“I asked him if the AF had started using enlisted drone pilots yet.”
I guess that flying some hi-tech multi-million dollar drone with lots of sophisticated lethal weapons over hundreds of miles through all-weather conditions might require pilot skills, but there are a lot of simple drones now that la-de-da-de, everybody can operate - man/woman, child/adult, able bodied/disabled, even Officer/Enlisted.
Necessity is the mother of invention. I’m pretty sure that if the Ukraine needs 50,000 expendable little drones piloted next month, it is going to be Enlisted folks operating them.
The other services see it as a skill and a talent and know that rank has nothing to do with it.
At least that was the situation a few years ago.
I haven’t looked into this question for years, I wonder how the Ukrainians are handling it.
Here is an old article about drone drivers from 2014.
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htmoral/articles/20140421.aspx
I think the issue isn’t officer or enlisted, or having both, but that we need a separate category for drone pilots.
Drone pilots can all be officers, or all warrant officers, or all whatever it takes to make them happy, but we do need to recognize that the type of person drawn to drone flying is not the same as the type who wants to fly F-22s in combat.
Pretending that ‘Maverick’ will make a career of the Air Force when assigned to sit at a drone console for 30 years isn’t realistic, we need to hire and train drone flyers, as drone flyers, whatever title/rank we use for them, their temperament/personality has to fit what they will be doing.
My first job in the Army was FDC, slide rules and clean uniforms, I hated it and had joined the Army to do Army stuff, I had to beg to get out of that and into the more gritty stuff, there is probably a vast pool of the young who are eager to train as drone flyers, hire them, train them, send them to a school for law and decision making, call them an officer, or a Specialist, or a Warrant officer, don’t try to force Top Gun guys to like it, they will quit the Air Force.
Here is a video on drone pilots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ety7mzhcEIw