First All-Drone USAF Air Wing

bfwebster writes "Strategy Page reports that the United States Air Force has announced its first air wing that will consist entirely of unmanned craft. The 174th Fighter Wing has flown its last manned combat sorties; its F-16s will be entirely replaced by MQ-9 Reapers. Reasons cited include costs (maintenance and fuel) and the drone's ability to stay in the air up to 14 hours, waiting for a target to show itself."

Comments

Re:Fighter ??

[jcr]

The problem is that very few of the talented pilots want to do this stuff.

So?

Put the best pilot in the world in an F-16, and a much less skilled pilot on the ground, controlling an aircraft that can out climb, out turn, and out run him, and it's game over. Whatever his skills are, if he blacks out at 12 Gs, he loses.

-jcr

career death, probably

[misanthrope101]

Pilots in the AF want to grow up to be generals one day. Do you think a UAV pilot has the same shot at being Chief of Staff (with the subsequent job on the board of Boeing or whoever) as the YF-22 pilot? Neither do I, and neither do they.

The fighter pilots are the aristocracy of the aristocracy of the AF. Even aside from the love of flying that drove them into that job, the perks of being a fighter pilot, the status and career path that conveys, are not things they're going to surrender willingly.

Re:career death, probably

[jcr]

, the perks of being a fighter pilot, the status and career path that conveys, are not things they're going to surrender willingly. ...which is why mounted knights maintained their position and status when firearms made their favorite mode of battle obsolete, right?

Oh, wait.

-jcr

More humans in the loop

[DG]

Call me a heretic, but I'm coming around to the idea that armed UAVs are a better way to do business.

A traditional piloted ground-attack aircraft is an expensive, valuable thing with an expensive, amphetamine-fueled, scared-shitless pilot stuffed in it.

That pilot has a handful of seconds to ID his target, execute the attack, and then evade ground fire. Even in an environment where the USAF had total air superiority, there have been case upon case of pilots attacking the wrong target at the wrong time.

And modern air-ground weapons are so powerful that the smallest mistake can have catastrophically bad results.

But with the UAV, that element of personal risk is gone. Furthermore, instead of just one hopped-up, terrified, sleep-deprived individual making the go/no go call (and aiming the weapon to boot) you can have a series of targeting experts watching the video feed and making a soberly analyzed decision on fire/no fire.

And yet, as mentioned, while the people shooting the weapons may be isolated from personal risk, the incredible clarity of the visual feed does not isolate them from personal *cost* - and that's not a bad thing. Taking a human life should never be a painless endevour.

If we have to drop explosives on people, I'd rather that the people pulling the trigger have the opportunity to do a proper job of IDing the target, of assessing the likely collateral damage, and then making a calm and unrushed shot.

DG