Navy and Air Force Pilots Bailing Out of Service : Family Separations, Lure of Airlines Among Reasons Cited for Quitting Military

“It doesn’t get better than this,” says Navy fighter jock Sammy Bonnano as he climbs into an Israeli Kfir fighter.

In minutes, he and his stubby-winged plane are a streak of gray and flame as they zoom off the runway at the naval air station here and punch through the ugly clouds of Hurricane Gloria into that special zone of sunshine and blue sky known only to aviators.

Bonnano, a 31-year-old Navy lieutenant commander, plays the bad guy in this golden world eight miles above the Atlantic Ocean, using his Kfir to simulate a Soviet MIG-21 in mock duels with other fighter pilots.

It is a wonderful life--exhilarating, meaningful, well-paying--but Sammy Bonnano is quitting, one of thousands of Navy and Air Force pilots bailing out of the military.

The combination of expanding airlines and widespread retirement of World War II veteran pilots has led to a hiring spree by commercial carriers. They took on 6,500 pilots in fiscal 1985 and are expected to hire another 7,000 this fiscal year, mostly from the military.

The Pentagon projects that there will be a national pilot shortage in the early 1990s, further aggravating the military shortage.

Money, pilots and their families said, is not the main reason many are resigning. Bonnano, for example, makes $48,000 a year, counting his flight bonus, and can expect to earn starting pay that is less than half that if he goes with the airlines.

What the nation confronts is a polite rebellion by the military men and their wives against the burdens that accompany today’s gunboat diplomacy.

Show the Flag

Whenever trouble brews in a distant part of the world, U.S. Presidents often dispatch Navy aircraft carriers or Air Force planes, such as the AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System), to show the flag or rattle the saber. For the servicemen, it means month after month on some remote ocean or airfield.

Despite hefty re-enlistment bonuses of $6,000 a year for Navy pilots, the Navy is short 1,100 pilots in the key group who would wage war from carriers. These are the experienced but still young lieutenants and lieutenant commanders like Bonnano, who fly fighters, bombers and command and control airplanes on carriers.

That shortfall amounts to 15% of the Navy’s 7,100 seagoing aviator billets in those two ranks, the first severe downturn since President Reagan was elected in 1980.

%% Bonnano typifies the pilots the Navy hoped to keep for a full career of 20 to 30 years. His commanders in the VF43 adversary squadron described him as an outstanding flier and able administrator on the ground, a man on the fast track to the top.

Last year, the Navy named Bonnano the best landing signal officer in the Atlantic Fleet, the man who stands at the perilous edge of the pitching carrier deck to coax other pilots home, day and night. So why would he suddenly quit the flying Navy he loves?

“This is the best flying in the Navy,” Bonnano said, “because all we do is fly ACM (air combat maneuvers) twice a day, every day . . . . I’ll never have a bad word to say about the United States Navy.”

But he said the boring collateral duties when he is earthbound, including the endless paper work, started him thinking about what lies ahead if he stays in the Navy for 20 years, the time needed to qualify for half-pay retirement.

“I’ve already had three sets of workups (preparations for long sea duty), three (carrier) cruises. Between now and the time I retire at 20 years, I’m realistically looking at five more cruises.”

He said he has spent three years “on the water” in his 10 years in the Navy and will have to be away from home “for at least four more,” if he stays in for 20 years.

Picturing himself at that 20-year mark, Bonnano sketched this family portrait: “I’ve got one boy that’s getting ready to go to college; a little girl that will follow him shortly thereafter, and I’ll be going to the mailbox to pick up a retirement check of $1,800 a month.

“I can’t retire on that, so I’ve got two options (at that point). I can either stay in the Navy, which means more time at sea and more time away from home, or I can get out. If I get out, I’m 41. Am I more marketable at 41 than I am at 31? I don’t think so. That’s what went into the decision to get out.

“Priorities have changed to where I almost feel it’s selfish on my part to think of nothing but what’s good for Sammy, what’s good for my career. I’m thinking, what about Vicki; what about Mikey; what about Sabrina (his wife and children)? Maybe I can throttle back on my needs and start looking more at my family’s. I missed Mikey’s third year--his Christmas --because I was on cruise. I just don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t want to go to sea anymore.”

‘Family Separation’

Other aviators, squadron skippers, senior officers and the secretary of the Navy all agreed that the big reason for the resignations is what the Navy calls “family separation,” the byproduct of being in the armed services of a global power.

The problem vexes Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman Jr., a flight officer himself who is more knowledgeable about the stresses and strains of extended sea duty than any previous civilian Navy leader.

“It has been the most intractable problem I’ve had to deal with,” Lehman said. “It is the one area that falls outside the control of the chief of naval operations and the secretary of the Navy.”

The theater commanders in such regions as the Mediterranean and Pacific keep calling for more carriers and other warships to dampen hot spots around the world, he said.

“We’ve added 60 ships” to the fleet, Lehman continued, “and until this year, we have not gotten a single day of relief.”

Instead of the same workload being more widely distributed over the fleet, thereby shortening deployments, the theater commanders “have scarfed up every new ship” and given them additional duties, the secretary said.

Lehman said that after considerable wrestling with the problems, “we’ve made a breakthrough” that should lead to shorter tours at sea, less paper work and more fun in the Navy.

Lehman said the shortage of Navy pilots concerns but does not alarm him because “you’ve got to put it in perspective.”

Four years ago the Navy was retaining only 28% of the aviators it wanted to keep, he said. That improved to 58% in 1983 but has now slid to 53%.

“Fifty-three percent is a lot better than 28%,” Lehman said.