How the Air Force Beat the Odds on Its Pilot Training Goal

Air Force leaders said they were on pace to train 1,500 pilots in a year for the first time since 1991. Leaders credit shorter waits and civilian flight schools, but a shortage of about 2,400 aviators won’t close soon.

The Air Force said Sept. 15 that its pilot training pipeline was on track to produce 1,500 pilots in fiscal 2026, a level Aviation Week reported the service last reached in 1991.

Air Force pilot training kept that pace despite aircraft availability problems and an instructor shortage, Aviation Week reported. Leaders point to one change in particular: cutting the delays that once kept students waiting to start.

“The key to getting to 1,500 is, we’ve driven down those delays to a point where we’re actually able to cycle through those pilots in one fiscal year,” said Brig. Gen. David J. Berkland, director of operations and communications at Headquarters Air Education and Training Command.

“If we had those delays that we’ve seen in the past, we wouldn’t be hitting our 1,500 target,” he said.

Lt. Gen. Clark J. Quinn, who leads Air Education and Training Command, or AETC, counted 1,408 pilots already awarded wings as of Sept. 15, with another 147 expected before the fiscal year ended, Air & Space Forces Magazine reported from his media roundtable at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air, Space & Cyber conference in National Harbor, Maryland.

The Air Force’s Sept. 15 announcement, issued from Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas, described the goal as on track rather than publishing a final count, though its headline said AETC had achieved the goal. A final, reconciled fiscal 2026 graduation total had not been confirmed as of Oct. 1.

The figure is not 1,500 new active-duty pilots. AETC has described its annual production as including active-duty, Reserve, Guard and international students.

A shortage that graduates alone can’t fix

The Air Force remains short about 2,400 pilots, according to Brig. Gen. Travolis A. Simmons, commander of 19th Air Force. The service’s Sept. 15 announcement put the shortfall at about 2,407 pilots.

“The pilot shortage is something that we’ve been working for a number of years,” Simmons said. “And just solving the production challenge is not enough to get to the entire ecosystem, which is what we’re going to have to do in order to really navigate that pilot shortage.”

Quinn drew a line between new graduates and staff positions that require 15 or 20 years of experience.

“I can’t erase that pilot deficit in a short period of time,” he said.

“They’re 15-year, 20-year people. It’s going to take 15 or 20 years to get those type of people. . . . I can make them today, but those jobs won’t be filled for quite some time. . . . I do know that if we don’t make 1,500, we’re never going to get that number down.”

Quinn also cited unpredictable retention and vacancies in experienced staff positions as reasons the shortage will remain hard to resolve, Breaking Defense reported.

How civilian flight schools cut the wait

Under the old system, students could wait a year or longer just to begin training, Aviation Week reported. The new model sends them to civilian providers first.

The Air Force tested that approach in 2024 with the University of North Dakota Aerospace Foundation program in Arizona and Brunner Aerospace in Texas. Students from the trial began a revised military phase in the T-6A Texan II at Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi, in September 2024.

In its June 2025 plan, AETC laid out about 120 flying hours of civilian instruction completed within a maximum of 139 calendar days. Students arrive at military training with a private pilot certificate and instrument and multi-engine training.

The plan set the military phase that follows at 108 days, with 55 hours in the single-engine turboprop T-6A and 50 hours in simulators. Those were planned figures, not measured completion averages. Students selected for fighters or bombers then move on to T-38C Talon jet training.

AETC says the redesigned schedule uses 31% fewer T-6 training days. Undergraduate pilot training runs at Columbus; Laughlin Air Force Base and Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas; and Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma.

The command credits its competency-based curriculum and civilian foundation with increasing capacity while keeping its focus on graduate quality. That is the command’s own assessment; independent comparisons of safety, proficiency or attrition under the new model were not available.

Aging jets, fewer bases, too few instructors

The Air Force reached that pace with a training fleet below its mission-capable rate goal, too few instructors and fewer training bases than it had in 1991, Aviation Week reported. Exact current readiness rates and instructor staffing figures have not been independently confirmed.

The T-38 poses its own problems. AETC and the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center have worked to improve readiness of the jet’s GE Aerospace J85 engines, which face age and spare-parts problems, according to Aviation Week.

“Old airplanes are really good at finding new ways to break, and so when you get to some of the sustainability challenges that we’re having to work through with the T-38, we’re just having to power through it,” Simmons said.

Advanced training shifts to Air Combat Command

The Air Force also moved combat formal training units, which teach aircraft- and mission-specific skills, to Air Combat Command. A May 11 announcement said the change covers fighter and remotely piloted aircraft training. ACC commander Gen. Adrian Spain backed closer ties between operational units and the training units that feed them.

The 56th Fighter Wing at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, transferred to ACC on July 17. Senior leaders could discuss moving more formal training units to other major commands in October, Aviation Week reported.

Readiness concerns beyond the schoolhouse

Concerns about flying time extend to operational units. Retired Air Force Col. John Venable, senior resident fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, has estimated that nondeployed fighter pilots fly roughly one sortie a month. Military Times reported that the estimate came from his conversations with commanders and line pilots, was anecdotal and varied between units. It is not a service-wide measurement.

No public Air Force response to that estimate could be found as of Oct. 1.

Venable, whose institute is affiliated with the Air & Space Forces Association, pressed for more readiness funding in an April 4 Mitchell Institute podcast. “We’ve got to see weapon system sustainment accounts, and flying hour accounts go up,” he said. His remarks addressed funding, not the graduation milestone.

T-7A Red Hawk timeline

AETC has received three Boeing T-7A Red Hawk trainers at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, where instructors are building the student syllabus. Student training is planned for 2028, Aviation Week reported.

Boeing announced May 4 that the Air Force had cleared the T-7A for low-rate initial production after the program reached Milestone C, and the company’s second-quarter results said production began during that quarter.

Quinn expects at least two more jets at Randolph by the end of 2026, then about one a month starting in January 2027. The Air Force is targeting initial operational capability in August 2027, a step that requires 14 aircraft and qualified aircrew, according to Aviation Week.

Quinn has said that milestone also depends on at least 14 certified initial instructors, on-time deliveries and developmental testing that opens the needed flight profiles, Air & Space Forces Magazine reported. He has not decided whether to consolidate all pilot instruction on the T-7A and wants instructors to gain more experience with the jet first, according to Breaking Defense.

Separately, a Sept. 24 Air Combat Command contracting notice sought Combat Air Forces Continuum Flight Training Support. Aviation Week reported the concept would use contractor-owned, government-operated aircraft beginning in fiscal 2028, with six or more aircraft before that fiscal year ends, then two aircraft for initial capability at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, and later expansion to other fighter bases. Aviation Week described that schedule as notional. The notice is not a contract award.