Monday, November 14, 2011

The Air Force scandal being ignored

Strategypage.com

Excerpt:
The U.S. Army has used a combination of NCOs and Warrant Officers to operate its larger UAVs, and that program has been a success. But senior U.S. Air Force commanders have publicly rejected growing calls from air force commanders that NCOs be used as UAV operators. Meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force struggles to train enough UAV operators a year, while the U.S. Army has no problem finding and training many more than the air force needs."

(snip)

The U.S. Army has used a combination of NCOs and Warrant Officers to operate its larger UAVs, and that program has been a success. But senior U.S. Air Force commanders have publicly rejected growing calls from air force commanders that NCOs be used as UAV operators. Meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force struggles to train enough UAV operators a year, while the U.S. Army has no problem finding and training many more than the air force needs. Most of the army operators use the small (two kg/4.5 pound) Raven UAV, which provides platoons, companies and vehicle convoys with aerial reconnaissance.

Interestingly, UAV operators each spend about 1,200 hours a year controlling UAVs in the air, versus 450 hours for army helicopter pilots and even less for air force pilots in the combat zone. Most army UAV operators are enlisted troops, while all air force ones are officers. The Raven training only lasts 80 hours, but this tiny UAV was designed for ease of use. It takes about five times longer to train operators for larger UAVs like Shadow, Predator and Reaper. The air force points out that the largest UAVs, like the Global Hawk, can cross oceans, and requires a high degree of training and skill. But it's much more dangerous to fly a Raven within rifle range of enemy troops, and keep the little bird alive long enough to get the video feed needed to win the battle. Many of these army Raven operators are very, very good, mainly because they have hundreds of hours experience operating their UAVs while under fire. Few air force UAV drivers can claim this kind of experience.

There are other problems. The U.S. Department of Defense has been putting pressure on the air force to automate their UAV operations. The air force initially responded with complaints that they were overloaded. But then it became widely known that, while army UAVs have software that enables automatic take-off and landing, similar air force UAVs do not, and this has led to higher UAV losses for the air force. At the same time, the navy, and the British, are developing flight control software that allows pilots to control two or more UAVs while flying their own aircraft. In effect, these pilots would fly into combat with two or more UAVs under their control. The U.S. Air Force is under a lot of pressure to make this happen, so one team of UAV operators can control two or more aircraft.

It's not that the air force can't make this happen, it's just that there's a lot of resistance in the air force to replacing pilots with a lot of UAVs. Actually, there's not much at stake in this dispute, other than possibly settling the decades old controversy over whether all pilots must be officers. The other services save a lot of money by using NCOs as UAV controllers. Sergeants and Petty Officers are paid less, and they don't get flight pay. No one has been able to demonstrate any better performance on the part of the air force pilots who operate UAVs. In the long run, the enlisted UAV "pilots" will probably be superior, because they are making a career of this sort of thing.
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