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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."
maybe they already are.
in manning off-shore oil rigs: two weeks on, then two weeks off.
It might not be perfect, but it's better than the current situation.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Some artists have been helping people in areas being targeted by US drones to create large canvas images of some of the victims and lay them flat on the ground. That way as the drone flies over and targets the area the operator will see the face of a child who was previously murdered in a similar scenario. The idea came about because drone pilots describe their targets as "bug splats", and this is a way to hopefully connect them to their potential victims in the way soldiers deployed on the ground are forced to.
Maybe that and other efforts to make pilots aware of what they are doing and how it really isn't a game, that they are killing real people when they push those buttons, is having an effort. Of course they would never admit that, hence the excuse.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
This same kind of psychological effect came during the Vietnam war when soldiers would be fighting one day and a few days later, back home in the States. This created great stress on returning vets. The human mind is not made for such rapid context shifts. They don't often occur in nature. Television is doing it more, and more rapidly too. No wonder people are beginning to pull away.
E Proelio Veritas.
There was an old (I think from the 1950ies) short story by the late Robert Sheckley, called "Watchbird" which describes exactly what you have written about.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
I don't know about that. People do change over time. I remember being a teenager and talking with my grandfather about the videos he brought back from Korea. He showed a bunch of videos of the camps and the guys hanging around.... so I asked "Did you take any footage of the fighting" "Yes I took some, I used to mount the camera on the gun sometimes" "Why don't you ever show those?"....
The look of absolute horror on his face when he asked "Why would you want to see that?" is something I have not forgotten.
The similarity is a bit striking in terms of technological overpowering, here is what he told me about the battles (never did seek out his footage), he was in a half track, relaying information from the radio.
"We would be at one side a hill. You would hear a bugle call come over the hillside and then, on the radio 'they are coming over the hill', and a few seconds later, there would be men coming over the hill right at our machine guns, and we would just mow them all down" That is really all he ever has to say about it.
People generally don't like war too much who actually have to see it. Viet Nam wasn't a shit storm domestically because it was particularly bad compared to other justifications for conflict. The Gulf of Tonkin lie is about par for the course on how wars get started. The real difference was the journalists actually showing people war directly.
Now all footage is carefully coreographed and any gore avoided like the plague because, the truth doesn't drum up support. However, you can't hide the truth from the people you ask to fight.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Pilots are not removed from it though like drone pilots are. Pilots stay in the area and can see the aftermath, they feel the impact more.
You have no idea what you're talking about.
... many of them know the ground in some insurgent-run village in Iraq better than you know the ground a few blocks from where you live. And it's the drone operators and satellite imaging people who usually do the remote BDA, not traditional pilots. Traditional pilots don't "feel the impact" more, but it does cost a great deal more, and introduce a lot mroe risk, to operate an aircraft with them on board. You seem to prefer that, for some reason. Strange.
A bomber pilot may let loose with similar guided weapons from miles away, or from 30,000 feet. He may never fly over that spot again, and may have no need to hang around doing bomb damage assessment. The drone operator may spend a month flying over the same area, gathering intelligence on individual people, vehicles, buildings
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The vast majority of people in the US get all they know - about war and everything else - from Hollywood.
They knew about the effects of stress on soldiers who flew on combat missions into a combat zone and returned to a safe place after each mission. There's plenty of evidence for this if you look psychological assessments of the US Eight Air Force back in WW2. It looks like the lesson they drew from those experiences was that it was the exposure to combat that was the culprit and not necessarily stresses caused by participating in combat.
What needs to be identified is whether the primary contributor to stress is being able to go home each day or simply being able to go to safety after the mission. If it's the latter, which I'd be more inclined to suspect, then restricting the guys to base isn't going to help the problem and in fact may make the problem worse since the comforts they were once provided are no longer available.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork