“Becoming an aviator can be very rewarding, in terms of both military career progression and civilian opportunities, achieving adequate minority representation in high skill occupations such as aviation is an important indicator of success for equal opportunity programs in the military,” the report said.īut even more important than the diversity goal is the contribution black pilots can make to the military, Contres said. For one thing, fixed- wing aviation in the Navy and Air Force “is among the largest, yet most selective and prestigious” categories in the tactical operations field, the report said. In a landmark report published in 1999 by the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness titled “Career Progression in Minority and Women Officers” (the last time the topic has been addressed by the Defense Department), a section on aviation says, “of all minorities, the representation of blacks has remained stubbornly low over the last 15 years.”īut even if the issue isn’t new, it remains important. military “hasn’t made significant progress” in getting more blacks flying, Johnson said. Kathy Contres, director of Navy Diversity Recruiting Programs at the Navy Recruiting Command in Millington, Tenn. The Navy, too, has long identified the issue, according to Navy Capt. Leon Johnson, an Air Force Reserve fighter pilot and one of the military’s most prominent advocates for recruiting black pilots, said in a February interview. Air Force’s efforts to increase the black pilot cadre, Brig. “We can go all the way back to the 1970s,” to trace the U.S. To the contrary, military officials have been aware of the phenomenon for decades. The dearth of black pilots is hardly news. Navy statistics from the fourth quarter of 2002 show that of 8,557 pilots (16 percent of the officer corps), just 185 are black - 2 percent.Īnd in the Air Force, of 12,639 pilots (also 16.1 percent of the officer corps), just 236 officers are black pilots, or 2.1 percent.
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