EXCLUSIVE: US Air Force Ran A Social Experiment To Graduate More Minority Pilots. It Didn’t Go As Planned
An Air Force pilot training program experimented with grouping minorities together in one class, prompting complaints that the class could break discrimination laws.
If the Air Force wants to graduate more minority pilots then it needs to do a better job of recruiting qualified minorities, they are out there. Then they need to build their classes based on ability. The target should be a certain percentage of high ability candidates per class who will elevate everyone’s performance.
They want to have their cake and eat it too.
They want more minorities, but don't want to take the time to find qualified minorities (which takes more time because there are less of them because "minority"), so they simply end up with nothing or idiots.
I’m amazed at the inability of people working at high levels to understand statistics. The percentage of people with the needed aptitude is not going to vary much from the white male population.
If 5% of white males have the aptitude then each minority group has roughly 5% having the potential to become pilots. But, as you say, 5% of a minority is in real numbers is nowhere near as many individuals as 5% of white males in real numbers.
👆👆 This.
My close buddy got his Bachelors in Aviation and still needed a Letter of Recommendation from our local Mass State Representative just to be considered.
The acceptance testing is VERY difficult, and the training is even harder. He washed out after some minor errors flying the F-15.
The private sector is going to be even worse. The requirements for a commercial pilot are going to be much lower than a fighter pilot, but you're still pulling from the same pool. A diversity hire may be able to competently fly in ideal conditions, but in an emergency is when things matter. Remember that guy who made an emergency landing by gliding the jumbo jet into the Hudson river? Imagine if the cockpit was manned by two D-grade pilots. Might have had an accidental 9-11.
That's all I need is an affirmative action wingman........NOPE!
The Air Force is such an easy target that I will forgo that opportunity - richly deserved as it is - and discuss the issue more generally, with an admitted filter of an Army career. It is an unfortunate truth that our military is becoming more mediocre and the center of the curve is sliding down. I saw it in my military career and it is only worse now. We manage to chase out most of the true societal chaff at the low end. We also frustrate the high achievers so badly that most of them leave as well. With both tails of the curve diminished, that leaves the mediocre middle. The end result is a muddling, mediocre middling Military.
I am now retired, but I fear that much the same has happened within the aerospace industry. Plenty of bright guys...but plenty of stupid management to wilt the grass. A shortage of competence and integrity, thus the disaster of the 737 MAX MCAS software, so terribly reminiscent of the Ford Pinto debacle (profit over prudence).
The Brits done something similar, with poor outcomes!
I bet you, not even one diversity hire could fly a greasy stick up a dog's ass.
They could probably manage to hit the Earth though.
Diversity is AIDS to all things when a tyranny brings it forth.
diversity hire = token
Unless you happen to be white.
Didn't Truman get rid of segregation by race in the military?
Is military still the only way?
Only one way forward. Merit, or GTFO.