Posted on 01/05/2015 9:46:29 PM PST by Jet Jaguar
Too many missions and too few pilots are threatening the ‘readiness and combat capability’ of America’s unmanned Air Force, according to an internal memo. The U.S. Air Force’s fleet of drones is being strained to the “breaking point,” according to senior military officials and an internal service memo acquired by The Daily Beast. And it’s happening right when the unmanned aircraft are most needed to fight ISIS.
The Air Force has enough MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drones. It just doesn’t have the manpower to operate those machines. The Air Force’s situation is so dire that Air Combat Command (ACC), which trains and equips the service’s combat forces, is balking at filling the Pentagon’s ever increasing demands for more drone flights.
“ACC believes we are about to see a perfect storm of increased COCOM [Combatant Commander] demand, accession reductions, and outflow increases that will damage the readiness and combat capability of the MQ-1/9 enterprise for years to come,” reads an internal Air Force memo from ACC commander Gen. Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle, addressed to Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh. “I am extremely concerned.”
“ACC will continue to non-concur to increased tasking beyond our FY15 [fiscal year 2015] force offering and respectfully requests your support in ensuring the combat viability of the MQ-1/9 platform,” Carlisle added.
In other words, the Air Force is saying that its drone force has been stretched to its limits. “It’s at the breaking point, and has been for a long time,” a senior service official told The Daily Beast. “What’s different now is that the band-aid fixes are no longer working.”
In the internal memo, Carlisle noted that the Air Force’s current manning problem is so acute that the service will have to beg the Pentagon to reconsider its demand for 65 drone combat air patrols, or CAPs, as early as April 2015. (Each CAP, also known as an “orbit,” consists on four aircraft.)
But senior military leaders in the Pentagon have been pushing back hard against any reduction in the number of drone orbits, particularly as demand has surged in recent months over Iraq and Syria because of the war against ISIS. In fact, the Pentagon is so fervent in its demand for more Predator and Reaper patrols that the top military brass made an end run to bypass regular channels to increase the number of drone orbits, the ACC alleges.
“The reduced offering of 62 CAPs (plus a 60-day Global Response Force) has been submitted to the Joint Staff; however, the Joint Staff has indicated their desire to circumvent normal processes while proposing their own offering of 65 MQ-1/9 CAPs,” Carlisle wrote. “This simply is not an option for ACC to source indeterminately.”
Carlisle writes that the Air Force would want a crew ratio of 10 to one for each drone orbit during normal everyday operations. During an emergency that ratio could be allowed to drop to 8.5 people per orbit. However, the Air Force is so strapped for people that the ratio has dropped below even that reduced level.
“ACC squadrons are currently executing steady-state, day-to-day operations (65 CAPs) at less than an 8:1 crew-to-CAP ratio. This directly violates our red line for RPA [remotely pilot aircraft] manning and combat operations,” Carlisle wrote. “The ever-present demand has resulted in increased launch and recovery taskings and increased overhead for LNO [liaison officer] support.”
The Air Force has been forced to raid its schools for drone operators to man the operational squadrons that are flying combat missions over places like Iraq and Syria. As a result, training squadrons—called Formal Training Units (FTU)—are being staffed with less than half the people they need. Even the Air Force’s elite Weapons School—the service’s much more extensive and in-depth version of the Navy’s famous Top Gun school—course for drone pilots was suspended in an effort to train new rookie operators.
Overworked drone crews have had their leaves canceled and suffered damage to their careers because they could not attend required professional military education courses.
The result is that drone operators are leaving the Air Force in droves. “Pilot production has been decimated to match the steady demand placed upon the RPA community by keeping ‘all hands’ in the fight,” Carlisle wrote. “Long-term effects of this continued OPSTEMPO are manifested in declining retention among MQ-1/9 pilots, FTU manning at less than 50%, and enterprise-wide pilot manning hovering at about 84%.”
The Air Force has about seven pilots for every eight drone pilot slots, in other words.
But it takes more than just pilots to operate the drone fleet. In addition to the pilots who “fly” the MQ-1s and MQ-9s, there are sensor operators who work the cameras and other intelligence-gathering hardware onboard the unmanned aircraft. Further, there are maintenance crews who have to fix those drones. Perhaps most crucially, drones require hundreds of intelligence analysts who have to comb through thousands of hours of video surveillance footage to understand what the flight crews are watching.
“Some have looked at this as a problem with just RPA pilots and the number of them required for these CAPs, but that ignores the tail required for supporting RPA operations,” a senior Air Force official said. “This tail requires hundreds of man-hours to support every hour of flight in forward operations, maintenance, and most starkly in the processing, exploitation, and dissemination of the intelligence that RPAs create.”
The problem for Carlisle and the Air Force is that even as the demand increases on the drone fleet, fewer new troops enter the ranks while more and more veteran operators vote with their feet.
There are a lot of non-child hot keyboard pilots that could fly drones with massive skills. Just check out some action from the air and ground force simulator game, War Thunder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dojDT1yfzbY
Democrats would rather outsource the whole operation to China to free up tax money for the undocumented Democrat invasion. Products can be made more cheaply in China and for commies, killing is pretty much just another product.
I was with the drones downrange, from the Ravens and Shadows all the way up to the MQ-1.
No commissioned officer was anywhere to be found. The UAV platoons were all run by CW2’s. The operators of the MQ-1’s I worked with were all USAF E-6’s.
PLUS: as of a few years ago, the MQ-9’s are staying as USAF assets, but the MQ-1’s are being farmed out to the Air National Guard. There’s one squadron based out of Whiteman, the other at Nellis.
To fly a drone,you don’t need an Officer rated Pilot.I’m sure the Air Force could find thousands of enlisted men/woman who would be more than capable of flying a drone.
All this is a question of the utilization of resources - mostly money, which for the USAF is to be spend primarily on the prospective fleet of F-35s - an overpriced, lightly armed, ineffective, obsolescent, do-everything badly aircraft.
Maybe the USAF could have all they need to retain drone pilots, analysts, and maintenance crews, plus restarting the F-22 program, and keeping some F-35s, if all the money wasn’t being sucked up by entitlement programs. The current arrangement will only get worse in coming years as these entitlement programs suck up ALL the non-entitlement funding.
And the US military ceases to exist because there is no money to pay for it. Free stuff or a military ... no brainier ... free stuff wins, lefties win, ISIS wins ...
On the bright side, if you are a young guy ... three wives and as many concubines as you can handle ... Laz?
Thanks Jet Jaguar.
> Another genius who can’t make a distinction between Hollywood and reality?
I love the “Terminator” franchise, but the suspension of disbelief necessary by moderately educated professional engineering and science types to enjoy that genre of entertainment is beyond monumental.
Did I really have to put an /s there? I was being entirely sarcastic...
Yup. The USAF continues its spiral into ridiculousness. Someone needs to jerk their chain and HARD.
I see no reason why we can’t have non-commissioned officers flying drones under officer supervision. The other services have warrant officers. The US Army Air Force had Flight Officers.
The USAF needs to start Warrant Officers.
Just read this and it is horrible:
“Drone pilots work six days in a row, for an average of 13 to 14 hours a day. They log 900-1,100 flight hours a year, compared with pilots who fly manned aircraft and put in between 200-300 hours per year, James said.”
I bet they aren’t getting enough breaks, too, and mentally that is exhausting.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/01/15/air-force-taking-steps-to-fill-drone-pilot-shortage/
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