rafale
Registered Member
I know this first hand, the problem with families moving around. Some might have parallel spouse careers or other needs and they can't move.I know Wg Cmdrs at Bholari and they spend their time shuttling to Hyderabad or further to Karachi. Or family spends time at in-laws who live elsewhere. It just really is a dead place- but then so was Jacobabad.
The base has facilities but in a way the family structure of Pakistan these days with sons moving out allows daughters to come back and stay with parents for extended periods - which enables such postings even if you have "split" times away from family.
Either way, it works out even if leading to friction on and off.
For every Bholari there is a Lahore , Mauripur and so on.
Shorkot, Sargodha and others are still fairly well built out so not really that intolerable.
Also depends on what stage of your life the family is - enough PAF schools to support kids though Inter in most of these places - and by the time university arrives many officers are either in the stage for NDU or Staff college.
PAF can come up with creative solutions, where pilots can get posted wherever, but their family (spouse, kids, ageing dependent parents) get PAF housing, facilities and daycares. This is literally a minimum cost benefit and will alleviate the anxiety, and as you mentioned, the occasional friction in married people. Pilots can be let off on leaves or rotated out and when needed, based on threat intelligence, to stay put at their operating base.
You can't have your top dogs in J-10CEs, F-16s, J-35s, ERIEYEs etc. carrying emotional burden. Sometimes this is even more than having a higher salary or direct monetary benefits.


