how hard can it be to teach a kid who's been playing games / flight simulators like this his whole life a few new tricks???
Posted on 06/07/2009 3:48:48 AM PDT by zipper
Reporting from Washington -- The Pentagon is preparing to graduate its first pilots of unmanned drones from the elite U.S. Air Force Weapons School -- a version of the Navy's Top Gun program -- in a bid to elevate the skills and status of the officers who fly Predators, one of the military's fastest growing aircraft programs....
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Exactly. Having Air Force pilots (Capt. and above) do this is a terrible waste of money and resources - hell, I will bet that 60 year old former investment bankers could do from the comfort of an industrial park placed anywhere in the country. The idiotic mind-set of the AF preceded the Kenyan Poseur, and he will probably not only not correct the AF position but mandate it for the other branches in order to disminish the military budgets. Send that Kenyan Poseur back to Kenya.
The service that makes the most of the various capabilities of the drones will get the most attention (and funding) from congress.
So far the Air Force has taken the lead.
My point is the Air Force wants you to believe only Officers are capable of flying such complicated machines, only this rationale is destroyed by the Army's Helicopter force.
The Army does use officers -- warrant officers, but officers nonetheless.
If you want a debate about whether pilots with degrees make better pilots, then look no further than the airlines. Every major airline wants their applicants to have a college degree -- and if you don't have one you're not a competitive candidate.
By the way that statement is completely irresponsible, a degrading insult to any and all military pilots, past, future, and present.
Do you have any idea how expensive these weapons systems are? You don't just grab some punk out of a video game parlor to fly these things.
On the other hand I don't think officers just graduating from a year of pilot training should be forced into these roles -- it's draining talent from other, manned weapons systems, and from training command assignments. There are probably plenty of retiring pilots, or permanently medically grounded pilots that could do the job that shouldn't be automatically excluded.
My son would be an outstanding drone operator, except that he has hemophilia and is therefore inelgible for military service.
Which is another waste of talent! There would be a lot of individuals who could serve extremely well in such activities as drone operator, intelligence analyst, etc., who might be non-deployable. Heck, any soldier testing positive for HIV is non-deployable due to the potential to taint the blood supply incountry. But, he/she can serve state-side and free up another to deploy.
Can the military think about this?
[quote]If you want a debate about whether pilots with degrees make better pilots, then look no further than the airlines. Every major airline wants their applicants to have a college degree — and if you don’t have one you’re not a competitive candidate.[/quote]I suspect that this rule was made by people with college degrees. My father at the Naval Research Lab faced this attitude about Ph.D.s. He didn’t have one; yet he accomplished more than was done by 1,000 average Ph.D.s (see GPS, Naval Space Surveillance, etc.).
Every mechanic on the factory floor thinks himself more capable than “the Engineer” but it just ain’t so.
There is more to flying than pushing a joy stick
not a very accurate or intelligent description of a US Marine Corporal...
Im also sure when it came to the nut cutting and killing some body based soley on order from above, no questions, that the herd gets thinned out fast.
They are made More ‘Idiot Proof’ Daily,
and FAA aka Fix After Accident Plays a Role.
I will bet that 60 year old former investment bankers could do from the comfort of an industrial park placed anywhere in the country.
How many WWII aces had degrees?
Sounds like you don’t have what it takes to be a Marine NCO, punk.
how hard can it be to teach a kid who's been playing games / flight simulators like this his whole life a few new tricks???
“There is more to flying than pushing a joy stick”
Any 17 year old little kid can fly a plane...and they do. One of my flight instructors was 80 pounds soaking wet. It doesn’t take physical strength nor extreme intellect to fly a plane.
“Every mechanic on the factory floor thinks himself more capable than “the Engineer” but it just ain’t so.”
Even the Air Force lets college grads with nothing more than history degrees fly planes. They don’t require an engineering degree of any sort.
NO Exercising-Running-Situps-Pullups-etc/PFTest
NO Promotions
NO Annual Fitness Report
Just sit at a terminal and remotely fly a RC Plane.
Good for him, though I suspect there may be a teeny bit of bias in that statement ;)
Who said anything about Marine corporals? Are you saying Marine corporals come from video game parlors?
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