Air Force considers extension of pilots' contracts to 10 years

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Air Force (PAF) is considering increasing the length of its pilots’ contract of service to ten years from eight years to ensure that it would have enough manpower to operate its assets.

Air Force chief Lt. Gen. Oscar Rabena said such measure is being studied even if the number of pilots leaving the service to join the private sector had already decreased.

“We are looking to ensure that we have sufficient number of pilots that will be able to operate our aircraft and at the same time perform the various tasks,” Rabena said, adding that they have a policy which bars a pilot from leaving until a replacement has been found.

“We will not release a test pilot if there is nobody who can replace him. It’s important that we maintain the required number of qualifications, test pilots, instructor pilots in a particular unit before we can allow one pilot to leave,” he said.

Rabena said the acquisition of new trainer planes could encourage pilots to join the service.

“The good news is that we now have many trainer aircraft, 18 basic trainer aircraft, SF-260, we have at least 15 T41 aircraft so we have now increased the number of students. We expect that we can train them in a shorter period of time,” he said.

Rabena said the number of pilots who left the service last year was lower compared to that of the previous years. He said less than 10 pilots moved to private airlines in 2010 compared to as many as 50 during in earlier years.

The Air Force has bought 18 units of basic trainer aircraft from Italy-based firm Augusta, which completed its delivery last week. The whole package amounted to P621 million.

The SF-260 is a propeller-driven, two-seater plane that has been the backbone of the Air Force schools for the past decades. It is used in other countries to select potential candidates to progress to high performance aircraft.

Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Miguel Okol said the acquisition of new trainers would address the backlog of students who are about to undergo flying exercises. Such backlog stemmed from the lack of trainer aircraft in the inventory. The Air Force is currently training two classes of pilots composed of about 60 students each.

In 2006, the Air Force recorded the largest number of pilots who left the service to seek higher-paying jobs in private firms. That year, 54 of the 1,085 Air Force pilots resigned to move to seek greener pastures.