Air Force complains that drone force is at it’s “breaking point”
The Daily Beast reports that the greatest complainers of the military services, the Air Force, says that this new drone thing is at it’s “breaking point” – not that there aren’t enough craft, but the personnel aspect of flying drones will suffer;
“ACC believes we are about to see a perfect storm of increased COCOM [Combatant Commander] demand, accession reductions, and outflow increases that will damage the readiness and combat capability of the MQ-1/9 enterprise for years to come,” reads an internal Air Force memo from ACC commander Gen. Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle, addressed to Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh. “I am extremely concerned.”
“ACC will continue to non-concur to increased tasking beyond our FY15 [fiscal year 2015] force offering and respectfully requests your support in ensuring the combat viability of the MQ-1/9 platform,” Carlisle added.
In other words, the Air Force is saying that its drone force has been stretched to its limits.
I thought the drone force was cost effective because, you know, the pilots don’t get captured or shot out of the sky. The aircraft is less expensive to maintain and operate the battlefield than other aircraft, but apparently there aren’t enough drone medals available to make the career field attractive.
It seems to me that manpower issues can be overcome with a simple schedule change, but I guess this shows what I know.
Category: Air Force
I’m sure this could easily be fixed by not having it locked up by pilots. Do you need to be a pilot to fly a fucking drone? No.
I bet the pilots that do get stuck flying a chair in a box hate it. It’s like putting a race horse in a parade.
I agree 100%
The Army has E5’s flying Shadows.
You don’t need to have a 4 year engineering degree and a commission to fly what is essentially a large RC plane. Especially when 99% of America’s youth have grown up playing video games with sophisticated controllers/joysticks, graphics, etc.
Also, us Army pukes who are in contact would rather have someone in our own battalion, preferably a team with 11 or 19 series experience, ranked E4 – E7, flying overwatch from a nearby FOB, not via satlink from Creech AFB.
This would solve your funding/manpower/morale issue.
I believe the Shadow has “system operators” and not pilots. The operators can electronically adujst the A/C altitute, orbit, speed, orientation, but the flying is done by the computer system with take off and landing being automated.
While I think the USAF would be well served by having WO pilots for RPA, I’m not sure that the long term savings would be that huge, given that the marginal personnel cost is pretty small compaired to training and operating the equipment.
If the “ideal” ratio to of crews to sorties 10 to 1, and the Air Force has a problem on the qualification side in training new pilots, the rank of the individual going through training doesn’t matter much. If move qualified people are leaving the force than coming in, and requirements are staying constant your going to have a problem.
Its a sucky job that people don’t want to do (OK, at least I wouldn’t want to do it).
And, drone medal….thats just stupid s&^%.
Scar, #1 son flew Gray Eagles from a FOB in Afghanistan supporting people on his FOB. He was an E6 and he had lower-ranking pilots working for him.
At that time, all of the Army “drone” pilots went through pilot training in order to operate aircraft in the US airspace – including Shadows. He started on Shadows. That was a deal the Army made with the FAA.
Turns out he had a college degree before enlisting but he entered as an E1 and did two trips to Iraq as a 13x which meant, in his case, that he did 11B work the first trip and Intel Sergeant work the second trip.
Prior to his AFG deployment, he flew aircraft from Edwards AFB to Ft Irwin daily for training, they were at Edwards for about a month. There are 5 different FAA airspace control zones that have to be negotiated to get an airplane from Edwards to Ft. Irwin; this is similar to flying from Dulles to Logan via Baltimore, Newark, and Providence below 18,000 feet. I don’t know what sort of arms they carried in California but in Afghanistan they carried AGM-114s.
FWIW, I think that putting the pilots on the FOBs is a GREAT idea and with some notable exceptions I think that he would agree.
I imagine that many of the pilots at Creech are enlisted – does anyone know?
Yep, us dumb NCOs are too stupid to fly a plane, or anything with wings.
However, for decades in the British Army, E-5s have been flying helicopters. The Officers get their flight time in, but mostly end up doing admin stuff.
But US Army NCOs are too dumb, even if we’re the best trained and best qualified Army in the world…
The entire office/enlisted system is obsolete and archaic anyway. If they want a professional volunteer force they should really drop it or at the very least instead of putting boot as fuck officers in leadership positions make enlisted time a requirement to even be considered for officer.
They pay lip-service to tradition while essentially pissing on tradition at the same damn time, unfortunately.
Predator Eulogy by Dos Gringos sums it up very well.
So at what point will the pentagon and admin connect the manpower reductions with not having enough people to do the missions they order?
This is one example; there are more.
Sadly I don’t think they have the capacity to draw the straight line between those dots…and therein I suspect lies the meat of the issue.
The issue is probably related to economics – the draw-down in support staff for the drone pilots. There are no longer enough waiters available to bring required glasses of ice tea to the drone operators within the previously specified 45-second wait-time. Oh, the agony, the humiliation…
It’s the Air Force FFS.
Give them a new medal and they’ll be happy.
http://militarytimes.com/daily-news/2013/02/14/new-medal-for-drone-pilots-and-cyber-warriors.html
That medal didn’t last too long if I remember. Must have been a lot brokenhearted drone operators…. I say bring back that medal, make it just a little bit prettier, and the boys will stop their bitching and be happy once again! 😀
How’s that working for the nuke groundhogs btw?
This article struck a nerve–if the AF is a bunch of complainers, I’d hate to watch some of you guys complain when I took my RPA and went home while you were getting your balls shot off by the Taliban in bad weather and the manned aircraft had called it a day. Thing is, we stay on station, and we like helping out however we can for those of you unfortunate enough to be there in person. We don’t want any fucking medals either.
RPAs do require pilots–do they need 4 year degrees? Maybe not, but it is a little harder than your average RC plane flying around your back yard. Try explaining to the American people how you ran into a C-130 full of grunts flying out of the same airbase as you because you were not a fully qualified pilot and didn’t know what the hell you were doing…
The thing is, RPAs are cost effective–but they are so useful that everybody just wants more. Do you have any idea the logistics trail to keep an F-16 on station for the same amount of flying time a Predator can? Then multiply that by 65…
Bullnuke, you can bite me. We haven’t had bottle service for years.
The Army has had fully-qualified pilots w/o 4 year degrees for, oh, the last 5 or 6 decades, RPA man. They’re called “Warrant Officers”.
They operate in the same airspace as do fixed-wing aircraft, sometimes out of the same airfields. They transport troops and cargo. Some also fly armed aircraft and engage the enemy.
The USAF had Warrant Officers as well at one time. Sounds to me like an old idea that might be worthwhile for the USAF to investigate.
Hondo, I agree, the WO route is worth looking at–the bottom line is that they are pilots, and usually damned good ones in my limited experience. I am not sure it would be much cheaper than officers though, but I could be wrong.
Yes, Aviation WOs are generally very good at flying. They’re largely allowed to focus on doing that throughout their careers.
The numbers say it would be considerably cheaper, actually. W4 pay doesn’t exceed that for an O3 until a W4 has 20+ years of service; ditto W3 until 26 years of service. The same is true of W1s vs O1s and W2s vs O2s at virtually all years of service common to the Aviation community (e.g., those who get selected for WO early in a career). Plus, not all that many WOs make W4.
I believe most rated USAF and USN aviators are O3 or above these days. I could be wrong, though.
About 3 years ago when I was at COP Waza Khwa, there were contractors flying the Shadow there. Speculation as to how much they were paid would not be responsible, so I won’t speculate.
Most rated USAF aviators are O-3s, but the cost I was talking about is sending them through pilot training, which would be about the same for a WO. I have not added up the pay differential for a career, and yes, it would be nice to focus solely on flying and not performance reports.
Well, if most (e.g., more than 50%) are O3s, then it kinda goes without saying that most are indeed “O3 or above”. (smile)
Yes, flight training costs would likely be a wash. But if the average monthly base pay difference is a few hundred $$ and you’re talking, oh, 5,000 WO pilots in lieu of the same number of commissioned pilots, that’s not exactly a negligible difference, either.
My nephew is a O-2 Naval Aviator.
… Let me put it thusly: the United States Air Force will DISBAND itself and the COS will personally throw a thermite grenade in every single cockpit and/or avionics bay before they allow NCOs and/or resurrected WOs to fly a drone. Once you let…THEM….fly a drone, then they’ll want to upset the natural balance of things and they’ll want to fly Everything Else, and that way lies madness.
Mike
The Air Force has been flying drones since the 1960s. An incompetent negligent drone operator that happens to be a pilot is also an incompetent negligent operator as a pilot of a manned aircraft.
I do understand the logistic tail needed to keep o F-16 or any other manned aircraft on station. The significant difference is the operator cannot be switched out (replaced) with a relief operator during the sortie.
I also understand a manned and unmanned aerial vehicle can only carry so much munitions into tactical active combat airspace. Thus loiter time overhead is useless once all the munitions are expended.
I do also understand the over the horizon communications tether limitation existing between drone operator and the drone.
Regarding “Try explaining to the American people how you ran into a C-130 full of grunts flying out of the same airbase as you because you were not a fully qualified pilot”, is an argument that gets compromized when incidents such as the following happens –>
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/21/us/pilot-also-blamed-for-air-force-crash-that-killed-23-gi-s.html
Johca, for the Gray Eagle there is no over-the-horizon communication tether. However there is a limitation on the available satellite channels – no channel, no fly.
The Gray Eagle also has good cameras and a designator. If it runs out of ordnance, other platforms can target from the designator. And it has radios that can relay ground pounder UHF radio to the FOB. And it doesn’t have to come home until it runs out of diesel.
This is a good aircraft. Take a look.
Last time I checked, unless you’re within 25-30 miles of the distant end a satellite link is by definition “over the horizon” comm.
You say, “BullNuke you can bite me!”
I say, “I will do it for him and feed your 2 inch to a wild pig!”
You sound like you are whining!
Your condisending questions of comparison to other specialties speaks volumes …
Most USAF stuff annoys me unless it is related to Tier 1 ops!
I was just wondering how much a tank cost and who “Pilots” those handy dandy little killing machines.
I bet if we told the Ring Knockers that WWJD
Who Would Jesus Drone there would be a line out the door to do their Patriotic Christian Duty.
It is a good thing that it is the USAF and not the Air Force of the US, that would AFU.
They work 12-hour shifts, six days on, one day off. Their one-day off is when they are allowed to book medical and admin appointments. They blow people up and keep others from getting blown up, and they’re not deployed so it’s not like they come back to a hooch and de-compress with their team. No they finish a real-world mission so they can come home and listen to their spouse complain about having to live in the shit hole of Clovis New Mexico. Listen how their spouse can’t find a job in the damn town to pay their slumlord’s jacked up rent. Or if they live on base they can listen to their kids complain about riding the school systems shitty busses 45 minutes each way to school, just so they can avoid getting their asses kicked by the wonder children of the Land Of Entrapment’s finest convicts. All so they can be called video game players by their fellow service members. I didn’t work in the drone world. But they were my patients for 5 years. I saw the RPA world suck the soul out of a lot of promising Airmen. Yeah, they’re just complainers.
“Sh!t hole” is relative, AverageNCO. I’m thinking 12 hr shifts, 6-on-1-off plus go home to one’s spouse at night would sound pretty good to anyone who’d spent a year in, oh, Iraq or Afghanistan getting shot at periodically. Or who ended up doing a deployment to Kuwait or Qatar (though Qatar did have some amenities that Kuwait did not).
Hell, as I recall we had folks doing 12-hr shifts at times in Korea in selected activities during the mid-1980s due to personnel shortages. Can’t remember if they were working 5-on-2-off or 6-on-1-off, though. But in either case, going home to see their family at the end of the shift wasn’t usually an option there either.
But maybe that’s just me.
We worked Mon-Sat in Korea in 1994-95. It was their way of keeping the blotter report lower. Not sure if that really helped.
I’ll call BS.
That wasn’t work, it was mandatory fun.
You are correct on the reason.
Korea 93-95
I’m done. I apologize for trying to stick up for my friends. I know they’re not in harms way so I guess they don’t deserve any slack. And I encourage everyone to take their next family vacation to scenic Clovis, New Mexico.
I’ve visited Cannon AFB, AverageNCO. I’ve also been to Baghdad, Kabul, Bagram, Kuwait, Qatar, and most US installations in Korea north of Seoul.
I’d take a tour at Cannon any day over those other duty stations I named. As I said previously: “sh!thole” is relative.
Do not misinterpret me. Troops engaged in ground combat dearly love and appreciate air support. Ground troops are grateful as hell when they get it, from whatever source – manned or unmanned. Air support has saved an unknown number of friendly lives when the sh!t was hitting the fan. We ground troops “get” that.
But I’ll also say this: when it comes to combat, participating remotely absolutely beats the hell out of seeing it “up close and personal”. Being in combat sounds kinda romantic and exciting – until the first time someone shoots at you, or you receive incoming. Then you realize that the “game” is being played for freaking keeps, and you could go home maimed – or in a box.
For most, that ends the romance PDQ.
The RPA mission is very important; it contributes greatly to the fight. But if anyone participating in RPA missions from a safe rear location really expects much sympathy for their “hard, stressful job” from someone who’s been shot at in combat, I predict they’ll be waiting a long time to see it.
Sometimes long distance is indeed far better than being there.
“No they finish a real-world mission so they can come home and listen to their spouse complain about having to live in the shit hole of Clovis New Mexico. Listen how their spouse can’t find a job in the damn town to pay their slumlord’s jacked up rent.”
Hey, the SM picked the spouse and chose to have kids. I bet they even picked their own career field.
It’s called “selfless service” for a reason.
And yea, “shithole” is way effing relative. If they get to go home to sleep in bed and have a cold one after shift, they are way ahead in the comfort department. And it is whining, akin complaining about a lack of satellite TV in the war zone.
Prima Donna much?
http://www.broadside.net/2011andbefore/M110103-01.htm
Exactly right, Hondo.
My first command after being commissioned was a unit that directly supported a squadron. I arrived a couple of months after the first Gulf War was over and the medals from the war were starting to arrive. It was something to watch, a veritable awards smorgasbord. Junior Sailors walking around looking like Soviet generals.
Anyway, one of the guys who worked for me was a world champion bitcher and moaner. If a bitchin’ Sailor is a happy Sailor, this man was living in a permanent state of ecstasy.
He constantly moaned how the buffet at the FIVE STAR HOTEL they stayed at in Bahrain during the war was the same every day. Constantly. I finally told him that it would be wise if he never, ever expressed that complaint in the company of Marines and Soldiers who choked on desert sand for six months. They might get a little upset. He shut up after that.
Oh, and I saw the hotel they stayed at when I deployed to Manama during Southern Watch. Most def a five star hotel. Spectacular.
Yessir, misery is a relative concept.
I don’t know what the problem is. We can get trained pilots right here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IANwb_qT1gg&feature=player_embedded
The pay is peanuts, and maybe some corn, plus a treehouse for the kids.
Bahahahahaha. Good one.
I will volunteer if I can get a cool chair.
And a cooler.
And Cheetos!
What? No beer?
Not allowed during duty hrs unless it’s NA beer, Ex-PH2. And that NA stuff is generally pretty damn nasty.
Why do RPA operators wear flight suits?
Do the height and weight requirements for real-world pilots apply to RPA operators?
If an RPA operator has to take a leak during a mission, what does he or she do?
An RPA operator in the USAF must be a college-educated officer. Thus, an officer who majored in Women’s Studies is okay but an EM without a degree but with three years of study at, say, Dowling School of Aviation is not okay.That makes sense.
When there are potential ambushes and IEDs embedded on New Mexico roadways, among other unnerving potentialities, I suppose that more understanding will be coming the RPA operators’ way.
Hey Air Cav I can answer some of those.
I wear a flight suit because I graduated pilot training, and will be damned if they can take it away just because I fly RPAs now.
Some med stuff is waived for RPAs, which is why I am here.
You get another pilot to give you a pee break, or you go in a bottle or something.
My women’s studies degree has done me just fine.
For the guy who went to school for three years, sorry, life’s not fair, you should have finished school and gone to OTS.
We don’t want pity, I know it sucks where you work, I have seen it. Just stop hating on us when we are trying to help you, and some dweeb releases a staff memo that somehow makes the news.
BTW, I like engaging IED emplacers most of all…
dude, you rock! Bug splat.
Just one more question. You said “You get another pilot to give you a pee break, or you go in a bottle or something.”
Who brings you the bottles?
Oh, hooters waitresses. Sorry I left that out.
There is no hate. It is very difficult for some to cultivate a–how shall I put it?– sense of empathy when school bus rides, commutes, spousal issues, and long days at the office are presented as burdens. Those are the burdens other service members long for. So, as others have said here, it’s all relative. But, truly, there is no hate, or anything approaching hate.
I would say that real world problems still have to be dealt with while you’re downrange. You just aren’t dealing with them in-person downrange, but they are still there.
But at the end of the day, some of you are taking as “hate” what others are referring to as “not as harsh as being on a FOB shitting explosions for a year because of chow hall contamination.” (I lost so much weight the first two months I was in Afghanistan, my pants would fall off without a belt.)
Air Cav, appreciate the words, don’t want to sound like a whiner. Just want to throw it out there that it is big AF that usually presents those burdens, which makes RPA people all look like whiners, when most of us just want to go to work and do our job.
Hondo probably has the right idea in his post about service mentalities. Keep in mind though that each service has it’s sub-cultures, and RPAs are the red-headed step children of the Air Force. Somebody has got to stand up and defend us, such as we are.
Uhm, it’s the Daily Beast, right? Wow. Just wow.
12 hour shifts with a whole day off?
………that’s cute.
I recall getting about 3 hours off, to shuttle my people to the only working, finally, shower point on Al Kut. Grabbed some more MRE’s, water, and Rip-Its on the way out, and returned to the checkpoint.
12 hours? pfft.
Do not forget Happy Hour!
432nd was my old squadron at Udorn. Home of the Hunters and All Weather fighters. Of course the closest I got to a cockpit was the exhaust blast on my bunker when they took off. So now they operate drones, cool. As a low end security specialist working base defense, I learned only pilots receive medals in the Air Force. Guys on the ground rarely received recognition, a lot of this is due the fact it was a newer branch of the service. Recognition awards where not implemented early on. No CAB type stuff, until recently. So it looks like brass has taken awards to the other end of the scale now. Now it seems medals are numerous and handed out like candy. Flying Drones is a respectable job, maybe a theater medal is appropriate. But,your not putting your life on the line every time you fly. I think a little respect to the guys in the field is appropriate, they earn respect and awards by risking their lives. Let’s keep things in perspective, sounds like a little sucking it up would be appropriate. Better training as what to expect for flying drones and the expectations and rewards. It’s a job that saves lives no doubt and an honorable occupation, nothing to hang your head low about.
JimW, I agree with you, it is an honorable job, and not nearly as hard as actually being there. Keep in mind most of the complainers are the ones who quit and got out, and shouldn’t be talking to the news. I would say most RPA pilots/SOs have a very high respect for what the guys on the ground are doing, and some of us would rather be helping them out than flying rubber dog doo to Hong Kong.
There’s nothing the Air Force can do that the Army can’t do better.
The Army could and would bring back the flying Sergeants program and fly the A-10’s the AF has been trying to dump for years, but the AF is so damn jealous of anything that has wings and a gun they will never allow that.
When the Army mounted machine guns on their helicopters in Vietnam, the AF got their panties in a wad and demanded the Army turn those birds over to them. “If it flies and has a gun, it’s ours.” So the Army had to hang their machine guns from rubber bands for awhile until that crap got straightened out.
The Army couldn’t call Close Air Support CAS because that was the damn AF’s mission so we had to call it Close In Fire Support, CIF.
It goes on, but I am getting tired.
Fuck the damn AF. Bring them back into the Army where they belong.
They’ve been dragooning people into RPA slots for a decade or so because they can’t get volunteers. THAT is the real issue–why is RPA duty considered to be undesirable?
Because it’s not a cutting-edge high-tech supersonic fighter, Poohbah.
Back in the 1980s, Carl Builder of the Rand Corporation did a study on the differences between the mindsets of the various military services. The book was called The Masks of War.
His thesis was that the three services (Navy, USAF, Army) each prayed at different “altars”. For the Navy, that altar was “tradition”. The USAF altar was “technology”; the Army’s, a more amorphous concept of “service to nation”. (In later writings, Builder indicated the USMC’s omission was accidental and that he would have called the USMC’s altar the concept of “honor”.) His thesis was that a service’s altar served as an internal guideline for how that service responded institutionally, and could be used to predict their behavior in times of interservice competition.
This IMO explains quite well the USAF’s willingness to junk the A-10 and CAS missions (not high-tech enough to be interesting); their embrace of satellites and, previously, missile technology; their death-grip-like retention of colossally-expensive systems of marginal utility, like the B2, F22, and F35; and their current “balls-to-the-wall” movement towards cyber. If it’s cutting edge tech, for the USAF it’s a “must have”. Anything that isn’t high-tech enough doesn’t seem to interest the USAF as an institution, even if it something of great military utility (like RPAs and the CAS mission).
I have not found any work from the past 40 years that better explains the differences in service mindsets and behaviors than Builder’s book. It’s nearly 30 years old now, but IMO should still be required reading for anyone going to a joint command/agency/duty assignment.
This is one of the reasons I keep coming here. Even from veterans who’ve been out for longer than I’ve been in, we can still learn things.
I’ll have to check that out, thanks for the name drop. I’ve read a few books based on them being mentioned here.
I don’t think you’ll regret it if you do, Eric. It’s dated now; it was written during the Reagan Administration, either just before or after Goldwater-Nichols became law. But nearly 30 years later it’s still so damn on-target that it’s scary.
The problem is that the USAF is in charge of its personnel system, and can set its priorities.
RPA duty is, on the one hand, important enough to dragoon talent into billets. On the other hand, filling an RPA billet is a career killer, and will thus (a) ensure the billet filler leaves at the end of their service obligation, and (b) ensure that the USAF never gets any degree of corporate memory in RPA, thus preventing the field from reaching its potential. This in turn completely undermines the USAF’s worship at the altar of technology…
What you’re describing is an insane asylum…that’s being run by the inmates.
That’s true to some extent in each service, Poobah. Each service is in some respects the proverbial “self-licking ice cream cone”. However, the USAF also IMO seems to be perpetually caught up in chasing the next “bright shiny object”. If it’s new and novel, they appear to want it – badly. Hell, the fact that the USAF had institutionalized that “need for the new” was the motto “Higher-Faster-Farther”? That mindset cost a shitload of USAF pilots (and USN pilots, because for a time Naval aviation bought into the same fallacies regarding aircraft design) dearly when they had to, you know, perform in actual air-to-air combat in Vietnam. The difference is that the USN’s focus on tradition keeps this from getting out of hand; ditto the USMC’s focus on honor. Both stay more grounded as a result. The US Army’s perpetual “boom/bust” expansions do much the same – during lean times, fiscal pressures tend to weed out the concepts and equipment that don’t work worth a damn. Unfortunately, the USAF doesn’t seem to have anything that keeps the USAF as an institution in touch with the same reality (USAF personnel often are well aware of the “real deal”). Those that take the “company line” get ahead; those that don’t, leave. And the “company line” is, “High-tech is good, and we gotta be higher-tech than anyone else!” From what I’ve seen over nearly 40 years, they truly are the service most insulated from the military reality of, “It works, or we sh!tcan it and find something (or some work-around) that does.” They always seem to be looking for that next “high-tech breakthrough” that will fix everything – starting with supersonic flight thru guided missiles (SAM and strategic), nuclear-powered aircraft (that was actually investigated during the 1950s), high speed/high altitude flight, satellites, stealth, and now cyber. Plus probably a bunch of other stuff that doesn’t come immediately to mind. Technology is constantly changing, and new technology does fundamentally change things from time to time. But high tech isn’t a panacea for all ills – and the technology that changes things generally isn’t “bleeding… Read more »
Maybe the AF should talk to Congress about working on your personnel budget issues? Perhaps there needs to be an increase in RPA positions so you have enough that people aren’t overworked? Oh, wait, that was already done, sort of: http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=42963 Realize something “Air Force” someone always has it tougher, more painful, works more hours, etc. I’m a lowly Army Civil Affairs guy, but my job is to be deployed. When I’m not deployed I sit in an office and tell Majors why they are being whiny bitches and to get their suspenses done and do training to standard like they’re supposed to. (CA Company commanders are O-4s by the way.) When we’re deployed, we’re linked in with combat arms. My team was fortunate enough to support 4 awesome units in a row (yes, four frackin’ maneuver units came thru our FOB before we rotated out…long story). We had to walk up and down those mountains with the platoons, just like the combat arms. However, we lived a little better, had things a little easier and worked well with those guys. They still had it tougher regardless, we just had a different job. Though, we still pulled stand-to, pulled security, maintained our own gear, and showed them we were competent and could hang with them. They still looked and said, “Those guys have got it so fuckin’ easy!” because we did in comparison to them. (I’m guessing I probably caused at least 50 troops to look into CA after they got home.) I will say though, a Civil Affairs Specialist (E-4) has more capability to cause an international incident than an Infantry Bn Cdr (O-5) does because of what we do, where we work, and the things we have to deal with in foreign gummints, DoS, etc. I as a lowly E-7 sat in meetings and helped determine policy in the same meetings as Flag Officers and State Dept SES members. But again, we have it easy compared to the poor infantry platoon on the ground humping for 12 hours, then coming back and having to pay “FOB Taxes” (Details),… Read more »
Eric, you’re welcome for the air support, glad you made it back safe. I know you have it tougher.
Hmmm. “Tougher” can be such a relative term.
I am sure that Oblowme could solve this problem quickly.
All he has to do is send the Gitmo prisoners he is releasing to the same place they were captured to Drone Pilot and Space Shuttle Gunner school !!!
After that, he could empty out death row because he knows that those people are just good people that got mixed up because us civilian and Veteran types are causing all of them to commit crimes !!!
They are used to killing so they could do that and fix the Chair Force too !!!
Kidding about the chair force gentlemen.
And I use that term “gentlemen” rather loosely considering the group I am a very happy part of here…
Those darned inferior NCOs lacking engineering degrees. I mean, who would dare think that guys like Chuck Yeager could ever fly a combat aircraft, or even a lowly RPV. 😉
IF drone pilots were doing 6 x 12 hour per week shifts for extended periods, burn out may be an issue. But I cannot find evidence that they work that hard.
Per one story, “Air Force studies have also found that working long hours was one of the top five reasons for stress among personnel in RPA squadrons. In the studies, over 57 percent of respondents reported that they worked more than 50 hours per week. In addition, the studies found that over 40 percent of respondents reported that performing administrative duties added hours to their work week and was the third-highest reason for stress among active-duty RPA personnel, the GAO states.”
According to that, 40+ percent report working LESS than 50 hours per week. If we ASSUME a tight standard deviation (meaning that few pilots fly a huge amount more than others -I.e. it is unlikely one flies 80 hours per week while another flies 30 or 40), then almost none would fly more than 60 hours a week. Add PT and EO/suicide prevention training ect and you are looking at a 70 hour week TOPS with most working a lot less. The above evidence indicates about 60 hours per week as a max and 50-55 being a norm. Long, but not by Military standards.
Finally, 10 pilots per 24 hour mission? Even if two pilots are needed at any given time, that means 4.8 hours of stick time a day? Even if you only have 50% pilot availability that is a 10 hour mission. CRY ME A RIVER.
I think the morale problem is two fold: 1) they are not “flying” which is what they love to do, and 2)they don’t get promoted.
Hand the stick to a bright E6 and go fly for delta. We are not keeping you.
As a former security specialist with the Air Force, I saw first hand the dismal way certain careers are dealt with. They would treat my career as not worthy. Security specialist field was a dumping ground for misfits. Can’t make it in your specialty or as a cook, then send them to the security field. I enlisted to the field guaranteed, somebody was laughing there ass off over that one.(In my defense I was 17) So working in the missile field was a dead end for your career. That’s where you went if you didn’t kiss enough ass as an officer.
So is drone piloting the new dumping grounds for pilots that cant make the cut anymore, or don’t kiss the right ass. Sure looks like it. Not sure how there going to fix the mess that’s been created. Working missiles and drone pilots is a dead end. Way to go Air Force. Its hard to fix stupid.
Overseas, I did my job and liked it as well. Living on the base has a lot of perks, hot showers and meals for one. Sit in a bunker all night, and then go to sleep in a hut with a fan on the ceiling and a bug net. Whats not to like about that. Had it pretty good.
As someone currently on a drone/intel base, basically. Security Forces and Services is the misfit dumping grounds, MCCC/Headquarters Comm support is the bad luck draw (never enough people to let anyone PCS out), and drone op is just the newest dumping field.
Basically, the “New” Air Force is about kissing ass and biting your tongue when you look around and can watch your peers fuck up with aplomb on the regular and still walk away with Airman/NCO/SNCCO of the quarter.
I probably should have said fuck it and gone Army Intel, god knows I’d actually be doing my job.
Perhaps the Air Force could free up some personnel funding from the ‘Tops in Blue’ or by clearing out the deadwood, meaning anybody involved with, the pointless ‘Professional Military Education’ ziggurat.
“Soul sucking,” that’s a very good way to describe it.
Should you ever met someone from the Air Force who did a real duty, actually did things, UAV folks, aircrews, JTAC/TACP/CCT, maintenance folks (who got their hands dirty) just to name a few, thank them. And understand that whatever they did, they pretty much did wholly of their own volition, they serve in an organization that feels that the whole GWOT was nothing more than a distraction.
Look to the comments of the then AF Chief of Staff and his CMSgt about ending the “in-lieu-of taskings,” “Airmen need to get back to doing Airmen things.” Which apparently does not include fighting our nation’s wars.
The United States Air Force is broken in a profound and tragic way. I doubt that it will ever be able to heal itself.
Preach the gospel, PJS.
Amazing how the Navy can take a 18-20 year old “yute” and train them to run a nuclear power plant worth several hundred million dollars, but the AF can’t find an enlisted group capable of being trained how to fly a drone worth a few million?
Do tell.
Oh, and if you think Clovis sucks, try living in some of the other “garden spots” of NM such as Las Cruces, Roswell, Gallup, Grants, Espanola, or pretty much anywhere in Albuquerque metro.
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