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.
This. I work at a big tech company (remote, from a mountain valley ranch in Tennessee), and management does not get how few people there are out there that meet these diversity hire requirements that are qualified.
It's like that "female delusion calculator" that says "You're looking for a 6' tall non obese man that makes over $100k. That is 0.5% of the male population."
Similarly: "If we are looking for a nonwhite female computer engineer 10-15 years of experience that is top 0.5% of her field and hasn't gone into management, there are only around 28 of them on the planet. Good luck." So management just hires whoever instead of actually trying to find one of the 28. Toxic.
Since 8% of the planet is white, yes we need more white minority pilots.