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| The Air Force's new poster boys: drone jocks |
| 2009-07-15 |
| Indian Springs, Nev. - If the Air Force needed a poster boy for the way it is adapting to the 21st century, it has high hopes that a young officer named Captain Bob will fit the bill. Captain Bob can't wait to deploy in the cockpit of the F-16 jet he's trained to fly, but the Air Force has other plans for the young fighter jock. As it scrambles to meet an exploding appetite for real-time video surveillance of the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Air Force is undergoing a seismic cultural shift, adapting to the needs of warfare today while pondering what it might look like tomorrow. Bob, who asked that his full name not be used because of the sensitivity of his job, has for now turned in his G-suit to be a desk jockey with a joystick. His days are spent, not pulling Gs, but inside an air-conditioned trailer an hour from the Las Vegas strip. From here, he flies a remote-controlled airplane over Afghanistan or Iraq to produce video feeds of those wars a world away. The images are fed immediately to troops on the ground to track the enemy, spot someone planting a roadside bomb, or monitor other insurgent activity. |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #10 IMHO if you can master Flight Simulator, this is not a big reach (if it is'nt they designed it wrong) I've had a chance to talk with both a US and a British senior pilot with live air missions and also UAV experience. Both said that situational awareness was *harder* with UAVs because they didn't get the kinesthetic, body experience of a real plane and therefore had to work much more with conscious awareness -- without losing sharp focus. Both also said that when ground engagements were at stake, they required split-second reactions that drew on peripheral vision, spatial orientation etc. of the sort they'd trained to develop in the cockpit. FWIW, but their descriptions made it sound a long way from playing a video game. |
| Posted by: lotp 2009-07-15 21:34 |
| #9 CF, Good short story. Lousy book. Too many sequels. |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2009-07-15 21:19 |
| #8 "Tis not just the Fighter Jocks-Mafia.... IIRC DEFENSETECH.ORG [paraph?] > FLEETS PLAN FOR SMALLER WARSHIPS. Also, NAVIES WITHOUT SAILORS/CREWS. * CHINA's "SUBMARINE/-MERSIBLE AIRCRAFT CARRIER" DESIGN. {Sub "Mother Ship" for USV'S + Missles]. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-07-15 19:16 |
| #7 You mean Ender's Game :^) Good book. And that is a good reason to have real pilots like Bob here out at the front where they aren't reliant on satellites. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2009-07-15 19:08 |
| #6 Ender's War. Well, they'll be missing those self-reliant pilots and fighters when the satellites get taken out or jammed. |
| Posted by: KBK 2009-07-15 19:03 |
| #5 Oh, and as a MMO, you'll be paying to play rather than being paid to 'play'. Think of the overhead savings. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-07-15 18:54 |
| #4 And there are probably millions of young men (and even older fat guys like me(1) ) who can handle the likes of Flight Simulator, X-Plane, or Falcon 4 but don't stand a quarter's chance in congress to qualify for anything even remotely 'real' Nah, we'll port it to consoles and PCs as a realtime massive multiplayer online game with portions both scripted and real. Operators of skill and merit who graduate to uber master level will unknowingly be operating drones in interesting areas and scenarios. As far as they know its just another game to them in virtual reality rather than naked reality. To Smo down on the ground, well, it'll be reality up front and personal. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-07-15 18:52 |
| #3 CF, I agree. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a Navy fighter pilot. I could picture myself sitting on the deck of a carrier, waiting for launch. Then reality struck. I was never a jock, always a little overweight. To make matters worse, pilots had to have 20/20 vision. Mine was about 20/200 or so. I could see fine with glasses, but there was no way I could ever be a pilot. Today, I could probably fly a drone. I don't need 20/20 uncorrected to see the ground from 30000 feet. I don't need to be in shape so I can withstand the G forces and other stresses of piloting a plane. Of course, this is why the AF hates drones. The fighter mafia has spent 50-60 years building up the mystique of the fighter pilot as the best in the world. All of a sudden, fat, blind people like me could do the job. |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2009-07-15 18:02 |
| #2 And there are probably millions of young men (and even older fat guys like me(1) ) who can handle the likes of Flight Simulator, X-Plane, or Falcon 4 but don't stand a quarter's chance in congress to qualify for anything even remotely 'real'. If nothing else it'll free up the real pilots like Bob here to achieve their dream of flying the real thing. (1) As for myself - I suck even at flight simulator.... |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2009-07-15 15:40 |
| #1 GEEKS FROM AROUND THE WORLD OUR DAY HAS COME! “Kneel before Cyber Zod” IMHO if you can master Flight Simulator, this is not a big reach (if it is'nt they designed it wrong). Of course the idiot in the Air Force have to have some officer fly it because they are afraid of enlisted pilots. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2009-07-15 14:55 |