March 23, 2007: The U.S. Air Force is creating a
new job specialty, UAV pilots. Starting later this year, the air force will
recruit people for this job. The details are still being worked out, but it
will be an officer position. The army uses NCOs to pilots its UAVs, which are
generally smaller than those used by the air force. The new air force program
expects to attract those who had applied to be regular pilots, but had been
denied because of minor physical faults (eyesight not sharp enough being the
most common). But the air force is also aware that the current crop of recruits
are the X-Box generation. They grew up on video games, and the military has
already found that all those thousands of hours wasted (according to parents)
playing video games, developed skills that are quite useful in the military.
UAV pilots may be required to have a commercial,
single engine, pilot license. This would give UAV pilots practical experience
in an aircraft of roughly the same size and flying characteristics as a
Predator. Otherwise, classroom instruction will be almost identical to what
pilots of manned aircraft get. Flight instruction, however, will take place on
a customized version of Microsoft Flight Simulator (MFS), which will emulate
the Predator (and perhaps other UAVs as well). The air force was satisfied that
MFS had an accurate enough flight model to be used for UAV pilot instruction.
The three month Undergraduate Remote Pilot Training
(URT) will initially have five students, but will rise to 30 students in a year
or so, and eventually turn out 120 pilots a year. After URT, UAV pilots (who
will get wings) will get two or three months instruction on Predator or Global
Hawk aircraft.
Currently, the air force is getting about two
pilots applying for each opening for UAV pilots. That's because the air force
is downsizing, and a lot of pilots are faced with retraining on another
aircraft, trying a few years of UAV
work, or leaving the air force. However, few pilots of manned aircraft want to
make a career of operating UAVs. The new training program for UAV pilots will
be for people who are stick with UAVs until retirement. At the moment, the UAV
pilots appear to have brighter long range career prospects than the folks
flying manned aircraft. It will take about a decade before all the UAV
operators are people with no prior experience in manned aircraft.
