Controversy Over UAV Flight Pay
An interesting commentary from Military.com describes an alleged controversy over the decision to give UAV “pilots” flight pay.
The “controversy” is largely speculative, as there has been no public example of the outcry the author describes:
Will we have to come up with new decorations? For the Distinguished Flying Cross shall we create the Distinguished Sitting Cross for “meritorious activity while under seriously remote hostile fire?”
Since there will be no requirements to shield the UAV Operators from high altitude cold, as an added retention incentive the Air Force could provide them with a fake leather jacket, like Naugahyde, for fake pilots.
Still, there is some question as to why a person sitting at a desk in a secure military facility in the United States should earn flight pay:
If you are a…traditional crewmember…You understand a max load takeoff on a short runway in a rainstorm, a hot landing in an ice storm, SAMs on the way, wind shear, or the concussion of an exploding rocket off your wingtip. It’s hard to imagine a UAV operator feeling the rising pucker factor of that type airmanship.
During WWII, 52,173 Airmen were killed in action. Another 13,093 Airmen lost their lives in aircraft accidents. Those aircrews set the standard for all others that followed. Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo, Iraq and all aerial combat and support missions in between.
That said, the military can compensate and incentivize career fields as it sees fit. As has been frequently noted here, operating UAVs is still a largely undesirable job in the US Air Force. The Air Force could simply have chosen to create an incentive pay for UAV career fields in order to encourage volunteerism and retention, without calling it aviation or flight pay. That makes the “controversy” semantic.
The decision was to allow UAV pilots to get gate months. Any pilot gets flight pay regardless of their actual duty for the first 12 years. When they get to the end of those 12 years, pilots must have flown 96 months to continue to get flight pay.
Personnel Command get slammed if a pilot doesn’t make the number of months due to something in their control (like getting assigned UAVs for 5 years). Therefore, the AF said UAV guys get gates months.
For awards: I see your point and I counter with UAV guys not allowed to get anything more than Aerial Achievement Medals. Also, F-16 pilot is landing his aircraft when the base goes under attack. He goes around, little risk to himself. UAV guy hopes that his tin roof will stop the mortars-it’s not like he can just leave his aircraft hanging while he takes cover. Not all UAV pilots are in the states.
This refers to the decision to give incentive flight pay to those UAV operators who were not prior pilots, therefore gate months were not relevant to them specifically. Enlisted aviators (UAV sensor operators) now also qualify for flight pay.
While the military messes up its award systems sometimes, I doubt many people would have problems giving awards to UAV operators who were actually in theatre, particularly if they were under fire. For what its worth, I don’t necessarily agree with the Military.com article, though he does make some interesting points.
JD-
good points. Didn’t catch the non-rated UAV pilot part (commonly referred to as the ‘Beta’ program). In any case, they aren’t getting it now. They may be making a decision to change that, but if so, it has not been implemented.
As the over-arching concern with UAVs: the AF doesn’t have a clear cultural direction mapped out. This post falls squarely in that strategic / doctrinal domain. What is the culture of the RPV (the new way to describe UAV’s)?