While I'm sure some current USAF stars might relish the idea of guys not being able to transition to the airlines due to UAVs, LVC, etc I don't think that those programs have been developed to prevent guys from transitioning to the airlines. UAVs have the noble goal of allowing USA to conduct combat ops without putting Americans in the line of fire and the goal of LVC is to maximize the training potential while minimizing cost. Both good goals that happen to be at odds with lots of folks desires to fly a jet with five or more kill marks under the canopy rail and to have a fat log book that helps them transition to the airlines. The services shouldn't avoid future technologies because of this but they shouldn't be surprised if this changes their traditional recruitment incentives for would be pilots. But then again there were plenty of mavericks who wanted to be on the cutting edge back in 1915 who wanted to fly in combat because it was new and exciting bit because there was a potential airline transition in it for them because airlines weren't a thing yet. The USAF (and other services) needs to attract people who find UAVs and LVC to be exciting and cutting edge stuff and who are willing to embrace this brave new world. These people aren't going to be the same people who wanted to fly fighters and be the next Olds just like how the folks who wanted to fly fighters in 1915 didn't make sense to traditional cavalry and infantry officers.
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Rand study on USAF pilot retention
- Thread starter UInavy
- Start date
Do you think enough of these people exist to execute the mission? Honest question. People who...want to fly, but not actually fly? And do we want those types of people at the tip of the spear in the long run? It's really a fundamental question now that I think about it. If you're not willing to risk your own life to fly (or were never given the chance to) will you value life in the same manner as those of us who do risk our lives to execute the mission every day? Does it even matter? Maybe it doesn't?
My opinion is that it does. Working with SWOs who, all things being equal, are no different than us when we first commission, I can see that their view of risk is considerably different than ours. Because, to them, if the engines cut out, nobody dies. The risk is not real to them, there's too much safety buffer built in. And it changes their decision making processes at a fundamental level. I think that matters. Then again, there's a conex box full of UAV pilots in Nevada who have more kills than most of us, so what do I know?
I guess I would ask how healthy is USAF UAV manning and what percentage of them are essentially conscripted?
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A previous co-worker's son just commissioned and is headed to fly Reapers. I was chatting with him the other day when I stopped by the base to pick up a couple of things. I can't remember which way the numbers actually were, but apparently the manning is in 60/40 range, in part because of the daily OPTEMPO. That said, the AF, based on what he was briefed by the CO at the winging, is all in on UAS and is really trying to push technology to meet all of the operational needs (CAP, ISR, "Attack," etc) with UAS.
This. I think that the fundamental assessment of risk and how it affects decision making differences (and culture) between communities is something that can be explored deeper and could warrant its own thread...., or more.
If you dropped an aviator into the Fitzgerald the night of the collision and told him "This is the experience our crew has, this is the equipment that's broken, this is how busy the channel is going to be, the Skipper is going to bed," his reaction would be much different than if you took that same person and made them a SWO from commissioning until the night of the collision.
Similarly, this is why I think that IW Officers as CSG Commanders (as proposed here: https://www.usni.org/magazines/proc...-warfare-needs-more-resources-and-command-sea)
is not a good idea. It's not that they're less intelligent or capable people, not at all. It's that their immersion hasn't been in a culture where their decision making affects a time sensitive result to life and limb (in general, I realize there are exceptions). This has the potential to both affect their decision making in that position and the morale / respect of those they lead who are making those types of decisions on a daily or near daily basis.
I agree- my point was just that the brass is under no incentive to get flying officers lots of hours and keep them flying until 20/ret. There are other career goals the military has in mind for its officers.
Yes, I do, although I think the ideal candidate for UAS/LVC-heavy work has a somewhat different mentality than the people who join to fly fighters. Not saying its worse, just different. Perhaps part of the problem is that both types are selected from the same training pool. I wonder if separate recruiting tracks for the UAS/LVC heavy communities wouldn't be a good solution.
I agree. Among other things, sims and LVC don't replicate the realities of flight line operations, kinesthetic "feel" of flying, or the what I'll call the "element of peril" you get while flying an aircraft. In short, while sims have gotten very good, folks with skinnier logbooks and more sim time may be more inclined to feel uncertainty or fear in situations that a more experienced pilot wouldn't- e.g. experiencing an engine failure in an aircraft feels different than it does in the sim, even if the throttle/stick/rudder inputs are the same. Don't get me wrong, I think LVC has its place; reducing redair requirements and allowing those sorties to be blue force training, for example. But LVC might be easily be taken too far, at the expense of real piloting experience. There's a point at which it will become detrimental- here's hoping the powers that be realize that, and take steps to learn where that point is. That's a RAND (or NASA) study I would find fascinating. Maybe the data are already out there somewhere.
The UAS guys? Assuming the sim is high-def enough you can't tell the difference, LVC it up.
The AF does this. The guy I mentioned earlier was recruited off the street as a UAS pilot.
I agree. The airlines like to be mentioned in this regard. "The first time an airline pilot flies a real plane is with pax onboard..." Well, sure, but they are also coming to that cockpit with a lot of real world experience in a real airplane from beforehand.
Call me unprofessional, but even on a checkride, I don't take a sim flight anywhere near as serious as a real flight because other than failing (which I do take seriously), you can't simulate risk.
Couldn’t agree more, and I think the rebuttal article in the next issue was on point: https://www.usni.org/magazines/proc...mation-warfare-decade-indulging-false-analogy
Being in the unique position of working for two warfare commanders (CAG and the IWC) simultaneously as a VAQ guy, it’s painfully obvious that there are still growing pains with IW officers as warfare commanders, which I think would be exacerbated tenfold if they became the CSG commander.
In my opinion, the point of the IWC is twofold. 1) Help the CSG signature manage. 2) Coordinate ISR and non-kinetic effects to make the CSG more lethal or to defend the CSG.
I fought this battle in my last job as the Growler ME SME. I spent some time TAD as an EW assessor on a C2X with the first CSG with an IW Officer as IWC. Setting aside C2Xisms, it took the entire exercise for the IWC to realize that he had ISR and Non-Kinetic capes available in the CVW that could aid his execution.
I think most VAQ guys would agree that working with the IWC is typically a waste of time due to a lack of understanding or lack of willingness to integrate effects on the IWC side of the house.
The effort within the IWC community to make themselves more like a traditional warfare area (WTI program, articles like this, etc.) needs to be refocused back into their primary mission.
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I stand corrected. I've heard horror stories of UPT pilots surprise-selecting UAS at the end of their T-6 syllabus and assumed nothing had changed.
Who is the Naval Aviation leadership you’re speaking of? Flag officers of local CO/XOs? Both? Not trying to be argumentative, just curious.
Which Flag officer said that?
I have no idea how many of those people exist but it certainly wouldn't be a bad idea for the USAF to start recruiting at game conferences. Plenty of people would love to get paid to play video games, the difference between "flying" a UAV and playing a game is pretty minimal.
The rest of your post sounds like a romantic ideal. I'm sure there were lots of cavalry officers who thought similar things about the difference between horses and tanks and airplanes. But within a few years of warfare a horse charge was irrelevant and within 3 more decades horses weren't even being used as draft animals and an airplane was dropping atomic bombs.
What will UAVs assisted by AI be doing in 5yrs? 10? 20? At some point, as was pointed out by others, the difference between flying a UAV, simming a UAV, and executing LVC in a UAV are very minimal. If manned aviation is minimized then things like airsense and flight line ops that are truly required for manned flight will be a thing of the past. A mostly UAV force could probably exist on a lot more sims and LVC. Shoot, the MQ-8 doesn't need to be flown like an MQ-9 does, it's like real time JMPS and the robot brain figures the control inputs out. And that technology is ~20yrs old. I imagine the future will be a lot more enders game and ready player one. If a big war comes I also think that that future will be here sooner than we imagine now.
The single-biggest hold-up to that idea is connectivity, IMO. When we can figure out how to communicate beyond line of sight, things get easier, but until then, you're going to have to have assets in theater (which may not always be practical, depending on other adversary weapon systems) or you going to have to hope a peer adversary isn't space-capable. And we're already past the latter, for now.
UAS being its own community/pipeline within naval aviation would be great. Your automatic pool of talent is the NAMI whammy crowd, i.e. officers who otherwise want to be aviators but anthropomorphically/medically can’t. They would not have the same training pipeline or long service commitment.
And depending on the platform, you could create an enlisted rate (AU? AQ?) to be the pilots.
And depending on the platform, you could create an enlisted rate (AU? AQ?) to be the pilots.
The Navy creates/ merges/ adjusts ratings all the time to evolve as the mission evolves. Likewise for officers (e.g. 1840). I wouldn’t be suggesting a change if there weren’t lots of signs pointing to pilot manning problems across multiple services.