First off, happy new year, everybody. Here’s hoping for a great 2008.
This morning’s lead story at Military.com has some interesting facts and figures surrounding the military’s use of drones in Iraq. Here’s an excerpt:
The military’s reliance on unmanned aircraft that can watch, hunt and sometimes kill insurgents has soared to more than 500,000 hours in the air, largely in Iraq, The Associated Press has learned.
And new Defense Department figures obtained by the AP show that the Air Force more than doubled its monthly use of drones between January and October, forcing it to take pilots out of the air and shift them to remote flying duty to meet part of the demand.
And, as several military officials state in the article, that demand is only going to go up, even as the surge winds down.
Now, understanding the utility and cost effectiveness of drones, I’m wondering what happens to the morale and career motivation of an Eagle driver who suddenly gets the nod to be Drone Boy. Imagine hanging out in the ready room, wearing your speed jeans and talking with your hands, when someone taps you on the shoulder and hands you a joy stick. No more strapping into an ejection seat. No more touching the face of God. Just a cinderblock building and a video display.
Lou Gossett, Jr. doesn’t play Drone Boy …
Read the entire story here.
– Ward
Turn em over to the SOF. Only people in the US military not crying about what their mission is or is not.
This is a repeat of the early-mid 90s when the AF ‘banked’ pilots and stufed some in the then-new (once more) UAV effort. Meat-Servos weren’t happy then — they won’t be happy now.
The new book ‘Co-ed Combat’by Kingsley Browne (excellent so far BTW) notes that the ‘profile’ of the best pilots are exceedingly rare: engineering acuity combined with the temperament of a mountain climber. They have to be trained to be desk jockeys when they settle down–or they just get to be miserable desk jockeys.
This issue of technology replacing humans has all happened before. Once upon a time, railroad locamotives were operated my actual trained engineers because of the mechanical complexity of the new technology. Now, railroad “engineers” have only the title.
Whether military or commercial, pilots need to come to grips with a future where they may be little more than bus drivers.
Why not outsource much of the drone flying to non-Air Force personnel? I could see an Air Force reserve of pilots who no longer qualify for active duty flight (retired civilian pilots for instance), or who do not meet military fitness standards or simply civilians with other jobs but with with pilot’s licenses flying drones from reserve centers near their homes.
Manned combat aircraft are in the process of joining biplanes and cavalry as quaint pieces of military history. A few more decades — less than the span of one pilot’s working life — and that’ll be it forever.
Pilots are simply going to have to get used to it, just like everyone else whose job has been changed by technology.
Morning Boys,
Coopers, muleskinners, sailmakers, ship’s carpenters, water tenders, boiler techs, signalmen, and now pilots! Damned upstart, snot-nosed, little scupper monkeys! This has just got to stop.
What’s next? No more CPO initiations, Tailhook sensitivity training, and Sailors on convoy security in the desert?!
Oh, wait. Nevermind.
Cheers,
Chief B.
Two articles spotlight who will be the stars of future wars. By programmers and network techies. UAV’s are worthless without secure comm lines & near perfect computer code. Hack into that loop and someone can ruin a military.
I read recently about a espionage operation the Chinese ran against the NSA. Of course we’ll never know if its true, but lets assume it is just for fun. The theme was that the NSA hired some ethnic Chinese who lived in Hawaii to do translations of NSA snooping of China. I’m assuming these translators where US citizens. Well the Chinese evidently owned these translators and comprised NSA capabilites and in fact fed false info back to the NSA.
Imagine the damage if some unfriendly country managed to salt away some unfriendlies as programmers for UAV command and control. Or got some hired into the satellite command and control programmers used for UAV missions.
If the NSA can be bamboozled so can any other USG organization.
hahha chair force warriors looking for action. there are plenty of spots in the infantry, cav ‚armor and sof for you. instead of wasting fuel for some meaning show of force missions you can pound the ground like everyone else.
Contractors already fly unmanned aircraft. Silly as it may seem, an enlisted guy kicked out of flying Predators in the USAF could probably quite easily get a job flying UAS as an Army contractor, and enlisted Army UAS operators do just fine. Future automation will allow fully autonomous UAS ops and tactical control of AVs/ payloads by your average Soldier/Leader/Staff.
Problem is that law prevents contractors from engaging the enemy, so out they go when time to lase or launch the Hellfire/Viper Strike/bomb. Guess the USAF is also preoccupied with flying in the National Airspace Systems where pilots instrument ratings come in handy.
But this is first time reading that they also want to fly UAS from other CONUS reserve locations. All those satellite links required & lack of understanding of what is happening on the ground…and Soldier FM doesn’t work too well reaching the U.S, but can work quite well with a UAS comms relay package talking to in– theater Army UAS operators.
I also still have nightmares recalling a story told by a coworker about a new USAF A-10 pilot getting briefed in his then-owned Army visual simulation facility who couldn’t recognize Russian equipment. You boys better hit the vehicle recognition flash cards with all these MRAP versions. BTW, Army UH-60s do not look like Hinds, MLRS do not look like Iraqi SAMs, nor will Canadian SOF small arms hurt you at altitude…but to be fair Apaches have shot U.S. combat engineers, too. And you wonder why leaders want the FSCL so far forward when all those Army scouts are running around out in front of the Army main body.
Admit that USAF has a neat means of preventing fratricide/improving effectiveness using fast movers, Predator, and joint terminal attack controllers (JTAC)for sharing information. Laser illuminators should help, too. That little ROVER system seems to work well in sharing imagery, and it would be even better if it was an Army One System-Remote Video Terminal.;)
Whoever mentioned shows of force…I concur with your/my amusement when JTACs report “the show-of-force was effective” in daily mission summaries. But you gotta admit that a B-1 flying at low level would be scare the begeebees out of the Taliban.
What about the morale boost knowing that they don’t have the chance of being shot down in enemy territory, knowing their air asset can loiter longer, provide more intel per mission, and the reaper at least can provide 4–10 precision guided munitions on target pretty much like what they were doing in the air? I am pretty sure most people won’t think it is as cool but when an intelligent person, as most pilots are well educated, would think after some deliberation flying the drone is more efficient dollar wise fuel wise and pilot life wise as well as overall being able to provide more constant close air support to shooters and support personel on the ground won’t they think of it as an honor and a step in the right direction? Now of course hacking the UAV as a possibility does leave manned ships as a persistant need. So maybe they don’t have to worry so much?
Not to kick the pilots more than they seem to be;
But isn’t the training they receive way to expensive to be wasting on UAV’s?
I am assuming UAV’s will not be dog fighting within the next couple of years; they are not built that way. Yet.
Nor will they be landing like a C5.
It is a big waste of money putting these guys in charge of a UAV at this point.
I knew a lot of smart enlisted guys who had their pilot
Bring warrant officers back to the USAF. They can fly the UAVs. Make CWOs do all the flying. Officers are suppose manage and direct.
I see this as a correction to the USAF structure from NASCAR (driver and pit crew) to a more traditional military setup (commander and commanded).
Fine, fire them then. No offence but plane drives with the ability to pull a bunch of Gs in a 1/4 billion dollar airplane is not something there is going to be much call for in the future. Replace these guys with people trained to remote pilot planes, and within a decade or so most of the combat jobs will be taken over by a robot. I mean these things can pull Gs people never could and never get distracted. For many years to come there will still be people flying some planes and some fighters, but really how much longer can they last in a world where computers are better pilots than the pilots are.
So what I hear you all saying is that there are those that “have” and those that talk about it. Which category are YOU in?
Come on now!500,000 hours on a platform,isn’t realistic!Although,there are multiply drones it,
just doesn’t add up!Airlines,must be used here for
the hours and not Military etc…