which is the minimum time required by Executive Order 10152 to qualify for flight pay. Under this plan, and as a safety precaution, the officers performing familiarization flying must be accompanied by a fully qualified crew and are only permitted to fly in position of "command pilot," whose duties do not include actual piloting of the aircraft, or "copilot."

The Air Force has traditionally strongly contended that a rated officer must fly a minimum of 100 hours each year to maintain his basic flying skills and has stated that a higher minimum is needed to attain the flying standards the Air Force requires. In this connection the Air Force Chief of Staff stated, in a letter dated January 26, 1957, to the Secretary of the Air Force commenting upon new guidelines for proficiency flying proposed by the Secretary of Defense, that it was his professional opinion that “** ** The present minimum of 100 hours per year maintains marginal proficiency, but not on a longcontinued basis."

In view of (1) the Air Force position that flying less than 100 hours a year will maintain only marginal proficiency, (2) the restrictions it has been found necessary to impose for safety purposes on the flying performed by those selected for familiarization flying, and (3) the fact that the flying potential of selected officers will, at best, have very limited future use to the Air Force because of their nearing retirement dates, no useful purpose is served nor benefit to the Government is obtained by requiring these officers to fly 4 hours a month. This requirement serves only to insure that selected officers qualify for flight pay, and by so doing costs the Government unnecessarily about $2,600,000 a year in aircraft operating and maintenance expenses for the 1,200 officers now in familiarization status.

In commenting upon our findings, the Air Force agrees that familiarization flying is for the sole purpose of meeting flight pay requirements but takes the position that no additional operating costs are incurred. In practice, however, whenever an aircraft is occupied by an officer on familiarization status, other officers who need to fly must obtain their flying time on other aircraft at some other time with consequent increases in flying costs.

Unnecessary proficiency flying at Maxwell Air Force Base.-More than $2 million a year is unnecessarily spent, approximately 50 noncurrent aircraft are unnecessarily assigned, and about 255 unnecessary manpower positions are filled at the Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Ala., to enable rated officers on temporary duty attending short-term nonflying courses to fly a minimum of 4 hours a month for the primary purpose of qualifying for flight Day. The assignment of these aircraft and the related flying time to Maxwell AFB is a duplicate assignment inasmuch as sufficient aircraft and flying hours have been allocated to the students' home bases, which can be used to meet he minimum flying requirements for flight pay and flying standards set orth respectively in Executive Order 10152 and Air Force Regulation 60-2 or each rated officer on flying status.

The Air Force has assigned to Maxwell AFB about 50 noncurrent aircraft o that officers attending the 14-week squadron officer course, given at Maxwell AFB since 1951, and the 6-week academic instructor course may qualify for light pay while taking these courses. The squadron officer school (SOS) ourse provides basic background to junior career officers, either rated or onrated, for command and staff duties, including related responsibilities and eadership. The academic instructor school (AIS) course prepares students or duty as instructors or supervisors of instructors in the Air Force nonflying raining and educational systems.

We estimate, on the basis of about 700 rated officers who attended the quadron officer course in April and May 1960 when we made our review, that the uel and maintenance costs of providing the average flying time of 5.31 hours a onth flown by the students amounts to more than $2 million a year. Highly laced Air Force officers have moreover stated that about 255 manpower positions re required to support the flying of the short-term students and that the flying ceived by the majority of the students contributes virtually nothing to their asie flying skills since it is accomplished in obsolescent aircraft which a rge number of the officers have not been trained to fly. Consequently these ficers, who normally fly current combat aircraft, have to be trained to fly e obsolescent aircraft assigned to Maxwell AFB, or fly with selected instrucr pilots as copilots while attending courses at Maxwell AFB. During the SOS urse completed on April 18, 1960, the Air Force trained 60 SOS students to tas instructor pilots for the other students. The Air Force scheduled the

remaining SOS students to fly as copilots with rated officers attending ether schools at the university who are qualified to fly the cargo and training a craft assigned to Maxwell AFB so as to enable the many students not qualit to fly these aircraft to log the 4 hours a month required to qualify for figh pay. Students questioned stated that in their opinion they derived no benefits From the flying performed at Maxwell AFB and that the time spent on dying could have been better utilized on the course studies.

While section 4(a) (1) through (5) of Executive Order 10152 generally re quires rated personnel to fly a minimum of 4 hours a month to qualify for fight pay, section 4(a) (6) permits personnel to qualify for flight pay by performing 24 hours of aerial flight during any period of 6 consecutive months in the following circumstances:

(6) Whenever under authority conferred by the Secretary concerned, the commanding officer of any member who has been required by competent orders to participate frequently and regularly in aerial flights, other than glider flights. certifies that on account of military operations of the particular command o on account of the unavailability of aircraft such member was unable to per form the aerial flights required by this section, such member may comply with the minimum flight requirements by performing at least 24 hours of seris flight over a period of 6 consecutive calendar months and such requirements may be met at any time during such period."

In our opinion the assignment of aircraft to Air Force installations to enable students attending short-term courses to fly 4 hours a month to qualify for flight pay is both unnecessary and very costly. We believe that, since the aircraft assigned to such installations duplicate assignments made to other Air Force locations, such aircraft should be withdrawn from the installations where the courses are given. Further, in the case of the short-term students at Maxwell Air Force Base, we understand that it will not ordinarily present difficulty for the rated officers to perform 24 hours of flying within the 6-month time limit provided by section 4(6) of Executive Order 10152 following copletion of the course at the university. Upon return to their duty stations. the majority of the rated officers fly very extensively to regain proficiency in operational aircraft.

We believe that the Secretary of the Air Force should use the authority givet. to him by Executive Order 10152 to invoke section 4(a) (6) so that rated off cers attending short-term courses away from their home bases are not required to fly 4 hours each month but, instead, may fly the 24 hours at any time during the 6-month period to qualify for flight pay. This will enable rated officers attending short-term, nonflying courses away from their home installations to meet flying requirements by flights from the home bases where sufficient aircraft and flying hours are provided.

We reported this matter to the Secretary of the Air Force by letter dated October 17, 1960, recommending that the aircraft assigned to give proficienc time to rated officers attending short-term nonflying courses at locations removed from their home bases be withdrawn. The Secretary's reply dated November 15, 1960 (see app. A), stated that the Air Force will take prompt action w reassign a portion of the aircraft now at Maxwell AFB provided that Executive Order 10152, or the statute, is changed to permit the officers involved to receive flight pay on a regular and uninterrupted basis. Since the present provisions permit full payment of flight pay if flight deficiencies are made up within a month period, all that is involved generally, insofar as flight pay is concerned. is a possible delay of a few months in the receipt of a portion of the flight par Under the present regulations, in all but rare cases, the full flight pay due each officer including such pay for his time at the school eventually would be paid to him without the necessity of his making any flights while attending the school.

Nonuse of legislation to excuse personnel holding aeronautical ratings for 20 years or longer from meeting minimum flying requirements.-Although opper tunities have been made available annually by the Congress since 1954 for excusing from flying those officers having 20 years or more of rated service, we know of no attempts to take implementing action prior to May 12, 1960. eres though for several years an acknowledged excess of rated officers created conditions especially favorable for using the legislation to make needed economies We estimate that the aircraft costs of the flying performed during 1959 br 945 rated officers identified as having 20 years of rated service was approximately $7.8 million, of which $3.4 million was solely for proficiency flying. Over

ercent of these officers held the rank of colonel or general and were occupying mportant nonflying positions from which proficiency flying would be a diversion of time and effort. For these reasons, and in view of the limited need for naintaining the flying ability of these officers on a current basis, we question their ontinued participation in the proficiency flying program, particularly in flying oncurrent aircraft. It appears that many 20-year men could have been excused nder law from performing flight requirements, thereby saving approximately 8,000 per officer annually in aircraft operation and maintenance costs. Since 1954 a provision has been included in the Department of Defense Approriation Acts which permits military departments to exempt personnel who ave held an aeronautical rating for at least 20 years from flying in order to ualify for flight pay. The intent of this legislation was to reduce the tremendous cost of proficiency flying without depriving officers of flight pay. Its bjective was to eliminate the remaining costs applicable to the flying which ersonnel having 20 years of rated service would otherwise be required to erform.

As shown on page 18, the Air Force has had an ancknowledged excess of ated personnel since at least 1957. We believe, therefore, that the Air Force hould have used the appropriation legislation as a contributory means of alancing requirements and inventory. The following table shows conservatively n a yearly basis the number of personnel with 20 years of rated service that ave been in the inventory since 1954. It also shows the Air Force estimate or 1960 through 1965 and, based upon our detailed review for 1959, the estimated ost of flying that personnel with 20 years of rated service performed, or are xpected to perform under current requirements.

Includes costs of aircraft operation for proficiency flying and all other mission support flying.

189, 516, 024

* Excludes all rated personnel having 20 years of rated service who lost flying status prior to Dec. 31, 1959, y suspension, retirement, death, etc.

Our review disclosed that the grades of the officers having 20 years of rated xperience were:

The above tabulation shows that the group consisted substantially of senior fficers. As the Secretary of Defense stated on December 31, 1956, in a memoandum to the Secretaries of the military departments, "[requiring] these senior fficers to meet monthly flying minimums for pay purposes result[s] in an unnecssary expenditure as well as a diversion of their time and effort from more mportant tasks." [Italic supplied.]

In the same memorandum, the Secretary of Defense set standards for new roficiency flying regulations that would include exempting personnel who have held ratings as military pilots for 20 years or more from all pilot proficiency

flying requirements. These standards were rejected by the Air Force at that time and it was not until May 29, 1959, that a Department of Defense directive was issued on proficiency flying. This included the following requirement:

8

"4. Each service will implement the provision of the appropriation act permit ting the payment of flight pay without the requirement to fly to selected individuals, as determined by the Secretary of each military department, who have held aeronautical ratings for not less than 20 years."

*

However, the first Air Force action was not taken until May 12, 1960, when 45 officers who had 20 years of rated service on December 31, 1959, were excused from flying and a further 21 were selected to be excused later when they attained 20 years of rated service. These were selected from officers who were due for mandatory retirement or separation by December 31, 1962.

In our opinion the records of all eligible personnel should have been reviewed for determining those who should be excused from meeting flying requirements. Our review of personnel and flying records of such personnel shows that many others could have been selected without harmful effect on Air Force missions. For example, the following table shows pertinent facts for some 20-year officers on flying status who could have been considered. Briefly, these individuals range in age from 43 to 51, have had no flying assignment in from 9 to 12 years, and have specialized in occupational fields of a nonflying nature for at least 9 years or more. Since these individuals have little or no jet flying experience and consequent limited future flying capability and since their age and experience would probably result in their use in a nonflying capacity, maintenance of flying skills appears unjustified.

Colonel..