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United States Air Force Needs a Few Hundred Good Drone Pilots
The military brass in charge of America's drones say that there's a shortage of pilots.
According to The New York Times, a "significant number" of the 1,200 United States Air Force pilots are "coming up for re-enlistment and are opting to leave, while a training program is producing only about half of the new pilots that the service needs."
Col. James Cluff, commander of the Air Force's 432nd Wing, invited the Times along with a few other media onto the decade-old nerve center of drone operations outside of Las Vegas on Tuesday. He told them that the Air Force has pulled instructors from schools to the "flight line." The agency now conducts 65 drone flights a day, a number that is expected to drop to 60 by fall 2015.
With the rise of the Islamic State and other global hotspots, there is increasing pressure on the Air Force to provide more drone flights. But while drone operators get to see their families at night and are half a globe away from their targets, it still takes a toll.
"Having our folks make that mental shift every day, driving into the gate and thinking, 'All right, I've got my war face on, and I'm going to the fight,' and then driving out of the gate and stopping at Wal-Mart to pick up a carton of milk or going to the soccer game on the way home—and the fact that you can't talk about most of what you do at home—all those stressors together are what is putting pressure on the family, putting pressure on the airman," Col. Cluff said.
Any takers?
USAF Cuts Drone Flights as Stress Drives Off Operators
The NYT reports that the US is being forced to cut back on drone flights as America's drone operators are burning out and the Air Force is losing more drone pilots than they can train. "We're at an inflection point right now," says Col. James Cluff, the commander of the Air Force's 432nd Wing. Drone missions increased tenfold in the past decade, relentlessly pushing the operators in an effort to meet the insatiable demand for streaming video of insurgent activities in Iraq, Afghanistan and other war zones, including Somalia, Libya and now Syria. The biggest problem is that a significant number of the 1,200 pilots are completing their obligation to the Air Force and are opting to leave. Colonel Cluff says that many feel "undermanned and overworked," sapped by alternating day and night shifts with little chance for academic breaks or promotion.
What had seemed to be a benefit of the job, the novel way that the crews could fly Predator and Reaper drones via satellite links while living safely in the United States with their families, has created new types of stresses as they constantly shift back and forth between war and family activities and become, in effect, perpetually deployed. The colonel says the stress on the operators belied a complaint by some critics that flying drones was like playing a video game or that pressing the missile fire button 7,000 miles from the battlefield made it psychologically easier for them to kill. "Everyone else thinks that the whole program or the people behind it are a joke," says Brandon Bryant, a former drone camera operator who worked at Nellis Air Force Base, "that we are video-game warriors, that we're Nintendo warriors."
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday June 17 2015, @09:31PM
So being a drone pilot is actually somewhat more stressing and harder then playing a video game. Who could have guessed? Everyone. If someone had thought that the next generation of soldiers, or airmen, would have trained themselves with their homekillingsimulators (aka video-games) was clearly somewhat optimistic.
I somehow think that the drain have very little to do with working nights. I would think it far more likely the drain comes from you being like the angel of death as you stare at your screen, send missiles and then wipe out large swats of enemies at the push of some buttons or turn of a key. In some aspects they might be more like snipers then normal soldiers. They (have to) see EVERYTHING on an almost industrial scale as they stare at the screen and witness carnage over and over again day after day. I'm sure there might be "boring" off-days where they mostly see sand our buildings where nothing happens. But I'm not certain that makes up for the other days. There just are no, or few, breaks it seems which as always lead to burnout. That soldiers break shouldn't really come as news to the military. You don't perpetually deploy "normal" soldiers so killing from the office shouldn't really be all that different.
I wonder if there will be a large civilian or corporate (PMC) market for drone pilots. I guess more and more police use drones for surveillance or they can become Amazon Drone Pilots that monitor book (and stuff) deliveries -- that might also be a recipe for going postal.
Would I want to be a drone pilot? Pass. I never liked flight-simulators.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Thursday June 18 2015, @01:37PM
You actually have it backwards. The action is quite rare. MOST days there is nothing "interesting" to monitor, let alone shoot at. The entirety of the average shift is spent staring at landscape and buildings where nothing happens. In my mind, this could also be a considerable contributor to the burnout - instead of going in and flying actual combat missions every day (and drone flights last considerably longer than most conventional aircraft sorties - loiter time is one of the stated advantages of drones), these guys are sitting there for hours or days at a stretch, flying the equivalent of Desert Bus [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday June 18 2015, @05:34PM
Yes. I think you might be right. There is probably a lot more down time then killing time. Which makes it even more depressing. You get PTSD from blowing shit up and just staring at the sand and water as your drone is going on its GPS-rails.