[fourdeuce82d]

The problem isn't the pilots, those can be trained in less than a year

I'm not an expert, but I think that gravely understates the amount of time needed to train a fighter pilot. Anybody who's flown '16s want to take a whack at this?

[Rokke]

Two years of training from initial pilot training to F-16 graduation. Then however long it takes to get the new graduate mission ready in his operational squadron (3-5 months). And that's assuming there is a big pool of qualified/capable pilots waiting to start.