Slashdot Mirror
USAF Cuts Drone Flights As Stress Drives Off Operators
HughPickens.com writes: The NY Times reports that the U.S. is being forced to cut back on drone flights as America's drone operators are burning out. The Air Force is losing more drone pilots than they can train. "We're at an inflection point right now," says Col. James Cluff, the commander of the Air Force's 432nd Wing. Drone missions increased tenfold in the past decade, relentlessly pushing the operators in an effort to meet the insatiable demand for streaming video of insurgent activities in Iraq, Afghanistan and other war zones, including Somalia, Libya and now Syria. The biggest problem is that a significant number of the 1,200 pilots are completing their obligation to the Air Force and are opting to leave. Colonel Cluff says many feel "undermanned and overworked," sapped by alternating day and night shifts with little chance for academic breaks or promotion.
What had seemed to be a benefit of the job, the novel way the crews could fly Predator and Reaper drones via satellite links while living safely in the United States with their families, has created new types of stresses as they constantly shift back and forth between war and family activities and become, in effect, perpetually deployed. "Having our folks make that mental shift every day, driving into the gate and thinking, 'All right, I've got my war face on, and I'm going to the fight,' and then driving out of the gate and stopping at Walmart to pick up a carton of milk or going to the soccer game on the way home — and the fact that you can't talk about most of what you do at home — all those stressors together are what is putting pressure on the family, putting pressure on the airman," says Cruff. The colonel says the stress on the operators belied a complaint by some critics that flying drones was like playing a video game or that pressing the missile fire button 7,000 miles from the battlefield made it psychologically easier for them to kill. "Everyone else thinks that the whole program or the people behind it are a joke," says Brandon Bryant, a former drone camera operator who worked at Nellis Air Force Base, "that we are video-game warriors, that we're Nintendo warriors."
What had seemed to be a benefit of the job, the novel way the crews could fly Predator and Reaper drones via satellite links while living safely in the United States with their families, has created new types of stresses as they constantly shift back and forth between war and family activities and become, in effect, perpetually deployed. "Having our folks make that mental shift every day, driving into the gate and thinking, 'All right, I've got my war face on, and I'm going to the fight,' and then driving out of the gate and stopping at Walmart to pick up a carton of milk or going to the soccer game on the way home — and the fact that you can't talk about most of what you do at home — all those stressors together are what is putting pressure on the family, putting pressure on the airman," says Cruff. The colonel says the stress on the operators belied a complaint by some critics that flying drones was like playing a video game or that pressing the missile fire button 7,000 miles from the battlefield made it psychologically easier for them to kill. "Everyone else thinks that the whole program or the people behind it are a joke," says Brandon Bryant, a former drone camera operator who worked at Nellis Air Force Base, "that we are video-game warriors, that we're Nintendo warriors."
I can imagine the "double taps" where they first attack a target and then hit it again when rescuers move in adds a certain level of stress to the soldiers...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/outrage-at-cias-deadly-double-tap-drone-attacks-8174771.html
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
Buried several paragraphs into the link is the real reason for faltering numbers of UAV pilots:
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I think it's only the pilots of big planes at major carriers that make the giant salaries. I knew a guy flying for one of the turboprop "puddlejumper" affiliates of a major carrier who was making like $19k a year.
It seems kind of ironic to me that pilots who arguably have to do more hands-on aviation in smaller planes (and often flying into smaller airports) get paid less than pilots who fly highly automated planes into major airports, even if the larger planes carry more people.
Go sit a mission sometime. It's not what you think it is. Mostly it's monotonous, boring work. When there is an actual strike, it's a big deal. It's not like a video game at all, though. I promise you that.
I have sat these missions (not as a pilot) and I don't really understand the "stress" they are talking about. Other than the shift work, which can take a toll on family life, most of the folks I know doing these missions don't feel especially stressed about it.
I suspect this is a political push to change the AF standards of training required to do the job. The Army gives their UAS pilots ground training only. The AF, as far as I know, still requires full flight training. Big time and commitment difference. The AF also requires officers to do this while the Army allows enlisted, which means you get them younger, cheaper, and typically can hold onto them better because they don't have the same civilian opportunities by getting out.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Bomber pilots and F-16 pilots don't have high resolution video of every strike. (They do with some missile strikes but not all) and usually get "visual confirmation" from other sources. Drone pilots have video the whole time and watch every second of it during strikes. Other drone pilots have to "confirm" but the shooter does see every bit of detail. Just because they aren't flying in the airspace themselves doesn't mean they don't get the impact of their actions.
As someone who grew up with an AF pilot father who flew both fighters and bombers and who now works with drone pilots regularly, I guarantee you drone pilots see far more of the damage they cause "close up" than bomber and most fighter pilots ever will.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
The aviation industry is kind of a Ponzi scheme. New pilots become instructors as soon as they can for barely minimum wage just so they can rack up flight hours on someone else's dime. Similarly they will have to pay to get multi-engine trained, then will turn around and work for nothing just to rack up enough multi-engine hours at some backwater commuter service as soon as they are able. Soon you see the "opportunity" to fly for a regional and get to rack up hours on a real plane. Making it big at a real airline is the light at the end of the tunnel, but countless others drop out due to overwhelming debt and impoverishment.
It takes thousands and thousands of flight hours to even be considered as a pilot for any airline you have actually heard of, and those hours would cost hundreds or even thousand per hour if you bought them yourself. So you offer up your labor for almost free just to get the flight hours on each successive rung of the ladder.
A lot of this hit the fan about 10 years ago when a crash was partially blamed on the pilot working two jobs, being overtired and overstressed, and then crashing with a load of passengers. People were shocked at an airline pilot would have trouble feeding himself on just one job. I don't think much has changed since then.