Col. Mike Brill, a pilot with the Air Force Reserve’s 419th Fighter Wing at Hill AFB, Utah, is poised to become the first-ever flier to reach 6,000 flight hours in the cockpit of the F-16. The Salt Lake City’s Deseret News reported April 25 that Brill, currently deployed to Iraq, likely will cross the threshold during a mission scheduled for April 29 out of Balad Air Base. He began flying F-16s in 1980 as a member of Hill’s active-duty 388th Fighter Wing. He became the first US fighter pilot, in 1993, to reach 3,000 hours. He reached the 5,000-hour milestone in 2002. There is currently only one other pilot, also an American, among the 24 nations that fly the F-16 who is in the 5,000-hour category.
Fixing the Air Force’s chronic combat pilot shortage will require more aircraft in the fleet, more flying hours to squadron operations, and retaining more pilots within Reserve components, according to a new paper from AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.