Posted on 05/02/2014 7:37:36 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
In the AF there are certain career dead enders. If you want to rise to senior command you must be a pilot, period. With SAC gone and Global Strike Command still not fully established then you must be either a cargo or fighter pilot. It is best to be a fighter pilot. No drone pilot will see this as an opportunity to rise to senior command. Solution, turn drones over to senior NCO’s. Professional, competent, responsible. Being a Master Sergeant drone pilot will not diminish their chances of promotion to Senior or Chief Master Sergeant.
My suggestion to the 4-Stars was to use Major and Lt. Col pilots coming off of staff jobs to fill the UAV (drone) pilot positions. Their are very few manned aircraft leadership positions that they, as a group, can be assigned to. If they don’t get one of these leadership positions, I can tell you that they would be very happy (or at lease medium happy) to still “fly” something and especially happy to put the crosshairs on a terrorist and schedule him for elimination.
Unfortunately, they went with something they know, a normal career track starting from Lieutenant and trying to have a typical pilot career track. But they quickly busted that concept with the promise of follow on manned aircraft assignments as a carrot. No Lieutenant pilot, fresh out of flight school, wants to sit on the ground while the UAV has all the fun.
Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping!
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I think it’s wonderful that we have technology that allows us to defeat an enemy while putting fewer souls at risk. I hope we stay well ahead of our enemies.
However, it’s hard to imagine that flying a craft remotely will be taken as seriously as flying a craft with the pilot on board. There’s quite an incentive to return and land an aircraft when you’re in it.
Thing become a tad “abstract” if you know you are in a simulator. Especially if the “pilot” is brought up on video games.
Let’s hope we take the real destruction seriously.
O using them so much just helps diminish our military forces and their training.
Used to be that only the best were allowed to fly a RAV because they were usually one of a kind and proof of concept.....that was long ago and far away
pretty grim
So, the Air Force personnel are second best. Can you imagine the fat deputy sheriffs that are flying them?
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