.jpg)
ATTY. MEL STA. MARIA: The advantage, questions, standard of a Corona testimony
Jessica Sanchez's rival in 'Idol' crown has severe kidney problems, needs immediate surgery - TMZ
Sensational Samal: More people flock to town of Jessica's mom after Sanchez makes it to Idol finale
NATO activates missile shield, reaches out to Russia
InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5
MANILA, Philippines – Concerned over the exodus of its pilots to the commercial sector, the Philippine Air Force (PAF) on Sunday bared a plan to increase flying school to 10 years for its pilots and to adopt a policy barring them from suddenly retiring or resigning to leave the service for commercial jobs.
This policy of keeping its well-trained pilots must run alongside the multibillion-peso modernization plan for the PAF’s hardware, which has recently gained urgency owing to concerns the country’s maritime defense is very poor, officials said.
“We are studying the possibility of increasing the contract of service in terms of the pilots. At present, it’s eight years, now we are looking if we can increase it to 10 years,” PAF chief Lt. Gen. Oscar Rabena said.
He added, “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 -- like some element leaders in a particular unit before we can allow one pilot to leave. These are measures that we are looking to ensure so that we have sufficient number of pilots that will be able to operate our aircrafts and at the same time perform the various tasks.”
Besides the low pay, many highly-trained pilots leave the service because of the lack of aircraft to fly, not to mention their fear of losing their lives while flying extremely old, World War II vintage planes.
Several good pilots are killed each year by what have come to be dubbed “widow-makers” of the Air Force.
“Let me tell you about the good news, the good news is that we now have many trainer aircrafts -- 18 basic trainer aircraft SF260 and 15 T41. So we have now increased the number of students and we expect that we can train them in a shorter period of time,” Rabena said.
He said in the past, the exodus was so bad that as much as 60 percent of trained pilots were leaving the service.
Rabena said they were able to increase the number of pilot-students to 120, or 60 each in two class.
Meanwhile, of the earmarked P40 billion for the military’s medium-term modernization plan (2012-2016) the Air Force---which along with the Navy has been described as very poorly funded, relative to the Army---was given P14 billion to enhance specific capabilities.
“The specific capabilities that we will address here are our air defense capability, meaning to say our capability to detect and monitor intrusions. So we are talking here of air surveillance trainers, our capability to intercept and interdict. We’re looking at assets that can perform this particular mission, our capability to patrol our territorial waters and EEZ (Especial Economic Zone).
“We’re looking at long-range patrol aircraft and of course some close air support aircraft that will help our ageing OV-10,” he said.
With that budget, the PAF plans to buy six fighter jets –the TA-50 Golden Eagle of Korea or M346 of Italy.
