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07/29/2003 Archived Entry: "Prime air force jobs go begging"

CANADIAN MILITARY BEGGING FOR PILOTS: Treat people like garbage and no one will come to your birthday party. Thanks to decades of budget cuts, obselete equipment and poor support, the Canadian Armed Forces is facing a dire shortage in pilots, formerly the job that people would kill for.

Recruiters last year succeeded in signing up only about a quarter of the number of new pilots needed to replace retiring aircrew.

"This is one of the best times in history to be applying to become a pilot in the Canadian Forces," said Lieutenant-Colonel Russ Konyk, the head of the Air Force Retention Office in Ottawa. "There are cockpits available."

Lt.-Col. Konyk said that this past year, only 48 new recruits interested in pilot training came through the Canadian Forces' recruiting system. The air force had set a target of 184.

"We are trying to get a grapple on why ... [but] we aren't getting the people through the door we anticipated," he said.

I think the good Lt.-Col. is being polite...it's fairly easy to know why people aren't joining the military these days.

Read on.