The Israel Air Force is considering a dramatic change at its flight school to minimize the damage that’s being caused by the walkout of many key veteran pilots in an attempt to subvert the elected government’s ability to rule and defend the country. The corps is going to shorten pilot training to compensate for the drop in manpower, News12 reported on Monday.
The emergency move is founded on a pilot program that has already been tested and has now been significantly accelerated given the crisis, which seems to be deepening as forces outside the government and outside Israel are pushing and financing a military coup.
The bottom line is shortening training time for new pilots so that they can move more quickly to advanced fighter planes. Needless to say, by exposing these rookie pilots to battle conditions when they are less prepared than they should be, the Air Force should anticipate a higher rate of damage to machines and personnel.
There’s another problem, as IDF spokesman Brigadier General Daniel Hagari told News12, the IDF in general and the Air Force, in particular, are still capable of engaging in a full-scale war, “but there’s limited damage to certain units, such as the flight school. The flight school is a place where reservists arrive at the age of 49-60. They train the rookie pilots, and a good number of them decided not to come. Does this mean that the flight school is not functioning? It functions, but as time goes by, the absence of its people who have great expertise and knowledge will harm the flight quality of new pilots.”
The corps commanders are maintaining regular dialogue with the reserve pilots, to convey the message that “your place is here with us,” but also to determine each pilot’s politics and consequently, their future decisions. According to News12, following these conversations, each pilot is being assigned a color: red marks reservists who will not arrive when called; orange is for pilots who are unclear; and green is for pilots who decided to show up when their country needs them.
The IAF war room presents an even greater problem, since the individual reservists there have been groomed over many years, and therefore cannot be replaced when they decide to walk.
So far, some 500 reservists have informed their commanders that they are out of the game. When they are needed, they will stay home.
