Active Duty ping.
> The Air Force has enough MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drones. It just doesn’t have the manpower to operate those machines
Simple solution; form a program named Sky-Net to develop AI for the drones where they can work sutonomously on a network network them so they can perform coordinated attacks...should work just fine.
Just port access to the drones to XBOX LIVE using a VIDEO GAME and problem solved.
A man who had never run so much as a hot dog cart is somehow put in charge of the largest and most complex government on Earth. This is what happens.
Always the Air Force.
“”Unlike its sister services, who have all decided the best way to deal with demand for UAV pilots is to make it an enlisted career field, the Air Force currently insists on holding out for commissioned officers only. That means to fly a UAV in the Air Force, you’ll need a college degree, though not necessarily a pilot’s license. According to Brigadier General Lyn D. Sherlock, in this 2008 interview with Air Force Times, enlisted careers in UAVs are off the table for the moment “because battlefields are complex, joint environments that involve other aircraft and communicating with soldiers and airmen on the ground.”
Seems like plenty of enlisted aircrew already deal with that complexity, but so be it.””
MFL.
Perhaps the AF should turn it over to the Marines.
Since the air force brass can’t figure out the solution, perhaps drone operations should be turned over to the army, together with the staffing slots and funding. If that works out, roll the whole AF back in.
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?
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.