Attitudes and Opinions of USAF Jet Engine Personnel Concerning Enlisted Career Progression

摘要

As the Air Force environment, including weapon systems, becomes more technologically complex, competent technicians have become increasingly important for maintaining force readiness. In spite of this importance, the USAF continues to lose technicians for many reasons. Under the present policy it is essentially impossible for a technician to remain a technician. Under normal career progression, the technician is promoted and moves into supervisory roles. The objective of this research was to determine the attitudes and opinions of enlisted technicians toward the current USAF promotion system. The target population for the survey was USAF specialty 426X2, jet engine technicians. This study was exploratory in nature. It did not attempt to investigate the causes or effects of attitudes, but did attempt to determine the predominant attitudes and their degree of consensus. Subject areas surveyed were importance and status of technicians and supervisors in the USAF, skill and experience levels, current promotion system, the transition from technician to supervisor, and the concept of career technician. (Author)