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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: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday June 18 2015, @08:30AM
You want to kill someone who "just might blow up a mall" or a church? Your best bet is to get your gun, step out of your front door and start taking out random members of the public. Any one of them is far more likely to commit an atrocity in your country [bbc.co.uk] than some pre-school kid in Iraq who just happens to be standing near a building which is the workplace of someone who once met a guy whose brother once posted something on a chatboard that might or might not be interpreted as a bit terroristy, because he was pissed off that his entire family were innocent bystanders killed in a drone strike.
Jeez, and you wonder why they hate you. You are an inhuman monster. Fuck off and die.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Friday June 19 2015, @05:24AM
Nearly 14 years ago a friend of mine, a woman married to also a good friend and the mother of 2 wonderful kids, got on a plane to fly back home to California. The plane she was on was one of the 2 that were hijacked by real inhuman monsters who believed that the greatest thing they could do was kill anyone who is not Muslim. They flew these planes with innocent men, women and children on them into the World Trade Center.
Now days others of the same ilk, ISIS inhuman monsters with the same beliefs, Invade a town or city then precede to behead any Christian, Journalist, or aid worker from any European or American country. They then use schools and hospitals as shields to prevent such drone strikes.
So maybe you are one of those folk who think that if you are nice to a jihadist, they will respond to your human kindness, and love you. More than likely if you came into contact with such people they would happily slit your throat.
As for your example of a nutcase hater in a southern state (home to the Klu Klux Klan and the John Birch Society), Yeah, I'd like to take out those monsters also.
And I don't wonder why they hate us. They hate us because they are still fighting the Crusaders from 1000 years ago. The Christian Knights that went to liberate Jerusalem from radical sect of Muslims that had hijacked the teachings of Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib ibn Hāshim and were on a mission to destroy all infidels. Infidel being anyone who didn't ascribe to their version of Islam. Sounds just like today.
I'll die sometime, but with the level of hate you exhibit, I'll likely last longer than you.
Cheers.
When life isn't going right, go left.