{"id":19143,"date":"2012-08-23T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-23T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=19143"},"modified":"2012-08-20T02:12:33","modified_gmt":"2012-08-20T05:12:33","slug":"the-era-of-the-fighter-pilot-replaced-by-the-drone-pilot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/23\/the-era-of-the-fighter-pilot-replaced-by-the-drone-pilot\/","title":{"rendered":"The Era of the Fighter Pilot Replaced by the Drone Pilot?"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Air Force Times <\/em>article has an interesting summation<\/a> of the feelings about RPA\/UAV pilots in the Air Force:<\/p>\n

Becoming a fighter pilot is still a hotly coveted goal at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.
\n\u00a0
\nBut slowly, a culture change is taking hold.
\n\u00a0
\nInitially snubbed as second-class pilot-wannabes, the airmen who remotely control America’s arsenal of lethal drones are gaining stature and securing a permanent place in the Air Force.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article then says part of the reason for the “draw” to the drone career is the very-public successes of drone missions:\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Drawn to the flashy drone strikes that have taken out terrorists including al-Qaida leader Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen to the terror group’s No. 2 strongman Abu Yahya al-Libi in Pakistan, airmen are beginning to target unmanned aircraft as their career of choice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, few noticed that analysis relies on a very significant assumption:\u00a0 That al-Awlaki and al-Libi were killed by UAVs.\u00a0 It may not matter, as the perception is what may be driving the attraction.<\/p>\n

The article completely ignores a potentially more significant factor in the decision to become a UAV pilot: UAV pilots are far more likely to stay home with their families, compared to fighter pilots who are deployed anywhere from 3 to 6 months every 18 to 24 months.<\/p>\n

In other words, young fighter pilots are getting burned out and are taking UAV tours because they’re a break, relatively speaking.\u00a0 That’s not to say the UAV operators don’t work hard, but at the end of their mission they’re still in the US of A (most of them, anyway), and they still see their families.\u00a0 It’s a quality of life issue as much as anything else.<\/p>\n

Only now are the first UAV operators who have never previously been a pilot entering the field.\u00a0 It would be interesting to see their response if they were offered a fighter jet instead of their control console, as opposed to those who have experienced that life already.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The article continues the awkward tradition of only using UAV operator’s first names:<\/p>\n

Drone pilot Maj. Ted began his Air Force career as an F-16 pilot but shifted to flying drones…The U.S. military doesn’t allow drone pilots to make their full names public because of concerns the pilots could be targeted.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Apparently there’s no concern that pilots of manned aircraft might be targeted, since the Air Force allows not only full names, call signs, and hometowns, but also video interviews<\/a> summarizing their combat missions to be broadcast around the world and on the internet.<\/p>\n

Are the streets of Indian Springs really that much less secure than those in Italy and the Middle East?\u00a0 Maybe its just another way to add to the mystique…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Air Force Times article has an interesting summation of the feelings about RPA\/UAV pilots in the Air Force: Becoming a fighter pilot is still a hotly coveted goal at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. \u00a0 But slowly, a culture change is taking hold. \u00a0 Initially snubbed as second-class pilot-wannabes, the airmen who remotely control America’s arsenal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[3497,13,894,547,5285,53],"class_list":["post-19143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fighter-pilot","tag-abu-yahya-al-libi","tag-aircraft","tag-al-qaeda","tag-anwar-al-awlaki","tag-fighter-pilot","tag-uav"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}