Drone Pilots: We Don’t Get No Respect

[Guest]

I couldn't agree more, the job still ain't the best, but if the AF could get us some better locations, better hours, and treat it as a true A tour with a legit hope of going to back to a cockpit after the 1 tour was up I (and I think many others) would do the job without us kicking and screaming the entire way.

Part of the problem comes down to legal issues of conducting strikes from foreign nations. Hawaii would work (maybe Guam?) but Germany and Japan would probably be no-gos.

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[Bode]

Man if they went Guam, east coast, west coast, and Hawaii, I think you could end up with a schedule where no one base operates between 2200 and 0600.

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[viper154]

1 hour ago, ihtfp06 said:

Part of the problem comes down to legal issues of conducting strikes from foreign nations. Hawaii would work (maybe Guam?) but Germany and Japan would probably be no-gos.

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Figured as much. I know some of our foreign friends that fly US RPA products have very special rules about how they can conduct ops. I lost a lot of the details in translation and this probably isent the place to discuss them any further. 

Reguardless, basing options that aren't in the desert and near decent population centers here conus would help some of my gripes. I can deal with some BS if where I live doesn't  suck the D. I don't think locations are going to get any better for the foreseeable future.  The current bases congressional districts fight like hell to keep them there, and despite our gripes and QOL complaints our elected officials are going to do everything possible to keep jobs in their districts. I think what we are going to see is a couple of squadrons get stood up at other locations the CSAF talked about late last year. Just enough to say they did something but not enough to help those who didn't get a golden ticket and help the masses. 

My solution is to transition more of the RPA enterprise to the guard. I think there are enough  old guys past 10 but still far enough away from 20 out there that would trade there AD cockpit/queep for a full time guard GCS to finish out their time. Maybe I'm wrong and it's just the scotch talking. 

[ViperStud]

58 minutes ago, viper154 said:

My solution is to transition more of the RPA enterprise to the guard. I think there are enough  old guys past 10 but still far enough away from 20 out there that would trade there AD cockpit/queep for a full time guard GCS to finish out their time. Maybe I'm wrong and it's just the scotch talking. 

Incorrect. ANG isn't having the easiest time manning them either. We punch to gain control of our lives, not continue the suck outside AD. My understanding is that if an RPA dude punches, flying them as a contractor is the way to go. 

[Duck]

We had several pilots leave my flying Guard unit for full time RPA work to finish off an AD retirement 4 years ago.

[scoobs]

Is PTSD as common as this article makes it sound?

https://www.gq.com/story/drone-uav-pilot-assassination

Edited May 26, 2016 by scoobs

[SurelySerious]

Is PTSD as common as this article makes it sound?

https://www.gq.com/story/drone-uav-pilot-assassination

[Ram]

Go with quals or STFU.

[guineapigfury]

8 hours ago, scoobs said:

Is PTSD as common as this article makes it sound?

https://www.gq.com/story/drone-uav-pilot-assassination

No, PTSD is rare but not unheard of.  I've been flying MQ-9s since 2012 and I've seen 2 cases.  Long term sleep deprivation is the actual culprit behind many of the RPA community's physical and mental health woes.

[HU&W]

Also, any article, documentary, or book that references former SrA Brandon Bryant can immediately be dismissed as unreliable.

[BFM this]

They would love to.  The price tag would, at a minimum, be hundreds of millions of dollars and would double the manning/footprint required across the enterprise.  Also, 10:1 odds that the instant that happens, someone would recognize the increase in capacity using current state ops and immediately grow the caps to match.

GMAMFB!

The AF loves to tout how cheap RPAs are in one argument, and then how ridiculously expensive they are in the next. Typically, whichever angle the AF is arguing, is BS. (For the record, over the horizon, distributed Drone ops is fvckin retahdid expensive)

How much did it cost to wire Ft Smith, AR, and a half dozen other ANG locations for droids? THERES your cost. It's not some obscene number that gets thrown around after the staff cooks the books all weekend to defend that bullsh!t rice bowl NW of Vegas.

[guineapigfury]

If it costs money to fix a problem, spend the money.  TINSTAAFL.

[M2]

 

[Clark Griswold]

8 hours ago, guineapigfury said:

No, PTSD is rare but not unheard of.  I've been flying MQ-9s since 2012 and I've seen 2 cases.  Long term sleep deprivation is the actual culprit behind many of the RPA community's physical and mental health woes.

Yup - we (Global Chicken) had several close calls from sleep deprivation (falling asleep driving home) years past when the schedule was fluid (diarrhea) due to last minute changes from golden boys finding something else to do rather than crew the shelter and dropping out at the last minute. 

It was mentioned earlier in the thread about RPA basing overseas and just my two cents but Poland has more than a few airbases near good cities, thinking Krakow-Balice Polish Air Base, couple that with PACAF basing for the other side of the clock and while it is driving droids, that is a helluva consolation prize.

[guineapigfury]

Never flown RQ-4s, but that sounds about par for the course for RPAs.  If the daywalkers could be bothered to fly 6-9 hours a week, the workload would decrease significantly for the line flyers.  I know at my previous squadron last year they had essentially a 4th shift's worth of people above the line.  Meanwhile all that's left to fly the line is 1 pilot per GCS plus an MCC.  I'm so glad I'll be separating in a year.

[Clark Griswold]

Never flown RQ-4s, but that sounds about par for the course for RPAs.  If the daywalkers could be bothered to fly 6-9 hours a week, the workload would decrease significantly for the line flyers.  I know at my previous squadron last year they had essentially a 4th shift's worth of people above the line.  Meanwhile all that's left to fly the line is 1 pilot per GCS plus an MCC.  I'm so glad I'll be separating in a year.

Glad you have an escape route - it's not flying but it doesn't have to suck AF

Sidenote: I proposed not allowing PCA until a pilot / so had 400 hours & 800 for a PCS - went over like a fart in church but they asked for suggestions...

[HossHarris]

23 hours ago, guineapigfury said:

We already have perfectly serviceable bases in Hawaii and Guam.  Those locations already have all the support stuff in place (medical, finance, etc) and there would be no SOFA issues.  Find a couple buildings to plug some fixed facility GCS's into, some room for satellite dishes and away we go.  We don't need to reinvent the wheel here.  We'd have to get good at handovers to people who aren't the LRE, but that isn't that hard.  Let every base work 2 shifts, not 3.  Mids is what's literally breaking people.

Why do you need an Air Force base?  You certainly don't need a runway.  Wouldn't any base (army/navy/etc) have the personnel support you'd need?  Hell, why do you need a base at all? Lease a few secure office buildings and put a dish on the roof. With enough "distributed architecture" there'd be plenty of redundancy. 

Hmmmmm:

-Sydney Australia (The Aussies don't give a )

-Kiwi land

-Maui

-Guam

-Nashville

-Marathon

-Belize

-US Virgin Islands 

-Brussels/London/Paris (Western Europe)

-Some tiny Greecian island from the posters in the gyro shop  

-And a Droid Center of Excellence (Hub) in maybe Denver or salt lake.  You know, for hurricanes and what not.

 

Shit, I bet we could put a deadbolt on the door to my office at home, set up a taclane, and run most everything from a desktop computer.  Spread that out worldwide. Telecommute and get paid by the hour.  It'd be a decent supplement to retirement income.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[guineapigfury]

I was thinking we'd need your basic Air Force support, MSG and Med Group, not airfield stuff.  "Joint" basing could work for RPAs, but only as tenant unit and enough top cover to keep the base owner firmly in their lane.  That said, we have Air Force Bases on US soil in the Pacific, so that seems like the obvious choice.  We run a separate squadron at Ellsworth, it only requires 1 building with enough rooms for briefing/debriefing, SOC, GCS and some normal offices.  This concept is proven, we just need to do it.  That said, NV and NM have stronger Senate delegations than HI and there are no relevant voters in Guam so we are ed.

[guineapigfury]

55 minutes ago, Clark Griswold said:

Glad you have an escape route - it's not flying but it doesn't have to suck AF

Sidenote: I proposed not allowing PCA until a pilot / so had 400 hours & 800 for a PCS - went over like a fart in church but they asked for suggestions...

I don't have my escape all the way figured out.  If I can't find a contractor or guard slot, I'll just take my GI bill and go figure something new out.  Remaining on AD to fly drones for the next 10 years is not an option.

[viper154]

You don't even need the dish. That signal from the states goes a long way before it gets beemed up to space.  A small building with the required comm, maintainers, security and a flight doc can get the job done, doesn't sound like a lot but the comm trail for these things is huge  

 

[Clark Griswold]

4 hours ago, guineapigfury said:

Never flown RQ-4s, but that sounds about par for the course for RPAs.  If the daywalkers could be bothered to fly 6-9 hours a week, the workload would decrease significantly for the line flyers.  I know at my previous squadron last year they had essentially a 4th shift's worth of people above the line.  Meanwhile all that's left to fly the line is 1 pilot per GCS plus an MCC.  I'm so glad I'll be separating in a year.

We had a terrible RAP requirement for inexperienced pilots in the GH back in the day but that had the side benefit though of forcing the hand of some of the daywalkers you mentioned.  They had to show up to make RAP but they were able to get so fast out of the inexperienced column from previous MDS experience that It didn't have long enough to balance the work load.

I'm dating myself but Lt Rasczak had it right

 

3 hours ago, guineapigfury said:

I don't have my escape all the way figured out.  If I can't find a contractor or guard slot, I'll just take my GI bill and go figure something new out.  Remaining on AD to fly drones for the next 10 years is not an option.

Not a Guard RPA guy myself but know several, they seem happy enough with it and it is a growth business, manned aircraft units shouldn't be too high a mountain to climb too if you want to look at them also, know several people who left AD RPA to go Guard/Reserve manned aircraft.

Just amazes me how the AF is so damn penny wise and pound foolish.  The QOL initiatives they could do, legally-financially-logistically, are not that hard and they would stop the growth of this huge manning and I would say cultural problem in the service itself and in its already dented reputation to handle its business:

Flight opportunities for 11Xs while serving in an RPA assignment, a good GA aircraft program could meet this.

Balanced workload so an RPA assignment is not a roach motel where Airmen go in but civilians come out, several ways to address this.  Objective reporting on OPRs of flight hours compared to peers would shame skeezers into pulling their weight.

Some preference for follow on assignments for RPA volunteers, within reason but again just a matter of leadership prioritizing this.

A commissioning program for enlisted SO, MX, etc... in the RPA program to provide an incentive for strong swimmers to jump in the pool.

Limited return to AD for Guard / Reserve to fill shortfalls/surges, not that expensive and scalable as required.

Rant complete.

Edited May 27, 2016 by Clark Griswold
minor grammar fix

[nsplayr]

15 hours ago, HossHarris said:

Why do you need an Air Force base?  You certainly don't need a runway.  Wouldn't any base (army/navy/etc) have the personnel support you'd need?  Hell, why do you need a base at all? Lease a few secure office buildings and put a dish on the roof. With enough "distributed architecture" there'd be plenty of redundancy. 

Hmmmmm:

-Sydney Australia (The Aussies don't give a )

-Kiwi land

-Maui

-Guam

-Nashville

-Marathon

-Belize

-US Virgin Islands 

-Brussels/London/Paris (Western Europe)

-Some tiny Greecian island from the posters in the gyro shop  

-And a Droid Center of Excellence (Hub) in maybe Denver or salt lake.  You know, for hurricanes and what not.

One of these places already has an RPA squadron operating.

Good ideas re: distributed across time zones, although there would be a lot of legal issues conducting strikes from foreign countries.  The US has enough territory spread out with the proper mil infrastructure already in place that it shouldn't really be an issue.

Guam/Hawaii/CONUS/Puerto Rico covers GMT+10 to GMT-4 which should be sufficient to eliminate mids for everyone worldwide.  Get some practice on doing a PHO between ops units rather than ops-to-LRE and call it a day.

Edited May 27, 2016 by nsplayr

[tac airlifter]

7 hours ago, nsplayr said:

One of these places already has an RPA squadron operating.

Good ideas re: distributed across time zones, although there would be a lot of legal issues conducting strikes from foreign countries.  

Designated hitter would solve that issue.  Stateside bases could still be on shift for it; I'd volunteer for that.  FYI, I did volunteer for RPAs at CVS just to stay ops & fend off staff.  Denied.  

 Honestly, all of these minor issues have solutions, it's all about priorities.  If the AF cared enough to fix the RPA world, they could.  But they don't care.  They care about F35s and the future war with China which will never happen.

Edited May 27, 2016 by tac airlifter
Drunk

[viper154]

Question for the older guys, probably a better career related thread to place this but it's semi relative. I'm a UPT direct guy hoping to go back manned after my tour is up (ya ya might not happen, we've beat that horse already). Because of all the delays with sequester and typical AF BS, it took me 8 months to go on AD after commissioning, another 7 months casual waiting to start UPT, finished UPT on time, and when everything is all said and done a year to get fully qualified in the MQ-9. That being said, I have my training report from UPT, and I won't have my first OPR until I'm a Capt. IF the 3 year tour is honored (ya ya don't kill my hope) by the time I get IQ in the manned follow on I'm going to be going up for my major board with two training reports and 2 maybe 3 OPRs. 

Is taking the time going backed manned going to be career killer? I have no problem being a 20 yr major or going guard after my 10, but I would like to be realistic on my expectations. 

[hispeed7721]

It's equivalent (# of OPR's/time) to late rate guys. And the answer really is it depends. I know plenty in that situation that you'd never know it, from a career progress standpoint. Others have let it, or even encouraged it to slow progression. I'm sure some guys with direct experience can chime in

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