Doomed.

This is coolbert:

With the context of these prior blog entries here and here consider also these comments of an acknowledged aviation authority, the Turkish Air Force now rendered for all practical purposes null and void, combat ineffective now and for the foreseeable future:

[what follows is profound and heavy stuff!!]

"The more complex a military weapons system is, the more complex and lengthy the manner of choosing, training, and maintaining its personnel is. A fighter plane force needs pilots who are chosen from a large pool of available, qualified people, who show the right amount of intelligence, physical skill, ability to learn, open mindedness receptive to training, and desire to learn throughout a career."

"Erdoqan’s efforts to turn his fighter pilot forces into a religiously correct, politically reliable fighting force are doomed to failure . . . [choosing pilot candidates on the basis or religious and political reliability] will automatically exclude the most capable people in the pool of prospective pilots."

"All military organizations are comprised of several levels of people—a progression of education, experience, and maturity.  Removing all levels at once means . . . you have to take up to three years to properly train and prepare a qualified fighter pilot: one year for basic pilot training (more if he or she needs physics and math training), up to one year for fighter pilot training, then at least one year before the young pilot is really considered 'combat ready' to do his or her job."

"After that, there needs to be a level of experienced pilots to lead and add to the training of the newer pilots.  You can’t just throw a bunch of newly minted fighter pilots into combat without having older, experienced ones to lead them and show them how to fight wars beyond what an instructor tells them in a training unit.  Each unit fights together, combining different roles and formations in different missions.  These roles and formations may even differ from week to week, as an enemy adjusts or alters its approach."

"Finally, there has to be a level of top leadership, comprised of the most senior officers in each fighter unit—the ones whose vast experience and continued training throughout their careers has prepared them to make the tough decisions, identify and promote the up-and-coming future leaders, and to ensure that the right training programs, opportunities and efforts are directed in the way that benefits the unit and the nation."

"So after the training phase of about three years to make a qualified combat pilot, it should take years more to make a force that includes new pilots and the mid-level combat qualified pilots who are the leaders of combat formations and who add to the training and education of the new pilots. Then there is the years of weeding out, promoting and further educating the experts and highly qualified, and maturing of the senior officers who can guide and direct the entire force into total effectiveness."

"The guidelines for bringing up a senior level of fighting men to existence do not necessarily equate with the best men/women available when the criteria still demands the most politically or religiously reliable people be considered ahead of other, more secular qualities of science, experience, education, and maturity."

"Removing all three levels to make the force more reliable in ways that have nothing to do with the science and skill of flying complex machines in war ensures that an Air Force will remain ineffective for at least the three years needed to select and train its new fighter pilots, and then it will be relatively less effective for the rest of its history, so long as a program designed to keep out the most qualified pilot selectees, mid-level officers, and senior officers, is in place."

"It is guaranteed."

IT IS GUARANTEED! TODAY, TOMORROW, PERHAPS FOREVER!

And thank you acknowledged aviation authority! Most impressive.

coolbert.