Shift in AF flight culture?
More AF pilots want to "fly" UAVs?
Does anyone know which UAVs require an officer to fly?
Privates fly Ravens in the Army. I realize the AF UAVs are bigger and more $$$$$$.
Quote:
Air Force looks to keep more pilots grounded
By Sig Christenson
San Antonio Express-News
December 23, 2008
The top Air Force flight school students often get the best shot at the hottest planes.
But instead of listing the A-10 Warthog as the first choice on her “dream sheet” of planes she'd like to fly, 2nd Lt. Raquel Dronenburg picked the plane virtually everyone else in her class of 22 had hoped to avoid — the one that will never have room for a pilot in the cockpit.
“I wanted to actually do something productive with my time instead of sitting around and waiting for training to start,” said Dronenburg, one of the top students in the class, explaining that flying a manned aircraft meant delays that could run 15 months.
Pilots typically want to fly in the air, not from a ground-based cubicle. That's why Monday's graduation from the Air Force's Unmanned Aerial System Fundamentals course, the first of its kind at Randolph AFB, was so remarkable.
It marks a shift in the Air Force's culture. The service's center of gravity has always been the pilot wrapped in a cockpit, engaged in mortal combat, but technology and insurgent warfare are driving big changes.
John Pike, director and founder of globalsecurity.org, a military information Web site, called the cultural change “fundamental, radical and revolutionary” — striking at the heart of how the Air Force sees itself.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/loc..._grounded.html
So I'm sitting in a meeting...
a few years back at ACC HQ at Langley AFB (not at the table, mind you). The topic of the CIA taking out AQ folks with a Hellfire armed Predator came up. The whole issue of "armed" Predators seemd to elicit a certain response from the "fighter" community. The point was made that USAF UAVs at the time were routinely "flown" by enlisted folks. In a very subtle way the discussion turned to the possibility that someday UAVs may actually down other aircraft after which it was then posited that perhaps enlisted folks were not the right people to fly UAVs. I quickly jotted down the following for my colleague seated next to me: Because we wouldn't want the first "ace" of the 21st Century to be...an enlisted person...the HORROR!!!!!