The U.S. may not have enough pilots to win a long war against a peer competitor. It takes a long time to train pilots, and they don’t stick around because flying commercially pays more. The pilots we do have don’t get enough flying hours. The U.S. Air Force has similarities to Japan and Germany’s air forces at the beginning in WWII. Germany and Japan did not have enough pilots or a robust enough pilot pipeline to maintain skilled pilots throughout the war.