Thursday, January 14, 2016

SUPERVISORY PILOT IN OVERALL COMMAND

I see that the Air Force went and announced that they are going to open up their Remote Operated Drone program to enlisted pilots. Being the Air Force, they have decided to open up just one tiny, unarmed, sorta useless sliver of the vast drone armada to this splendid opportunity.

Some are concerned that enlisted 'pilots' for what are 100% autonomous flying drones that take off and even land themselves, won't have the necessary gravitas to 'fly' missions in combat. I admire the all-around vincible stupidity of the kind of people that are concerned about that.

After all, if push came to shove and it looked really dicey up there in no-man's land, the drone pilot could always look across the room and ask a real, honest-to-God, supervisory pilot-in-overall command to join the formation and take over. And that minor godling in human form could wrestle him or herself away from cup of coffee number 22 of the day and wander across the room and say,
"what's up, doc?"

You know what's funny? That there really are people who think it takes a piece of paper and being an officer and a gentleman to fly an airplane. That's funny.

The Air Force - the people who originated the concept of making things harder than they have to be.

   they do have really nice BOQs
   ...and nice golf courses
   ...and expeditionary swimming pools
   ...and an attitude towards customer service usually found only in prison guards.

Anybody can fly, if they're keeping their feet on the ground

5 comments:

OldAFSarge said...

Ah, my old service, continuing the fine peace-time tradition of ensuring that only the most politically correct rise to the top.

I sense a disturbance in the Force.

Captain Steve said...

The burning question is:"Do drone pilots get to wear flight suits, scarves and leather jackets?".

HMS Defiant said...

The Air Force does seem to lag the rest when it comes to accepting much of anything new under the sun and let's face it, enlisted pilots were flying aircraft right up to World War II. I remember reading an article decades ago about the test wannabe pilots in the Naval Air Service had to take in order to get admitted to the program. They passed it to Aeronautics professors at universities that couldn't pass the test. The new Secretary of the Navy told the idiots running the response to Pearl Harbor to come up with a new test.
Some people never get the word.

HMS Defiant said...

Oh no, of course not, and they don't get the spiffy big watch either.

HMS Defiant said...

Last night I somehow saw this. If you want to appreciate my stance on piloting, head over to you tube and watch: "stewardess lands plane" from the Aeroflot Training Center. It brought back memories of the kinds of commentary from FL390.