Military Pilots’ Professional Expectations and Their Hope of Success

Abstract

Military pilots have a variety of expectations as regards their careers and they exhibit varied levels of hope of professional success. Depending on the degree to which they succeed in meeting these expectations and fulfilling their hopes, one can speak of reaching (or failure to reach) career satisfaction, which triggers the inevitable consequences of these facts for the quality of the military service delivered. If satisfaction is objectively reachable, the pilot experiences harmony and sense of confirmation of his positive choice of career and developmental potential. Drawing upon the above assumptions, in the autumn of 2016, the author conducted empirical research involving military pilots in an attempt to diagnose both their professional expectations and hope of success. The author also researched correlations between these two variables, assuming that meeting professional expectations by the pilots should determine their positive self-assessment as regards their potential for professional success in the military context, which should, in turn, stimulate them to be more intensely involved in professional training.