At the end of World War II Gen. Henry "Hap" Arnold made a bold prediction.
"We have just won a war with a lot of heroes flying around in planes," said
Arnold. "The next war may be fought by airplanes with no men in them at all.
It will be different from anything the world has ever seen."
Seventy years later, Arnold's prediction has been proven true.
The United States Air Force currently employs numerous Remotely Piloted
Aircraft in support of surveillance and reconnaissance missions throughout
deployed locations. The bulk of these missions are being placed specifically
upon the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper aircraft.
The reliance on the ability for RPAs to fly long hours, and in some
situations, support combat missions has very quickly increased the demand
for their use in deployed locations.
The proof of this can be seen in the expansion at Holloman's RPA training
squadrons.
"By the time we are done with this expansion, Holloman Air Force Base will
be the largest air crew training base in the Air Force," said Maj.
Christopher, assistant director of operations for programed flying training.
This expansion will increase the rate of student production from 603 pilots
and sensor operator students in fiscal year 2015 up to an estimated 818
students in fiscal year 2016.
The formal training unit expansion in total will take about 18 months. This
includes training new instructors, expanding facilities and improving
syllabi for incoming students.
"It takes about six months to create a new instructor," said Christopher.
"They have to go through formal instructor upgrade training, and at about
the two-month mark, they can start teaching the basics. Four months after
that, when they have become a little seasoned, we let them start training in
some of the more complex areas."
The expansion promises to fix manning issues within the RPA pilot and sensor
operator career fields Air Force-wide. It has also put manning issues for
RPA maintainers in the sights of Holloman leadership.
"When we started the process, looking at all of the limiting factors,
everybody's assumption was that the amount of instructors was the biggest
limiting factor," said Christopher. "However, when we started looking at it
holistically, we discovered the maintenance manning was even worse than our
own."
The realization of the issue for maintainers has lead leadership to take the
first steps into easing their workload.
There is not yet a set plan but, it is a major topic that is being addressed
and will optimistically lead a lasting fix.
"This is probably the best opportunity that has the most investment from
leadership in terms of getting us healthy," said Christopher. "It is not a
band aid or a quick fix, this seems like leadership is truly focused on a
long term sustainable fix that is going to keep the RPA community healthy as
a whole and keep us there. It is going to hurt for a little while because we
have got a lot of work to do but, the demand is still there, and we need to
do our best to meet that."
Editor's note: last names of RPA pilots and sensor operators have been withheld due to security constraints.