Hi Reader,

Morning. This week's big story does not come from the airlines, for once. It comes from the US Air Force, which just did something almost nobody expected it to manage: hit its pilot training target after years of missing it, not by throwing more money at recruiting, but by rethinking who does the early teaching. There is a lesson in it for anyone frustrated with how slowly civilian training can move too, plus the rest of this week's aviation news below.

The US Air Force just solved a problem the airlines still have not cracked.

For years the Air Force could not train pilots fast enough. Its target was 1,500 new pilots a year, every year. It kept missing that number, and by the end of fiscal year 2025 the shortfall had grown to more than 2,400 pilots.

This week the Air Force confirmed it will hit that target for the first time in years, expecting to finish fiscal 2026 with around 1,555 new pilots winged.

The interesting part is not the number. It is how they got there. The fix was not more recruiters or bigger bonuses. It was handing the first stage of flight training to civilian schools.

Under a programme called FUPT, introduced in spring 2025, new Air Force pilots now complete their initial 120 flight hours with FAA Part 141 civilian schools in Texas, Arizona, Florida and Georgia, earning a private pilot licence with instrument and multi engine ratings before they ever sit in a military aircraft. That is up from around 30 hours before the change. Military instructors and aircraft, freed from teaching the basics, are now reserved for the advanced tactical training only the Air Force can provide.

The lesson travels well beyond the military. Most pilot shortage conversations, civilian or military, assume the bottleneck is recruitment, not enough people who want to fly. The Air Force's numbers point somewhere else. The real constraint was training capacity: instructors and aircraft hours, not appetite. Fix the capacity problem and the recruitment problem tends to take care of itself.

Worth remembering next time someone tells you flight training is backed up because nobody wants to fly anymore.

Reported by Air Force Times and Air and Space Forces Magazine: https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2026/09/21/air-force-on-track-to-graduate-1500-new-pilots-this-fiscal-year/​

BACK TO SKOOL

If training pathways are on your mind after today's story, the Student Pilot Community's sister space on Skool has course routes and downloadable guides covering pilot training options, from private pilot through to commercial and beyond. No pitch, just have a look if it is useful: https://link.benlovegrove.com/aviation-careers​

IN BRIEF

Boeing's 777X hits another snag, and it is the engine

The 777-9's path to certification just got more specific. Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg says a durability issue in a mid seal component inside GE's GE9X engines is holding up the ETOPS approval the jet needs for long haul overwater flying. GE Aerospace is now shipping engines with a redesigned seal, and FAA sign off on the fix is expected within months, but flight testing will not wrap until early 2027, pushing first deliveries to launch customers Emirates and Lufthansa into very late 2027, according to analysts. The programme, originally due to enter service in 2020, is now roughly seven years behind schedule. Source: Leeham News, September 17 2026.

NTSB says the FAA still is not listening

The NTSB says the FAA gave unacceptable responses to 11 of 33 safety recommendations issued after last year's fatal collision between an American Airlines regional jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Washington Reagan National Airport, which killed 67 people. Among the rejected recommendations was a mandate for ADS-B In, a system NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said could have given the airliner's pilots 59 seconds of warning and the helicopter crew 48 seconds. "How many more decades have to go by before we again and again and again have to recommend it after terrible tragedy," Homendy said. Reported by Reuters, September 14 2026.

FAA's long-awaited drone rule nears publication

Part 108, the rule that will finally replace one-off waivers with a standard process for flying drones beyond visual line of sight, has cleared internal FAA review and is now sitting with the White House's regulatory review office, the last stop before publication. An FAA official said the agency hopes to publish it by the end of 2026, after working through around 4,000 public comments. It matters well beyond hobbyists: BVLOS approval underpins commercial drone work like infrastructure inspection, agricultural surveying and delivery, all of which have been stuck operating under narrow individual waivers for years. Source: The Flight Brief.

A busy month for new long haul routes

September has brought a wave of new international routes. United opened a new nonstop between Newark and Seoul on the 787-9, a roughly 16 hour westbound sector and only the second nonstop link between the two cities. Air China launched the first ever scheduled air link between China and Croatia, flying Beijing to Zagreb via Bucharest. China Southern resumed direct India service between Guangzhou and New Delhi after a suspension dating back to February 2020. Riyadh Air added Bangkok, Manila and Manchester in the same month, growing its network from 11 destinations to 14. Source: Aviation Week Routes and Networks.

FROM THE COMMUNITY

If your training has felt slower than you expected this year, you are in good company, and it likely has nothing to do with you. Right now the whole system, military and civilian alike, is quietly redesigning how flight training gets delivered, because the old model could not keep up with demand. Instructor availability and aircraft hours are the real bottleneck almost everywhere, not motivation and not ability. Keep showing up. The queue is long because so many people want this, not because you are behind.

That wraps up this week's edition. Drop into the Student Pilot Community Facebook group and say hello if you have not already, and I will be back in your inbox next Friday.