Flying the Predator Drone

[ThomWV]

I just found out that a nephew of mine is heading for a new job, pilot of a Predator Drone.

Now this came as a great shock to me. It was not because some relative of mine was now in the business of murder-by-wire with satellites and the marvels of science mightily involved, I hardly know the guy and last night's reunion was the first time I've seen him since he was a teenager just learning to fly, some 25 years ago. And that is just the point. This guy is an experienced pilot, I mean experienced big time. He has been in and out of that revolving door between military and civilian aviation all his working life; before his last layoff he flew for Delta. The man has tens of thousands of hours in the air.

But here is the thing. Somehow I thought they taking promising young recruits and training them to fly these remote killing machines. I had no idea they were pulling in pilots with great experience to sit in that control seat. And there is this too - and I just can't get my arms around this just yet - he flew cargo planes, he flew people around the country and indeed the world. While he has certainly flow into combat areas he has not, in any meaningful way, flown combat missions. He has no other experience at shooting at anyone. Now this strikes me as a very odd thing. My notion of a video-machine addicted kid going into the military and being taught to operate a drone is shattered. Its a cool and calm middle aged man with thousands of hours in peaceful cockpits who are being sent to the job. I just don't know how feel about that.

[Statistical]

1. Some drone operators are new recruits.

Military has a flight aptitude test. Score high enough on that along with being able to pass flight physical (having good or correctable eyesight, etc), and high enough score on ASVAB (requires a 110 GT which is in top 5%) and a "high school kid" could pilot a drone.

Of course like most flight programs the wash out rate for new recruits is very high. Those who go into it thinking they are playing a round of Halo will wash out quickly. The equipment is far too expensive to not weed out reckless, impulsive, and twitch prone recruits.

Your nephew having years of flight experience has a leg up on most recruits in the process.

[Robb]

2. Despite the name

...remember the majority of Predator missions are reconnaissance. It's actually less likely he'd be flying an armed drone, especially if he hasn't flown anything with a trigger before. :shrug:

[kestrel91316]

3. I don't know how my dad would feel about offensive drones. He spent a lot

of his USAF career developing RECONNAISSANCE drones. He was a navigator and electronic warfare officer who knew all there was to know about radar and radar countermeasures. But he always reassured me that they DIDN'T plan to use the drones to shoot anything other than pictures. He might have thought using them for offense was rather cowardly.