Reuters notes the tensions between common phrases and those who want to control the semantics.

The US Air Force has made a concerted effort to change the lexicon of Predators, Reapers, and other air vehicles that do not have humans onboard.  While traditionally called “UAVs,” or “Unmanned Air Vehicles,” the Air Force is now attempting to popularize the term “RPV,” or “Remotely Piloted Vehicle.”  (See, for example, this official Air Force article which exclusively uses the term “RPV.”)  The intent is to accurately convey the make up of the weapon system:

The change is significant to the Air Force as it recruits a new generation of pilots who may spend little time inside a jet plane. It wants the world to know that humans have “positive control over these vehicles,” [Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley] said.

Unfortunately, the Air Force might become a victim of its own insistence on correct characterization.  For example, it is true that the Predator and Reaper are “remotely piloted.”  An operator sits in a control room with a stick and throttle and “pilots” the vehicle, sometimes from thousands of miles away.  However, that is not true for all such systems.  The Global Hawk, for example, has no stick or throttle.  It is operated by keyboard.  Can the RQ-4 Global Hawk realistically be called “remotely piloted” when an operator pushes the “enter” button to command a takeoff for an autonomous mission, or should another term be coined?

How about Remote Autonomous System with Pilot Suggestions (RASPS)?  Maybe they should just all be called UAVs…

On a related topic, UAV pilots have also been added to the Air Force Weapons School, sometimes described as the Air Force version of the Navy’s Top Gun.  Note that this particular article refers to the aircraft as “UAs.”