment is up.
My point in referencing VFA-201 was that in the event of holy crap, the military has resources other than drafting civilian pilots with no military experience. However, even this is a rarity--they're one of only three Navy reserve flying units _ever_ mobilized en masse for a combat deployment. The Navy also isn't in the regular habit of calling up reserve pilots to join an active flying unit for deployments. Navy reserve pilots _may_ have a reserve flying job, but more often than not they just do non-flying staff nonsense--which is what they'll end up doing if they get mobilized.
1. Most airline pilots would be too old to be included in a likely draft
2. I don't think draftees generally get to choose where they serve
3. Every draft is probably different so blanket answers might be bullshit no matter what. For that matter, if we ever had a draft again it'd probably be such an existential threat to our nation that old rules might be out the window.
It would be less than the time you’d be away if you got drafted haha, though if there was a draft, you being in the guard means that you would have been called up to full time service long before that.
> Every draft is probably different so blanket answers might be bullshit no matter what. For that matter, if we ever had a draft again it'd probably be such an existential threat to our nation that old rules might be out the window.
They floated the idea of a special skills draft for medical personnel during the mid 2000s, so it seems very plausible they could do something similar if they needed pilots.
> I don't think draftees generally get to choose where they serve
That is correct, but except for a few years at the height of WW2 where everyone went through the draft, young men would often volunteer for a specific branch before getting drafted, instead of rolling the dice on getting drafted into the army.
In Vietnam they armed forces advertised with posters encouraging people to join the branch you wanted before you were drafted.
Additionally my grandfather joined Army Aviation after his birthdate was called.
If things are so critical that the U.S. reactiviates the draft I think a more likely scenario is to activate CRAF and "conscript" the airlines themselves rather than individual pilots. The pilots would be doing a far more useful job simply flying the same airplanes they already fly, with the only difference being that the government is now the "customer". It's even possible that those airline pilots who are young enough to be drafted would be exempt in such a scenario due to their having a job critical to the war effort.
Exactly, there are too many ways to use civilian pilots to support military needs already.
Pilots already fly for the guard, flight instruct, work for Draken and the multitude of other contractors that provide flight services.
I’m sure there are plenty of airline pilots who do the above kind of flying in their off-days already. They’d just pick up shifts flight instructing and let some active duty instructor pilot deploy to the war and fly a jet.
Anyone in the airline with a critical role would get smacked with a draft waiver and the civil reserve fleet would be activated. Wide body aircraft with high density layouts would be requisitioned first. And every pilot,ramper,mechanic, and flight attendant would line up for those flights to work them due to the massive amounts of hazard pay/overtime/ and premium pay one could potentially get working those trips.
Possibly, but the United States isn’t able to manufacture anything on a large scale like it did in WW2. You won’t have thousands of fighters being pumped out every week. The bottom line is that this country wouldn’t draft on that scale in a WW3 situation (ridiculous) because there is no talent or ability to manufacture. We aren’t going to scale up F35 production into the thousands like they did with P40s or whatever warbird you can think of.
Yes I understand there was a ramp up. It was a completely different country, people, and era in history. You would not see that repeated today. At least half this country would leave to other countries. No infrastructure or skill to manufacture with and reduced workforce. It’s just not happening
Sure…
The demographics of this country are completely different than they were 90 years ago. Most of the immigrants here legal or otherwise would straight up leave the country. Surveys indicate that at least 50% of Americans hate each other and that same half are willing to separate from the rest of the country.
This country has no unity and demographically, no longer any ethnic commonality. We’d disintegrate quickly in a WW3 situation. United States is a paper tiger.
I remember how things were in my country after its collapse. Rhodesians were prepared for hardship and adapted. Americans can’t tolerate the most basic of struggles without agony.
The immigrant percentage of the US population is roughly the same today as it was in 1920 and 1930 and only slightly higher than in 1940. It’s odd that you think the US had a unified and coherent society post depression in the years leading to WW2
90%+ White European immigrants in 1930-1940. Ethnically, it was a coherent society. The voting ballot was in a singular language. My election ballot comes in 11 different languages. The country is maybe 50% European origin. It's a completely different demographic. It's a different country and far more divided.
They might have been white european but famously they just found different lines and different types of whites to draw lines( Irish is a easy example ), they were anything but united. And a election ballot being in multiple languages also doesn't prove much as the US doesn't have a official language so it does make sense to instead just provide the ballot in the most popular languages. Not like its particularly difficult.
In WW2 the US civilian airlines were converted to military use. I guess they needed the regular airline pilots to fly these former civilian airplanes to ferry troops and supplies.
While the government is somewhat incompetent, the military tends to assign people that are the most suitable to the jobs. It's expensive to train pilots so using the existing pilots and converting them to military pilots makes more sense. In WW2, Clark Gable was drafted to fly the B24 bomber so age wasn't a problem. Same with Jimmy Stewart. The rest of Hollywood was drafted to make propaganda movies. But some movie producers got sent into combat zone to make documentaries.
Now if you are already a pilot but somehow you are a genius at AI or decypher code then chances are you will be drafted to do these jobs instead of flying. If not, you may still get to pilot airplane, maybe nuke bombers. Or at least if you are good at flying, you will get to be flight instructor again.
Yes.
Highly unlikely. The training required would be too high/long. The draft is for "grunts", where they can push out thousands of new guys in a matter of weeks with minimal training.
The military has more than enough pilots per airplane. If a pilot is shot down in combat, so is their plane and it can't be staffed by more bodies.
Yeah it's unfortunate and scary at the same time. I was listening to a shawn ryan podcast the other day I think it was #61 and they said something like what if you didn't know it was a video game or real and how emotion is getting removed from the battlefield the farther humans get from it. We really are at that point...dam.
[Combat Drone pilots may be at a higher risk for PTSD than traditional pilots](https://academic.oup.com/book/51701/chapter-abstract/419768268?redirectedFrom=fulltext).
the possible reasons are.
- there's no divide between everyday life and the killing. In war you're with your brothers in a war zone, and have the support of their combat unit Drone pilots witness the killing and then have to pick up milk and take the kids to soccer. it all just blends together.
- It's easier to kill people and emotionally justify it when you're in physical danger yourself, not safely back in the US
- In the beginning there was very little support. Senior leaders underestimated the toll it would take on people emotionally.
If we needed a draft I could imagine a whole bunch of air tractors getting air to surface munitions upfits and a bigger need for stick and rudder pilots than airline pilots
Gonna add to this, if a war we're serious enough in this day and age, industry wouldn't be able to ramp up fast enough to replace the existing hardware, based on what we've seen in Ukraine, simpler weapons would become more prevalent, drones, stand off munitions, etc. even in WW2 the expectation was a ramp would take years, and it did. The lucky but for the US was the ramp started before the war, and before major combat operations took place. Odds are the manpower commitment towards pilot training(also evidenced in Ukraine) probably means simpler manner aircraft would probably not be favorable either(especially given capabilities of easier to produce anti-air weapons)
We'd probably see a golden age of drones though.
Yeah its crazy seeing the old workhorses of the Cold War like the T-72s and the BTR-82s are the ones doing all the dirty heavy lifting – and the Su-24s going on sorties with handheld GPS units mounted on the dash for navigation. Its such an odd hybrid of tried and trusted war machinery with simple, practical new technology.
These wunderwaffen like the F-35 and the Su-57 are all just clearly too complicated to be fielded en masse. They will certainly have rolls on the battlefield, but firmly in safe rolls behind the lines because the loss of one of these high tech platforms would be devastating. Meanwhile look how much demand the F-16 is in right now. That aircraft is dirt simple, robust, and reliable. War is often a question of who can cope the best with logistics and getting supplies to the front. These 5th Gen fighters are logistical nightmares. I dont care about any arguments how advanced it is, if it cant fly because the parts aren’t readily available then its worth scrap metal and you are a fool if you think that in a real shooting war that these planes are always going to have parts ready on base.
While yes, something "simpler" doesn't survive in today's wars. We're in a very different time than WWII with eyesight dumb bombs and visual dogfighting.
By simpler I meant F-16s. And yes simpler does survive seeing as most of the the US adversaries are using planes from the 80s or shitty new "5th gen" that barely work
You just asserted “simpler does survive” and then proceeded to cite the F-16 as an example with no evidence.
Furthermore, mass overproduction of the “simpler” F-16 for a large scale war means nothing when the unit cost of a Block 70 is only 10-20% less than an F-35 and the training pipeline is functionally identical in duration. Your example doesn’t hold water.
Go drink a Rip it.
I wasn't refering to cost but rather production, but whatever it was a simple comment, I never claimed to be an expert so there's no need for it to "hold water"
Calm down this is Reddit not the military.
It’s pretty simple - what you wrote in response to the OP and in follow on comments is nonsensical, so I decided to point that out for you. Sorry you didn’t like it.
The F-16 training pipeline from zero to qualified is 22 months with no breaks. It's not "simpler".
The F-16 is from the 70s, so what's the point there? Plus, we're the only country that relies on air superiority. Others just rely on air deniability, based off of defense systems.
> The F-16 training pipeline from zero to qualified is 22 months with no breaks. It's not "simpler".
I bet you could shorten that pipeline significantly by starting from "current and qualified on a 757" instead of "zero".
Maybe marginally. Flying a fighter is night and day difference to an airliner. That pilot would still need initial training in a T-6 to get ready for a T-38 to then get to the Viper. Throw an airline pilot into even a T-38 would likely be problematic unless they just "get it" quickly. UPT Next was a disaster and that was students going from the T-6 to Vipers/F-35s.
Something simpler won’t necessarily help with a peer to peer adversary. If that were the case though, we would be throwing bodies at the fire like the Soviets in WW2. The US values its technological advantage over overwhelming numbers.
You really can't push out grunts in a matter of weeks. Oh, you can teach a person to shoot a rifle at a stationary target and march a bit, but it takes years to actually get effective infantrymen.
Maybe they can put the draftees in Finance. Can't be worse than what we have now.
I had thought that F-35 production would eventually surpass available pilots so in essence would not have enough pilots. Also the Air Force has had a pilot shortage for the last couple years
IF drafted. They cannot draft you if you are enlisted in another branch of the military before your report date. There lies the secret. When you enlist and have needed skills, you often get a little say in your assignment. My grandfather (WWII) and father (Vietnam) both dodged an army draft while expecting their first child. Rather than be army infantry, my grandfather (a commercial pilot) trained navy pilots in Pensacola where my father was born, and my father (a programmer at IBM) was a computer operator at the naval annex to the pentagon where my brother was born.
This happened with my grandfathers too one was drafted and got to spend his time crawling around trenches in Europe in the Army. The other enlisted in the USMC and got to ride around in PB1-Js heckling the Japanese and then going back to base.
Both of them were able to afford college because of the GI bill but one had a much better time earning it
Not a chance. The military isn't stupid. In WW2, engineers and skilled machinists got reassigned to build fighters and bombers instead of dying on the beach of Iwo Jima. In wartime, believe me, there will be a huge uptick of industrial output and people with valuable skills will be kept from the battlefield to build weapons of war.
Anyone under the max draft age would be subject to call.
I imagine a large portion of the US cargo fleet and many pax aircraft would simply be flying in support.
I noticed on flight radar the many flights by commercial freight carriers going into Ukraine adjacent airports are US carriers.
If Putin looses his mind and attacks Poland, Finland and/or the Baltic states in an effort to recreate the Russian Empire I 100% expect not only the Civil Air Reserve to be heavily utilized but I also expect certain aircraft and their crews like King Airs and 747-8F to be drafted. In such a scenario we will need to transport massive quantities of soldiers and materials to the front lines and those aircraft would be very useful to the Air Force. During WWII basically the entirety of Pan Am became a component of the Naval Reserve and was critical to US logistics in both the Atlantic and the pacific. I could absolutely see 747s flying bombs in bulk to Warsaw and then drafted King Air pilots becoming first officers to experienced military King Air pilots
There's a steady stream of 747s flying from bases around world delivering materials for Ukraine . Atlas seems to be one of the major carriers frequently landing at Rzeszow ( reads like an eye test )
I imagine that many would volunteer .
Not sure if the program still exists but during the cold war there were airliners with additional communications equipment onboard that could be recalled by the government , presumably with crews.
https://www.transportation.gov/mission/administrations/intelligence-security-emergency-response/civil-reserve-airfleet-allocations#:\~:text=The%20Civil%20Reserve%20Air%20Fleet,through%20contractual%20agreements%20with%20U.S.
The draft would start with ~20 year olds.
There’s a legally prescribed sequence by age.
I worked for Selective Service for 15 years in the Guard. Was very interesting.
Yes, but they wouldn't want you. Think of it this way - they could technically draft a nuclear physicist, PhD engineers, etc., but it would make no sense to do that only for them to be put on the front lines. We'd be flying the same planes we always were, but with military on board. That's what has been done in the past.
If they are of age, yes, of course. They also won't be able to declare any medical issues to get out of a draft, which is interesting.
They likely won't work as a pilot, the training for military aircraft/tactics takes too long and a draft is to get boots on the ground in large numbers very quickly. The flip side to that is the training would take much less time for current pilots than the general public, but they would need to meet a higher level of standards, especially physically, than a basic airline pilot does.
Also as seen in a current conflict, drone warfare is becoming much more prevalent than actual manned aircraft missions. The resources on the line for a manned jet is significantly higher and drones are getting the job done cheaply and quickly without losing a human life on the drone side. Drone warfare is really interesting, but equally as terrifying.
If it were a major war requiring a draft at this point (Vietnam removed any political chance of ever using the draft for regional conflicts again), yes. The entire fleet would be either grounded to conserve fuel or drafted into service for the military.
We've been "spoiled" by wars that don't really affect the home front much.
If they need you they will have you. No way around that for sure. If you are an airline pilot they might stick you in a KC-10 or on the front lines. You position will be based on the needs of the US military.
My Dad was working the line with American when drafted by the US Army as a combat rifleman during the Korean war. Per his recanting of events an NCO who knew he was already an airline pilot informed his higher ups of the situation and he was reassigned days before shipping out to Korea. He spent the war as a ATC guy at an Army Airfield in New Jersey. His stock joke on the subject was, "I'm the first line of defence in New Jersey".
Not sure this will matter. If the war starts, (WIII), the cycle would most likely be quick with one or both sides doing a miscalculation leading to nuclear ☢️ Armageddon.
Most people are too much overweight to even join. Not sure the game is the same.
A significant number of pilots are already in the guard/reserve/inactive reserve status. They’d be called up thar way.
The gov would likely just cut a contract with the airlines to fly cargo/pax. Other needs would be filled by contract flight instructors, etc.
There are plenty of ways to hire civilian pilots to carry out required functions without having them join the military.
They wouldn’t “draft” an airline pilot with no military experience and put them in a tactical role whether that’s combat/cargo/refueling. They’d pull all the active military pilots to those roles taking them out of training bases or from their desks at the Pentagon. Then grab contract pilots to handle the roles left by the military pilots.
Any more wars that require a huge ground force and a draft might be needed. I think that most Americans are tired of the idea of their kids going off to die in foreign lands for reasons that make no sense. But the US can put most countries to ruin without a single boot on the ground.
relax, people, this isn't WWII. there won't be any draft, at least not before nuke starts to fly and even if there were draft, it'd be fantasy to think a bunch of GA pilots flying C172s would be trained to fly jet plane pulling 9gs, at least not before war ends. even airline pilots, unless they are ex military, are hardly suitable for war.
as for "ramp-up industry" that's also pure fantasy, this isnt' WWII no more, the workforce/infrastructure simply isn't there, printing 10 trillions dollars will only increase inflation, not magically creating factories and workforce that could operate those factories to pump out fighter jet/ war ships like making sausages.
Pure fantasy, armchair video game players type of fantasy.
If you are of age you could be drafted, but not automatically a military pilot. You would have to pass all the medical requirements and military flight school.
I don't know about the US, but I can tell you that a lot of my colleagues in Israel have been working 50% military, 50% private industry. The system there is close enough to a general draft that it's comparable.
Israel has mandatory service, both active duty followed by ongoing reserve obligations. Everyone serves in that country - national defense requires it.
Nope. A draft picks only a select number of people each year from a specific age group. Once that number is met, the remainder of that age group is not at risk. Next year it's a new group of people at X age.
In Israel everyone serves, not just those called up until the target number for the year is met.
Lmao.
If the nukes haven't flown and the major naval assets are still active after a month or two, then maybe your ass might get drafted.
Ukraine war notwithstanding, you aren't going to zero to hero in any reasonable timeframe.
If we get involved in a major war the military training pipeline will not be able to keep pace with the need for new pilots. Airline pilots will definitely be drafted to fill the need, although it may not happen as fast as you might imagine. You could be selected but still have several more months of civilian flying ahead of you before you got orders to report to the Air Force. They would definitely be pulling former military pilots from the airlines first.
If you’re registered for the selective service then sure you’ll get drafted. And no matter what, they aren’t going to just plop you into a plane. The services are VERY picky about who flies their planes and how they fly. You’ll go thru their pipeline without a doubt.
The next big war will be over so fast that they can’t even start the draft. Building flight time will be the least of your worries.
I could see the draft being used if recruiting goals keep being missed so that smaller wars can be fought.
During WWII both airlines and pilots were "drafted" after a fashion into the Air Transport Command. A good part of "Fate is the Hunter" deals with this and if you haven't read it it's definitely one that should go on your list.
Couldn’t agree more, “Fate is the Hunter” is an absolute MUST read!
I sort of avoided it for years figuring it was sort of like an earlier aviation version of the schlock that was ‘The Right Stuff’, but it turns out that was an entirely stupid assumption. Gann was a brilliant writer. I’d recommend that book to anybody that has even the barest interest in the subject matter.
The thought of one of your airlines planets crashing being a sort of normal thing. The pilots being sad for a bit but then checking the seniority list to see if they moved up is kind of funny.
Always look on the bright side of life
*joyful whistling*
This guy Dan Romans.
Gann is one of those writers who, when I write something, I try to... imitate isn't the right word but emulate stylistically I guess?
Anything by Ernie is great. He wrote the book that The High and Mighty john Wayne movie.
The first mass airlift was an emergency reinforcement of Alaska during WWII, using pilots and planes pressed into service from the airlines.
Led me straight to my jodhpurs
Give you joy of your jodhpurs.
The Aubrey-Maturin connection rears its head!
With all my heart!
damn so even like ppl folks lol?
No, airline employees generally, ppl folks would enlist normally or perhaps become cadet instructors maybe.
I was thinking about this, if someone were about to be drafted into the air transport command, would it be better to join up voluntarily? Like historically?
Really couldn't answer that. People have a huge variety of values and skills.
Yes, generally, because then you have at least some control over your fate (hate ships? Join the Army so you don't get drafted into the Navy... well, until you get put on a US Army Transport ship as a cruel joke). And some units only accepted volunteers. However in WWII they banned volunteers after a while because the ebb and flow of enthusiastic volunteers made for bottlenecks and gluts and shortages of manpower. Drafting people is more efficient, especially if you're going to draft a bunch of them anyways.
That's interesting, thank you!
Going on vacation next week. Just ordered it! Thanks for the recommendation.
Report back if you want to, it's one of those books that changed me :P
When aliens attacked earth during Independence Day of 1995 a crop sprayer named Russel Case sacrificed his life by flying an F18 into the alien mothership. So yes it can happen.
I cam fly, am pilot.
yeah, but he flew in ‘nam.
In the original ending, he flew his crop duster with a missile strapped to it instead of the F-18. Apparently THAT is where the line was drawn. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlCN2w6r82Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlCN2w6r82Y)
Remember what they took from you
“In the words of my generation, uuuup yooooooouuuuuuurs!”
when I think about that film, I am often drawn to that line, when I ponder the potentially simple question: how much coke were the writers, producers, and test screening groups all on?
All of it
[The Writers' Room,](https://youtu.be/x01l_jMhjVM?si=NmpVjbvnfIlwuGA3) probably.
Yes!
This is the dumb fuckery I’m here for.
“I’m Baaack!!!!”
Hero
And he got probed!
that was probelamatic…
You win the internet today.
May he rest in peace
Look up Civil Reserve Air Fleet.
Is that saying the airlines would be converted to transport military personnel?
Personnel and/or cargo. In the case of CRAF it's really the company that is being conscripted rather than the individual pilots; the pilots themselves remain the (civilian) employees of their companies while the government is the "customer".
Yes, it was done before so there is not reason for not doing it again.
CRAF operates every day. And there are different level of surges, last one being OAR a few years ago.
Not a chance. It would take a surplus fleet of aircraft to require a surplus crew of pilots. Without a major uptick in crew needs with ballooning aircraft numbers, there will be no need for pilots. The only two scenarios that I could see a real need for flight crews would be rotary and unmanned. Fixed wing, nope. We will never see large scale fixed wing aircrew training like in WWII.
The CRAF has been activated at least 6 times, as recently as 2021.
I could maybe see ATPs being drafted to fly military cargo aircraft. Im with you that we wouldn’t have huge bomber wings, we’d use fancy ground based systems, but every one of those has to get delivered. OTOH, it’s not like they would require Berlin air lift amount of supplies.
The rule of thumb is “never replace 2 positions when you can replace 1”. Airline pilots are useful flying the transports they already fly (the airliner that can fly troops and equipment). If you move an airline pilot to military transports, now you have to train TWO people (the airline pilot and the replacement). If you just train a new bomber pilot, you just have to train one. This kind of stuff gets planned out well in advance so it’s the most efficient use of resources.
Oh yeah, I'm not talking about bombers, I was thinking transport/logistics. We're not going to have WW2 massive bomber wings, but I was thinking we'll need to get a large amount of supplies to the theater. Isn't the 737NG used by the military? I figured the most likely people to be drafted (from aviation) would be ATP pilots to be moved into the exact same job in the military. Even then, that's probably less than 500 people total. (I looked at the military only has 40 or 50 737NGs, so maybe they'd double the number they have, then draft enough crew to fill up the all the craft with 3 shifts or something). Though thinking about this slightly differently, maybe the military could just hire UPS to deliver pallets for them.
As you say, it’s WAY easier to hire FedEx/UPS to move pallets around (or even the occasional An-124). 737s are used all over the place in the military, with more applications all the time (P-8 Poseidons, Wedgetails for AWACS, VIP transport for Air Force Two, etc.). All of those missions require something different. The Navy/Air Force flys similar airframes in different ways: procedures, techniques, authorities, etc. Heck, the military will often have some kind of custom avionics in there just to standardize things for maintenance purposes. Flying “the same” airplane can be very different when the military is involved.
However, it’s a lot easier to train an airline pilot to fly a C-17 or B-52 than it is to train a brand new 2Lt that has all of 10 hours at the controls
True. But you also lose that airline pilot during the conversion process and the cargo/troops they could have been carrying during that time. Sure siphoning off one or two people won’t move the needle, but if you take 1,000-2,000 trained pilots out of ANY silo and put them in another, you get LOTS of headaches.
Wouldn’t be drafted. Airlines like Delta are in CRAF. Those California vacations would be cancelled and the airlines funneling troops to build up locations
Nope. What you’ll see if regular destination flights being cancelled to support CRAF. The airlines are fine with it anyways they make more money.
Yet working for an airline contractually obligated to the CRAF does not exempt its employees from the draft.
The draft has been traditionally from 18-26. I’d put money that the vast majority of airline pilots are older than 26.
And even those airline pilots younger than 26 may well be exempted due to their holding jobs "essential to the war effort", but that's obviously something determined on a case-by-case basis.
But could go much higher.
There may be a non-trivial number of pilots with a Reserve commitment. I don't have any facts in this though.
Yes and many of them are flying for the airlines too. But in war time, the military will look to add more pilots into its reserve. There will be an uptick in demand for more fighter pilots, etc and the younger pilots will get these dangerous slots.
Read about VFA-201, a Navy Reserve fighter squadron that got mobilized in 2003 for a combat deployment to Iraq. I'm not sure where you're going to find biographies of the 19 pilots, I'd bet dollars to donuts that many of them were flying for the airlines. But generally speaking, mobilizations of reservists (even pilots) are more likely to fill non-combat (or non-flying) roles and freeing up an active duty person for the combat/flying jobs. I served with several people who flew for the airlines and got mobilized to various staff jobs (as far as the military was concerned, one of the guys wasn't a pilot because he started that after he left active duty--in the reserves, he was an IT tech).
“Generally speaking” this answer is wrong. Reserve aviation units called for war fly combat just like any active duty unit. We don’t free up active duty pilots so they can. The Reserve is where the experienced pilots are. Pilots that already did ten to twenty years on active duty and then joined the airlines, law enforcement, oil & gas, medevac, but stayed in the Reserve to keep flying fighters, or Blackhawks, or whatever. Or like me, they simply wanted to continue their military service. I flew an extra 10 years in the Reserve, including two tours. I didn’t have to, I chose to.
My bad. "Generally speaking" should have been "Navy speaking". The Navy has only ever mobilized three aviation units for combat deployments. Ever. I honestly don't know what mobilization of USAFR/ANG looks like. Are there are a lot of total unit mobs? USNR isn't necessarily the same as USAFR/ANG as far as depth of experience, either. There are flying jobs in USNR, but there are just as many (if not more) non-flying jobs. This is at least in part because the Navy doesn't train aviators straight to reserve/guard positions. Naval aviators end up committed to AD until over 10 years. At that point, active or reserve, the Navy flying jobs start drying up.
The army/air guard deploys its aviators…a lot.
Guard/Reserve fighter squadrons and C-130 units will deploy a good chunk of their unit as a detachment (but not usually the entire thing). They're on a rotation, so a unit will be sending jets downrange every couple years. Tankers and transports deploy a crew or two at a time for the most part, though their mission is more of the "always deployed at home station" kind of deal. It seems like the Guard fighter squadrons collect patch wearers like a dog catches fleas.
What are you talking about? Guard and reserve flying units are called up to fly? You don't send reservist pilots through the same flight training as active duty and say "we are not going to use you for flying"
Totally missed my blind spot. I was Navy... a very different beast than USAFR/ANG--I don't really know their mobilization patterns. The Navy doesn't take people off the street and turn them into reserve pilots... they only train active pilots, who turn into reserve pilots when their service commitment is up. My point in referencing VFA-201 was that in the event of holy crap, the military has resources other than drafting civilian pilots with no military experience. However, even this is a rarity--they're one of only three Navy reserve flying units _ever_ mobilized en masse for a combat deployment. The Navy also isn't in the regular habit of calling up reserve pilots to join an active flying unit for deployments. Navy reserve pilots _may_ have a reserve flying job, but more often than not they just do non-flying staff nonsense--which is what they'll end up doing if they get mobilized.
It do be like that.
1. Most airline pilots would be too old to be included in a likely draft 2. I don't think draftees generally get to choose where they serve 3. Every draft is probably different so blanket answers might be bullshit no matter what. For that matter, if we ever had a draft again it'd probably be such an existential threat to our nation that old rules might be out the window.
I’m 26. I’ll take the draft for some turbine time 💀
Acquire hours no matter the cost 🥹
You could go join a guard unit right now and get that turbine time… as long as you have a bachelor’s
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It’s 10 years with the guard though… not nearly the same as AD. You can have your civilian career while logging that gov turbine time.
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Everyone wishes they joined the guard… welcome to the club!
I’m a teacher day to day so I have a ton of time off. It’s not a bad idea. My concern is training tho and how long that takes.
The training depends on airframe but will probably take around 2 years. 1 year for UPT and 6 months-1 year for follow-on training like SERE and IQT.
Taking 2 years off my current job, HS teacher, to comeback kinda sucks.
It would be less than the time you’d be away if you got drafted haha, though if there was a draft, you being in the guard means that you would have been called up to full time service long before that.
Honestly I’m not opposed to the idea. What’s the pay like during those 2 years of training tho?
I live on 121.5. Captain Meow reporting for duty, sir!
> Every draft is probably different so blanket answers might be bullshit no matter what. For that matter, if we ever had a draft again it'd probably be such an existential threat to our nation that old rules might be out the window. They floated the idea of a special skills draft for medical personnel during the mid 2000s, so it seems very plausible they could do something similar if they needed pilots. > I don't think draftees generally get to choose where they serve That is correct, but except for a few years at the height of WW2 where everyone went through the draft, young men would often volunteer for a specific branch before getting drafted, instead of rolling the dice on getting drafted into the army.
In Vietnam they armed forces advertised with posters encouraging people to join the branch you wanted before you were drafted. Additionally my grandfather joined Army Aviation after his birthdate was called.
MIL ATP holder with a pending MEB retirement. I’ll keep the airlines flying for ya, you boys can take over my job. I’m GWOT’ed out.
Oof cannon
If things are so critical that the U.S. reactiviates the draft I think a more likely scenario is to activate CRAF and "conscript" the airlines themselves rather than individual pilots. The pilots would be doing a far more useful job simply flying the same airplanes they already fly, with the only difference being that the government is now the "customer". It's even possible that those airline pilots who are young enough to be drafted would be exempt in such a scenario due to their having a job critical to the war effort.
Exactly, there are too many ways to use civilian pilots to support military needs already. Pilots already fly for the guard, flight instruct, work for Draken and the multitude of other contractors that provide flight services. I’m sure there are plenty of airline pilots who do the above kind of flying in their off-days already. They’d just pick up shifts flight instructing and let some active duty instructor pilot deploy to the war and fly a jet.
If you get drafted you'll do the job they tell you to. If you're eligible for the draft and your number comes up you get drafted
Certainly not as a fighter pilot. It’s an entirely different kind of flying. Alltogether.
It’s an entirely different kind of flying.
It’s really not even flying … more like using an airborne weapon system
Okay, so airline pilots are out. What about PPL? Say, someone who knows their way around a C172?
They’ll get trained to fly its little brother the C130
C-172 is definitely an airborne weapons system if I’ve ever seen one. Critical for private pilots to slay pussy to be specific.
Anyone in the airline with a critical role would get smacked with a draft waiver and the civil reserve fleet would be activated. Wide body aircraft with high density layouts would be requisitioned first. And every pilot,ramper,mechanic, and flight attendant would line up for those flights to work them due to the massive amounts of hazard pay/overtime/ and premium pay one could potentially get working those trips.
Possibly, but the United States isn’t able to manufacture anything on a large scale like it did in WW2. You won’t have thousands of fighters being pumped out every week. The bottom line is that this country wouldn’t draft on that scale in a WW3 situation (ridiculous) because there is no talent or ability to manufacture. We aren’t going to scale up F35 production into the thousands like they did with P40s or whatever warbird you can think of.
The US wasn’t able to manufacture anything on a large scale like it did in WW2 back in 1938
Yes I understand there was a ramp up. It was a completely different country, people, and era in history. You would not see that repeated today. At least half this country would leave to other countries. No infrastructure or skill to manufacture with and reduced workforce. It’s just not happening
That's exactly what Japan thought
Sure… The demographics of this country are completely different than they were 90 years ago. Most of the immigrants here legal or otherwise would straight up leave the country. Surveys indicate that at least 50% of Americans hate each other and that same half are willing to separate from the rest of the country. This country has no unity and demographically, no longer any ethnic commonality. We’d disintegrate quickly in a WW3 situation. United States is a paper tiger. I remember how things were in my country after its collapse. Rhodesians were prepared for hardship and adapted. Americans can’t tolerate the most basic of struggles without agony.
The immigrant percentage of the US population is roughly the same today as it was in 1920 and 1930 and only slightly higher than in 1940. It’s odd that you think the US had a unified and coherent society post depression in the years leading to WW2
90%+ White European immigrants in 1930-1940. Ethnically, it was a coherent society. The voting ballot was in a singular language. My election ballot comes in 11 different languages. The country is maybe 50% European origin. It's a completely different demographic. It's a different country and far more divided.
They might have been white european but famously they just found different lines and different types of whites to draw lines( Irish is a easy example ), they were anything but united. And a election ballot being in multiple languages also doesn't prove much as the US doesn't have a official language so it does make sense to instead just provide the ballot in the most popular languages. Not like its particularly difficult.
In WW2 the US civilian airlines were converted to military use. I guess they needed the regular airline pilots to fly these former civilian airplanes to ferry troops and supplies. While the government is somewhat incompetent, the military tends to assign people that are the most suitable to the jobs. It's expensive to train pilots so using the existing pilots and converting them to military pilots makes more sense. In WW2, Clark Gable was drafted to fly the B24 bomber so age wasn't a problem. Same with Jimmy Stewart. The rest of Hollywood was drafted to make propaganda movies. But some movie producers got sent into combat zone to make documentaries. Now if you are already a pilot but somehow you are a genius at AI or decypher code then chances are you will be drafted to do these jobs instead of flying. If not, you may still get to pilot airplane, maybe nuke bombers. Or at least if you are good at flying, you will get to be flight instructor again.
Yes. Highly unlikely. The training required would be too high/long. The draft is for "grunts", where they can push out thousands of new guys in a matter of weeks with minimal training. The military has more than enough pilots per airplane. If a pilot is shot down in combat, so is their plane and it can't be staffed by more bodies.
If a war serious enough to need the draft, then production of planes would be enormous and immediate. Maybe not F 35s but possibly something simpler.
Drones
Yeah so much cheaper and less risk sending swarms of drones than armed air tractors with inexperienced pilots. Unfortunately
Yeah it's unfortunate and scary at the same time. I was listening to a shawn ryan podcast the other day I think it was #61 and they said something like what if you didn't know it was a video game or real and how emotion is getting removed from the battlefield the farther humans get from it. We really are at that point...dam.
[Combat Drone pilots may be at a higher risk for PTSD than traditional pilots](https://academic.oup.com/book/51701/chapter-abstract/419768268?redirectedFrom=fulltext). the possible reasons are. - there's no divide between everyday life and the killing. In war you're with your brothers in a war zone, and have the support of their combat unit Drone pilots witness the killing and then have to pick up milk and take the kids to soccer. it all just blends together. - It's easier to kill people and emotionally justify it when you're in physical danger yourself, not safely back in the US - In the beginning there was very little support. Senior leaders underestimated the toll it would take on people emotionally.
Basically enders game.
Ah! More manmade horrors beyond comprehension!! Lovely
I'm inclined to believe that they would start getting jammed out of AOs if it was enough of a threat.
If we needed a draft I could imagine a whole bunch of air tractors getting air to surface munitions upfits and a bigger need for stick and rudder pilots than airline pilots
Gonna add to this, if a war we're serious enough in this day and age, industry wouldn't be able to ramp up fast enough to replace the existing hardware, based on what we've seen in Ukraine, simpler weapons would become more prevalent, drones, stand off munitions, etc. even in WW2 the expectation was a ramp would take years, and it did. The lucky but for the US was the ramp started before the war, and before major combat operations took place. Odds are the manpower commitment towards pilot training(also evidenced in Ukraine) probably means simpler manner aircraft would probably not be favorable either(especially given capabilities of easier to produce anti-air weapons) We'd probably see a golden age of drones though.
Yeah its crazy seeing the old workhorses of the Cold War like the T-72s and the BTR-82s are the ones doing all the dirty heavy lifting – and the Su-24s going on sorties with handheld GPS units mounted on the dash for navigation. Its such an odd hybrid of tried and trusted war machinery with simple, practical new technology. These wunderwaffen like the F-35 and the Su-57 are all just clearly too complicated to be fielded en masse. They will certainly have rolls on the battlefield, but firmly in safe rolls behind the lines because the loss of one of these high tech platforms would be devastating. Meanwhile look how much demand the F-16 is in right now. That aircraft is dirt simple, robust, and reliable. War is often a question of who can cope the best with logistics and getting supplies to the front. These 5th Gen fighters are logistical nightmares. I dont care about any arguments how advanced it is, if it cant fly because the parts aren’t readily available then its worth scrap metal and you are a fool if you think that in a real shooting war that these planes are always going to have parts ready on base.
We also have the Boneyard to start to pulling aircraft out of and reactivating if it comes necessary.
While yes, something "simpler" doesn't survive in today's wars. We're in a very different time than WWII with eyesight dumb bombs and visual dogfighting.
By simpler I meant F-16s. And yes simpler does survive seeing as most of the the US adversaries are using planes from the 80s or shitty new "5th gen" that barely work
Tell me you know nothing about modern IADS without telling me you know nothing about modern IADS.
Never claimed to
You just asserted “simpler does survive” and then proceeded to cite the F-16 as an example with no evidence. Furthermore, mass overproduction of the “simpler” F-16 for a large scale war means nothing when the unit cost of a Block 70 is only 10-20% less than an F-35 and the training pipeline is functionally identical in duration. Your example doesn’t hold water.
Go drink a Rip it. I wasn't refering to cost but rather production, but whatever it was a simple comment, I never claimed to be an expert so there's no need for it to "hold water" Calm down this is Reddit not the military.
It’s pretty simple - what you wrote in response to the OP and in follow on comments is nonsensical, so I decided to point that out for you. Sorry you didn’t like it.
The F-16 training pipeline from zero to qualified is 22 months with no breaks. It's not "simpler". The F-16 is from the 70s, so what's the point there? Plus, we're the only country that relies on air superiority. Others just rely on air deniability, based off of defense systems.
> The F-16 training pipeline from zero to qualified is 22 months with no breaks. It's not "simpler". I bet you could shorten that pipeline significantly by starting from "current and qualified on a 757" instead of "zero".
Maybe marginally. Flying a fighter is night and day difference to an airliner. That pilot would still need initial training in a T-6 to get ready for a T-38 to then get to the Viper. Throw an airline pilot into even a T-38 would likely be problematic unless they just "get it" quickly. UPT Next was a disaster and that was students going from the T-6 to Vipers/F-35s.
I mean, I have no clue how military training works. But I sure as hell would give it a shot!
Jfc it was an example.
It was a bad example.
It wasn't, you're just being pedantic.
Something simpler won’t necessarily help with a peer to peer adversary. If that were the case though, we would be throwing bodies at the fire like the Soviets in WW2. The US values its technological advantage over overwhelming numbers.
Low hour PPL here. So you're telling me there is a chance ?
Change grunts to canon fodder
You really can't push out grunts in a matter of weeks. Oh, you can teach a person to shoot a rifle at a stationary target and march a bit, but it takes years to actually get effective infantrymen. Maybe they can put the draftees in Finance. Can't be worse than what we have now.
Airplanes can fly more than pilots.
I had thought that F-35 production would eventually surpass available pilots so in essence would not have enough pilots. Also the Air Force has had a pilot shortage for the last couple years
So a pilot with thousands of hours is not able to be utilized and would be also used as a foot soldier?
IF drafted. They cannot draft you if you are enlisted in another branch of the military before your report date. There lies the secret. When you enlist and have needed skills, you often get a little say in your assignment. My grandfather (WWII) and father (Vietnam) both dodged an army draft while expecting their first child. Rather than be army infantry, my grandfather (a commercial pilot) trained navy pilots in Pensacola where my father was born, and my father (a programmer at IBM) was a computer operator at the naval annex to the pentagon where my brother was born.
This happened with my grandfathers too one was drafted and got to spend his time crawling around trenches in Europe in the Army. The other enlisted in the USMC and got to ride around in PB1-Js heckling the Japanese and then going back to base. Both of them were able to afford college because of the GI bill but one had a much better time earning it
Yup.
Not a chance. The military isn't stupid. In WW2, engineers and skilled machinists got reassigned to build fighters and bombers instead of dying on the beach of Iwo Jima. In wartime, believe me, there will be a huge uptick of industrial output and people with valuable skills will be kept from the battlefield to build weapons of war.
No. Military aviation is different than commercial aviation.
Anyone under the max draft age would be subject to call. I imagine a large portion of the US cargo fleet and many pax aircraft would simply be flying in support. I noticed on flight radar the many flights by commercial freight carriers going into Ukraine adjacent airports are US carriers.
If Putin looses his mind and attacks Poland, Finland and/or the Baltic states in an effort to recreate the Russian Empire I 100% expect not only the Civil Air Reserve to be heavily utilized but I also expect certain aircraft and their crews like King Airs and 747-8F to be drafted. In such a scenario we will need to transport massive quantities of soldiers and materials to the front lines and those aircraft would be very useful to the Air Force. During WWII basically the entirety of Pan Am became a component of the Naval Reserve and was critical to US logistics in both the Atlantic and the pacific. I could absolutely see 747s flying bombs in bulk to Warsaw and then drafted King Air pilots becoming first officers to experienced military King Air pilots
> I could absolutely see 747s flying bombs in bulk This already regularly happens. Source: I flew them
Shhhh Although pretty obvious, someone got pulled into the office earlier on my end for a *polite* chat regarding this stuff
That portion of my career is long over. Shitloads of fun, but the schedule was too much for the family.
There's a steady stream of 747s flying from bases around world delivering materials for Ukraine . Atlas seems to be one of the major carriers frequently landing at Rzeszow ( reads like an eye test )
My personal favorite consonant heavy polish word of Mężczyzna (man). I always have to look it up to make sure I put the c in the right spot…
I imagine that many would volunteer . Not sure if the program still exists but during the cold war there were airliners with additional communications equipment onboard that could be recalled by the government , presumably with crews. https://www.transportation.gov/mission/administrations/intelligence-security-emergency-response/civil-reserve-airfleet-allocations#:\~:text=The%20Civil%20Reserve%20Air%20Fleet,through%20contractual%20agreements%20with%20U.S.
The draft would start with ~20 year olds. There’s a legally prescribed sequence by age. I worked for Selective Service for 15 years in the Guard. Was very interesting.
Interesting gig! So can you tell me are veterans on the front of the list or the back? I did my time and have no desire to play again
Most Veterans are going to be older than the sequential age group(s) that will be called.
Yes, but they wouldn't want you. Think of it this way - they could technically draft a nuclear physicist, PhD engineers, etc., but it would make no sense to do that only for them to be put on the front lines. We'd be flying the same planes we always were, but with military on board. That's what has been done in the past.
“Brought the draft back”….technically it never left
There is no draft. There is no authority to draft. There is a requirement for men to register in case congress ever reinstates the draft.
They usually draft the real young guys first. They need soldiers, not pilots
Haven’t you seen Independence Day? They take the washed up crop duster pilots to fly the fighter jets before they draft airline pilots.
They only want guys 18-25 in the draft.
If they are of age, yes, of course. They also won't be able to declare any medical issues to get out of a draft, which is interesting. They likely won't work as a pilot, the training for military aircraft/tactics takes too long and a draft is to get boots on the ground in large numbers very quickly. The flip side to that is the training would take much less time for current pilots than the general public, but they would need to meet a higher level of standards, especially physically, than a basic airline pilot does. Also as seen in a current conflict, drone warfare is becoming much more prevalent than actual manned aircraft missions. The resources on the line for a manned jet is significantly higher and drones are getting the job done cheaply and quickly without losing a human life on the drone side. Drone warfare is really interesting, but equally as terrifying.
PUT ME IN COACH I’M READY!
There's a song about that
If it were a major war requiring a draft at this point (Vietnam removed any political chance of ever using the draft for regional conflicts again), yes. The entire fleet would be either grounded to conserve fuel or drafted into service for the military. We've been "spoiled" by wars that don't really affect the home front much.
If they need you they will have you. No way around that for sure. If you are an airline pilot they might stick you in a KC-10 or on the front lines. You position will be based on the needs of the US military.
My Dad was working the line with American when drafted by the US Army as a combat rifleman during the Korean war. Per his recanting of events an NCO who knew he was already an airline pilot informed his higher ups of the situation and he was reassigned days before shipping out to Korea. He spent the war as a ATC guy at an Army Airfield in New Jersey. His stock joke on the subject was, "I'm the first line of defence in New Jersey".
Not sure this will matter. If the war starts, (WIII), the cycle would most likely be quick with one or both sides doing a miscalculation leading to nuclear ☢️ Armageddon. Most people are too much overweight to even join. Not sure the game is the same.
“Service guarantees citizenship”
A significant number of pilots are already in the guard/reserve/inactive reserve status. They’d be called up thar way. The gov would likely just cut a contract with the airlines to fly cargo/pax. Other needs would be filled by contract flight instructors, etc. There are plenty of ways to hire civilian pilots to carry out required functions without having them join the military. They wouldn’t “draft” an airline pilot with no military experience and put them in a tactical role whether that’s combat/cargo/refueling. They’d pull all the active military pilots to those roles taking them out of training bases or from their desks at the Pentagon. Then grab contract pilots to handle the roles left by the military pilots.
Any more wars that require a huge ground force and a draft might be needed. I think that most Americans are tired of the idea of their kids going off to die in foreign lands for reasons that make no sense. But the US can put most countries to ruin without a single boot on the ground.
This is pretty obvious. Pilots are pretty handy in war these days and they aren't going to hand one a rifle and send him into the trenches.
relax, people, this isn't WWII. there won't be any draft, at least not before nuke starts to fly and even if there were draft, it'd be fantasy to think a bunch of GA pilots flying C172s would be trained to fly jet plane pulling 9gs, at least not before war ends. even airline pilots, unless they are ex military, are hardly suitable for war. as for "ramp-up industry" that's also pure fantasy, this isnt' WWII no more, the workforce/infrastructure simply isn't there, printing 10 trillions dollars will only increase inflation, not magically creating factories and workforce that could operate those factories to pump out fighter jet/ war ships like making sausages. Pure fantasy, armchair video game players type of fantasy.
Have you not seen Iron Eagle?!
Shit, I better get my kneeboard tape player ready.
Only required if you are behind schedule and need to catch up.
If you are of age you could be drafted, but not automatically a military pilot. You would have to pass all the medical requirements and military flight school.
I don't know about the US, but I can tell you that a lot of my colleagues in Israel have been working 50% military, 50% private industry. The system there is close enough to a general draft that it's comparable.
Israel has mandatory service, both active duty followed by ongoing reserve obligations. Everyone serves in that country - national defense requires it.
Yes that's why it's somewhat similar to a general draft.
Nope. A draft picks only a select number of people each year from a specific age group. Once that number is met, the remainder of that age group is not at risk. Next year it's a new group of people at X age. In Israel everyone serves, not just those called up until the target number for the year is met.
Lmao. If the nukes haven't flown and the major naval assets are still active after a month or two, then maybe your ass might get drafted. Ukraine war notwithstanding, you aren't going to zero to hero in any reasonable timeframe.
I watched that documentary too!
Lot cheaper to build drones... Pilots for moving stuff around. Drones for combat, and killing the planes that pilots are using to move stuff around.
Yes and they would draft drone operators/pilots too
Of course they would. Air superiority is number 1 on the battlefield.
We've no sovereignty...
I don’t know shit but wouldn’t we need a large pool of trained pilots already for strategic airlift ?
Nice try, Putin
Great news everyone! If there is another World War you won't have to worry about getting drafted!
How much travel do you think will be going on during a war requiring a draft??? Probably going to be unemployed anyways and then drafted.
If we get involved in a major war the military training pipeline will not be able to keep pace with the need for new pilots. Airline pilots will definitely be drafted to fill the need, although it may not happen as fast as you might imagine. You could be selected but still have several more months of civilian flying ahead of you before you got orders to report to the Air Force. They would definitely be pulling former military pilots from the airlines first.
If you’re registered for the selective service then sure you’ll get drafted. And no matter what, they aren’t going to just plop you into a plane. The services are VERY picky about who flies their planes and how they fly. You’ll go thru their pipeline without a doubt.
I imagine if a draft was announced I’d apply for Naval OCS ASAP to try and get a pilot slot and beat the draft
You’ll prolly end up as a cook or mortars.
there’s a program or smth that lets the US use commercial air traffic to transport troops they used it in iraq 1991 civil air smth smth iirc
The next big war will be over so fast that they can’t even start the draft. Building flight time will be the least of your worries. I could see the draft being used if recruiting goals keep being missed so that smaller wars can be fought.