Drone Pilots: We Don’t Get No Respect

[guineapigfury]

Awesome. Look him up on the global and tell him to never talk to the media again.

Yes, that's PA's job. As someone currently nonvol'd into flying a shipping container, I will do what the Air Force needs me to do ... which is straighten out any of the Beta Lt's who agree with this dude. I'm grateful for them, hopefully if we can train enough I can go back to doing what I actually signed up to do.

[HuggyU2]

That said, the writer of the original article actually gives a shit about getting an aerial achievement medal vs an air medal?

If you cannot fall to your death, you should not be able to get an Air Medal. Simple as that.

[ol-IEWO]

If you cannot fall to your death, you should not be able to get an Air Medal. Simple as that.

2

[guineapigfury]

If you cannot fall to your death, you should not be able to get an Air Medal. Simple as that.

Well said.

[wegotoeleven]

Did anyone here read the entire article, linked by the Time blogger? I don't think writing a paper for Air & Space Power Journal qualifies as "complaining to the media." Bloggers pick this stuff up all the time, it's the 21st century.

That aside, I think it's a relevant discussion. I know Dave, he already has air medals and couldn't care less about looking like a Mexican General. Medals are just an example that people can relate to. Anti-U.S. factions use the same rhetoric as some people on this thread when they claim that we're taking a cowardly approach to war by sending in our drones to kill innocent people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, wherever. Is combat defined by the effect or the risk? What bigger risks in Afghanistan are there today than engine failure, CFIT, and thunderstorms? How is that different from flying the flagpole back home?

[dbleplay]

You know, I have a lot of respect for the RPA guys. Just because they aren't physically in the AOR doesn't mean they aren't supporting the war effort. That said, I think this guy is flat wrong in claiming the level of danger is the same for RPA dudes. Talk to any Herk or helo driver and I'm sure they will tell you that flying in the AOR isn't the same as "flying around the flagpole" at home. The level of risk is quite a bit higher. And oh, by the way, a CFIT in a manned aircraft = death. A CFIT in an RPA = going home to the aforementioned wife and kids. I would say that's a differential.

[Whitman]

All I see is an article written by someone who feels he deserves more prestige for his job. Sorry you got non-vol'd or didn't do well in UPT, whatever. Get over it, move on.

Dave is a good friend of mine and I can tell you his intentions are genuine and he cares only about the future of the AF and RPAs as a community. Also, I'm pretty sure he's "over it", since he picked up 1/2 PhD slots last year in the AF.

[DirkDiggler]

Did anyone here read the entire article, linked by the Time blogger? I don't think writing a paper for Air & Space Power Journal qualifies as "complaining to the media." Bloggers pick this stuff up all the time, it's the 21st century.

That aside, I think it's a relevant discussion. I know Dave, he already has air medals and couldn't care less about looking like a Mexican General. Medals are just an example that people can relate to. Anti-U.S. factions use the same rhetoric as some people on this thread when they claim that we're taking a cowardly approach to war by sending in our drones to kill innocent people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, wherever. Is combat defined by the effect or the risk? What bigger risks in Afghanistan are there today than engine failure, CFIT, and thunderstorms? How is that different from flying the flagpole back home?

I have no idea what community you're from or what your prior experience is but you and the guy that wrote this article are dead wrong. 99% of the missions flown in Afghanistan are pretty benign, you got that right. However, that other 1% is far different than "flying the flagpole back home". As stated above ask any guy thats doing CAS, rescue, or airdrop over there and many will have had a mission where the wx was shit, the jawas were squirting fire everywhere, and the guys on the ground were screaming for help. I believe there is a complete difference in your ass being physically present in this scenario vs being 10,000 miles away. Most communities in the AF have lost A/C and friends over there hacking the mish, I don't think the UAV community can claim the same.

That being said, I wouldn't give it up for the world. I don't like being away from my wife in a dirty shithole for months at a time, but thats part for deal I signed up for. I want that guy I'm supporting on the ground to know I'll be there with whatever he needs no matter what. Most guys I know couldn't care less about air medals or any other medal for that matter. This post isn't meant as a slam on UAV drivers, I've got friends that went that route and they're good dudes. The pred guys are doing good things over there and deserve to be recognized, they work shit hours in some of the less desirable CONUS bases. Just because they do so doesn't mean they should get the same things as guys who are physically present in the AOR.

[wegotoeleven]

And oh, by the way, a CFIT in a manned aircraft = death. A CFIT in an RPA = going home to the aforementioned wife and kids. I would say that's a differential.

You're right. Which drives home my point that CFIT is not a risk unique to combat. Most all the "oh shit" moments of my flying career have been stateside. It's probably more accurate to say that the level of danger for stateside CT missions in manned aircraft is similar to that of the AOR. Maybe the jury's still out on RPA stateside crews (no attacks on US bases and I hope it never comes to pass), but I wonder how many RPA drivers fall asleep at the wheel after driving home from working a night shift. More of a second-order risk to the nature of the job, but a risk nonetheless.

[Champ Kind]

It's probably more accurate to say that the level of danger for stateside CT missions in manned aircraft is similar to that of the AOR.

Nope.

[billy pilgrim]

Getting non vol'd to RPA's is heinous, but only because it's a one way door. I know several guys that have gotten jammed into this that were excellent pilots. We had a TAMMY 21'd pilot in my unit that just got royally screwed - maybe HE shouldn't have done so WELL in UPT because at least now he'd be flying something manned, which is obviously preferable to any UAV.

It's laughable to think that you're in any real danger though. Give me a break.

It is beyond poor form for anyone currently flying fighters to make fun of these guys. 99% of the ex fighter guys would kill to be flying a fighter again. (Deployed or not!)

[HerkFE]

People that don't get them.

I remember reading something awhile ago about the criteria for the AFCAM being too restrictive and non-ops folk thought it was unfair that their chances of "getting" one was slim to none.

People that focus on medals need to be face punched.

FUCK YOU!

Who the fuck cares about medals?!?! You can have mine!

True. Everything that I have in life I would still have even if I had no medals. Well, okay, I'm lying. I picked up my wife when I showed her my Air Medal Citations. I still get them out from time to time if I need to "get her in the mood".

[Lawman]

If you cannot fall to your death, you should not be able to get an Air Medal. Simple as that.

More to the point...

If you cant fall to the ground only to be rolled up by a bunch of cavemen wearing man dresses who will gladly beat you, rape you, put you in front of a flag tied and bound, and then cut your ######ing head off for anyone to see on youtube including your family, you dont get an Air Medal.

[Whitman]

Posting for Dave Blair since he can't post from his new baseops.net account yet.

=======================================

Greetings all. Out of respect for my friends who have gone out on a limb for me, I will explain the rationale for posting this piece. Frankly, it is a waste of your time and mine to discuss my own relative merits or respond to ad hominem arguments, but I believe the argument at the heart of the matter is a critically important discussion for our service. The argument is not about medals, but about culturally anticipating rather than resisting changes in the nature of warfare (ideally before our enemies anticipate them.) Baseops.net seems as appropriate a place as any to have that discussion.

To clarify a few things - the Time article came as a surprise, and I do not agree with either the title or how it is parsed. I would prefer that people read the piece as written in ASPJ, which is where it is in context, and assert that if you wish to responsibly engage with this argument, you should do so. To be perfectly straightforward, it would have been far easier to let this piece sit on my hard drive, as it had for a year after I wrote it out of frustration, as a flight commander trying my best to convince my troops that they were at war when institutional incentives seemed to be doing their best to tell them they were not. If I am putting a guy in the seat with a red button wired to a missile liable to be shot in close proximity to friendlies, I want to use everything in my power as an institution to convince that guy that he is in Afghanistan rather than in New Mexico - I owe that to the guy on the ground whose life I am entrusting to the guy in the seat. And as the response to date predictably points out, I have much to lose and honestly nothing to gain by posting the article, as I am no longer at Cannon. But I continue to believe strongly that this is a discussion we need to have.

One misunderstanding is with the definition of 'differential risk of combat.' I will take a spear for this misunderstanding, as I felt it was self-evident, and upon re-reading realized it is not. There is obviously risk associated with the physical act of flying - mourning a few friends over the last few months made this quite clear. If the argument were about the appropriateness of overall aviation incentives, then this would be a crucial point. It is not. The argument is about the conditional increase in risk due to combat, where I hold to the point. With the tremendous exception of rotary wing aircraft, which I saw in my gunship days and still see today as very much taking on risks the rest of us don't, the increase in risk due to combat is very small in both cases, and plausibly higher in the case of RPA. I have more combat hours than home station hours in manned aircraft, mostly over Sadr during the surge, and the three times I've truly felt as if my life was in jeopardy were all during peacetime missions.

A second misunderstanding is about the stakes of the argument. This is not about medals, but about messaging. The historical example that figured most strongly in my mind when crafting this piece is that of artillery. In a similar story to our current discussion of RPA, artillery was initially considered a civilian 'non-combat' role, as they were not in the line of battle and initially could not expect to take significant casualties. However, people soon realized that it was less than bright to have the people lobbing explosive shells over their heads less institutionally invested in the outcome - the nation that first let effectiveness trump prestige gained great advantages (Napoleon, I believe, was the first to militarize and professionalize artillery.) For this reason, I believe the cultural valuation of RPA has much to do with the trajectory of our service - the 'swarm' and the 'cloud' stand to revolutionize air combat, and it worries me intensely that we'll get there second and find our way into some Kipling poem about eclipsed empires. Given the budget issues we're having, air-centric 'offshore balancing' a la Libya seems one of the few viable options in the long run, and persistence (not necessarily unmannedness) gets us there. So this is why I care so much about the messages we send with institutional incentives - because they shape futures. If you don't believe this, look at the promotion rates at Creech and ask what that means for the maturation of RPA.

The heart of the matter is 'how do we constitute combat' when the functions of killing become de-centralized and geographically dispersed. (This is one level up from the discussion we had about BVR engagements and cruise missiles - both an AMRAAM and a JASSM are both 'drones' by the pure definition.) I believe 'combat risk' - your own personal life being in danger - is a subset of 'combat responsibility,' which is first-order causal agency over life and death in wartime. What is the primary role of an army officer - to risk his own life, or to make tremendously difficult decisions with the lives of others? I argue that both of these qualify as combat. (When lives are not directly on the line in the Pred, such as persistent ISR without blue forces on screen, or IED scans without an attack clearance, then I do not believe this qualifies for combat per this definition.) To not do this is to ask for little bubbles of peacetime flying around the AOR in the name of preserving some entrenched order. We owe better to our comrades in the ROZ stack and to our comrades on the ground, and tragically we have at times failed to deliver. I believe part of why is because the institution is communicating through cultural markers (medals, blogs like this, etc.) that it is appropriate to not view the actions of RPA through the life-and-death-serious lens of combat. I may very well be wrong on this point. But it is a discussion that I believe we need to have.

[SurelySerious]

The full article: Ten Thousand Feet and Ten Thousand Miles

Hadn't seen it posted yet.

[BolterKing]

1.) It takes two of you to fly a model airplane doing 90 knots, of course you get no respect.

2.) You're not in theater

3.) I've yet to hear of an RPA "pilot" killed when "X" went wrong.

[Hacker]

With the tremendous exception of rotary wing aircraft, which I saw in my gunship days and still see today as very much taking on risks the rest of us don't, the increase in risk due to combat is very small in both cases, and plausibly higher in the case of RPA. I have more combat hours than home station hours in manned aircraft, mostly over Sadr during the surge, and the three times I've truly felt as if my life was in jeopardy were all during peacetime missions.

Ahhhhhh, I see. So, he's never been shot at by something that was actually threatening (e.g guided SAM, aimed AAA) while in an airplane. That explains it.

I'm still not seeing the "risk to bodily harm" for the RPA guy.

Edited May 4, 2012 by Hacker

[Guest]

A pedigree does not prohibit ingorance. In fact, sometimes the opposite result occurs.

[AdVictoriam]

Up on the net. Argument on the table is that combat is constituted by the life and death duty to friendlies and enemies respectively (with one's own life subsumed in this definition as a 'friendly') vs. combat is constituted solely by risk to one's own life. Standing by for spears. V/r Dave.

[Termy]

Up on the net. Argument on the table is that combat is constituted by the life and death duty to friendlies and enemies respectively (with one's own life subsumed in this definition as a 'friendly') vs. combat is constituted solely by risk to one's own life. Standing by for spears. V/r Dave.

Huh?

[Guest]

Up on the net. Argument on the table is that combat is constituted by the life and death duty to friendlies and enemies respectively (with one's own life subsumed in this definition as a 'friendly') vs. combat is constituted solely by risk to one's own life. Standing by for spears. V/r Dave.

Welcome Dave!

I suggest you start here to get warmed up.

[Jaded]

"He has served both physically and through telewarfare in Iraq and Afghanistan"

Telewarfare? Really?

[Danger41]

I think he's asking if someone has seen "combat" merely because they themselves have been endangered, or if the danger/risk must also involve others, (friendlies, enemies).

By that definition, I've seen plenty of combat driving on and off of Maxwell during PME.

(Just being a smart ass, I'm interested to see some replies here)

[pawnman]

Up on the net. Argument on the table is that combat is constituted by the life and death duty to friendlies and enemies respectively (with one's own life subsumed in this definition as a 'friendly') vs. combat is constituted solely by risk to one's own life. Standing by for spears. V/r Dave.

I'd say the RPA guys are engaging in combat, just as much as the guy who launches a TLAM from the boat or a CALCM from a BUFF.

I don't think claiming RPA guys are "more at risk" than guys flying in country is a valid argument on that path, though.

[deskjockey]

1) Good on him for coming on here to discuss. I've never been sentenced to fly the shipping container, but have some friends who were in on the ground level and have never left. We've talked at length about the price payed by those who execute the RPA misison. In many cases where you stand depends on where you sit, but I would hope that those who throw stones take some time to really think about what these guys go through, it's real on a lot of levels, and especially painful for those who didn't choose it. Not too many, including this author, are looking for pity...what they want is a better system.

2) Attacking his experience or details/semantics of his biography don't really help or make whatever point you think you're making

-by extension: if we limit the people who can comment on combat to those who have seen actual AAA (as opposed to small arms fire or curtain fire?) or "guided" SAMs (are you counting optically guided RPGs or IR MANPADs...or even other missiles that could be RADAR guided but were shot ballistically?) There's a very small amount of people who can comment, and it would be really boring. I don't think that's a qualification for commenting on combat, nor is getting shot at by anything or killing someone. Bringing it up simply detracts from the argument. If you stick to the narrow definition of qualification to speak given previously, stop reading. If you broaden it to "allow" small-arms, RPGs or ballistic shots...or (better yet) think it doesn't matter, as I do, read on to my actual discussion on topic.

3) The real question isn't personal/physical danger...it's the act of killing those who want to kill Americans. The conscious decision to push a button and end the life of another human is not one without cost to the individual doing the killing. The miles don't change that (hand-to hand/face to face combat has differences) There is no difference in dropping a bomb from Xthousand feet or launching a cruise missile from hundreds of miles away vs. the thousands he is at. He distracted from his primary argument in the manner he raised his question, but it doesn't minimize the discussion. There needs to be better systemic recognition of the folks who are KILLING for their country, and by extension risk killing non-combatants, feeling the pain of watching Americans die live on TV, and having to deal with that in an environment where the rest of the world may be a little too normal. (kill someone then go to Wal-Mart because the wife needs apples?) Whether you sleep well at night or not, no matter how you justify it, there is a cost to killing. Anyone who says differently has either not done it, and/or not thought about it too deeply. Does killing define combat or is there more. I fall on the side of killing=combat based on the psychological results.

4) medals are simply an example of a way for the system to acknowledge this action and the sacrifice involved. An Air Medal is not correct...nor is Aerial achievement medal in my opinion. There is a distinct lack of a person in the air. Bronze star? (I'll refrain from the obvious jokes here) I don't think that's right either. There should be something different and new...the battlefield has changed, our terminology, culture, and by extension the system of reward and recognition must change as well.

Thoughts?