The global pilot shortage promises to be a recurring, spirited topic at next month’s EATS 2023, into next Spring’s WATS 2024 – and beyond. While credible, authoritative forecasts from CAE and other community stakeholders point to the differences between pilot supply and demand curves slowly and incrementally narrowing, there is still much work left to meet the insatiable demand for aircrews around the globe. 

Three converging forces are compelling the US Air Force to modernize its basic military training construct. At the strategic level, the Air Force and the other US services are pivoting to Asia, with major implications for individuals, units and staffs who heretofore have operated in set-in-stone assignments on paper: airmen and Space Force guardians in the 2023-era have the potential to take on new, emergent tasks during a conflict in that region. 

Marty Kauchak, MS&T Editor, remotely joined the Sept. 21 Central Florida Tech Grove-hosted event “Roundtable with the PMs” featuring Colonel Marcus Reynolds, Program Manager for Training Systems (PM TRASYS) and his staff. As connectivity permitted, MS&T gained insights on important developments across the US Marine Corps training portfolio. 

This September 20, the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure convened a full member hearing on Oversight of the Department of Transportation’s Policies and Programs. The proceeding’s witness was The Honorable Pete Buttigieg, Secretary, US Department of Transportation. Marty Kauchak, CAT correspondent, viewed the hearing and provides extracts of topics of interest to civil aviation training and safety.

MS&T Editor Marty Kauchak attended the August 22, 2023 US Air Force virtual media roundtable featuring Maj. Gen. Michele C. Edmondson, Commander, Second Air Force (2AF). The two-star general spoke to technical training transformation occurring across her portfolio.

The Ukrainian Air Force F-16 training enterprise is quickly taking shape. MS&T Editor Marty Kauchak provides the first periodic “deep dive” into the learning technologies supporting the establishment of that service’s mission-capable F-16 units. 

An NTSA-hosted webinar moderated by Dr. Ben Bell, COO, Eduworks Corporation, provided an unvarnished overview of the opportunities, challenges and state-of-the-art options in the AI domain – of interest to defense learning community. MS&T Editor Marty Kauchak reports.

A quickening pace of high-level and behind-closed-doors meetings last week continued to shape the nascent Ukrainian F-16 program, but this recent progress aside, it is increasingly evident Ukrainian Air Force-piloted F-16s will not be flying missions until early 2024. Group Editor Marty Kauchak investigates. 

Forget the mid-August page on the calendar and the sweltering days in many global capitals. With the prospect of the Russian war on Ukraine extending into this winter, there is mounting angst and hand-wringing inside the Washington DC Beltway and in other seats of government about the pace and success of the Ukrainian counter-offensive that began this June. Group Editor Marty Kauchak reports.

A US DoD S&T research thrust gaining speed is the US Army DEVCOM Soldier Center’s Enhancing the Total Learning Architecture for Experiential Learning project. We viewed a Central Florida Tech Grove-coordinated webinar on the topic.