BTW, good on Secdef Gates for challenging tradition.

Oh, and the issue of officers as pilots for UAV's was looked at by a few in the 1990's. Here's one paper. I would support reexamining it and I hope the some enterprising NCO's or junior officers take it on.

The UAV pilot problems in the Air Force are not due to a shortage of pilots, but they way UAV's are currently operated in the force. UAV's are not yet their own co-equal weapons platform. So, for example, a pilot can't be a full-time UAV pilot under the current system. UAV slots are temporary assignments lasting 3-4 years, so there is no permanent cadre of pilots to build upon. The bottleneck is really training since with no permanent pilots training resources are sucked-up on replacements. Adding to the problem is the extreme demand for UAV's which has in some cases taken instructors away from training new pilots which negatively impacts the ability to increase the number of qualified pilots.

What the service needs to do, IMO, is create a permanent cadre of UAV pilots and make it a co-equal platform where pilots can spend a majority of their careers.