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...more than half a century, pilots have been considered the essence of the Air Force. But in reality, they're just a tiny slice of the service. They account for only 13,202 of the 324,191 active duty personnel wearing Air Force blues, and the service is now buying more unmanned than manned aircraft. It's a trend that experts say will only accelerate. So this week the Air Force, acknowledging that it no longer makes sense to spend $1 million training a pilot to fly drones from a desk halfway around the world, declaring that future drone drivers...
...first eight months of 2008, Air Force drones have logged more than 80,000 hours flying nearly 4,500 missions over Afghanistan and Iraq. While most were surveillance - transmitting video back to their ground-based controllers - many involved launching missiles at enemy targets. "The combat contributions of unmanned aircraft systems in today's fight have surpassed all expectations and hold even greater promise for the future," said General Norton Schwartz, the Air Force's new chief of staff, in announcing the staffing shift...
...photos of the history of the Air Force here
Schwartz took over the Air Force last month after Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired General Mike Moseley. Gates has clashed repeatedly with the Air Force over its mishandling of nuclear weapons, its push to buy more costly manned warplanes and its foot-dragging in sending more drones to the war zones. He and Moseley also differed over whether non-pilots should be able to operate weapons-carrying drones. Like other previous Air Force leaders, Moseley argued that only a trained pilot had the mental and moral heft to deliver bombs and missiles, or could avoid mid-air collisions with other...
Schwartz, significantly, is the first non-fighter pilot to head the Air Force in a generation (he is a pilot, but primarily of special-operations aircraft). To meet the soaring demand for drone operators, he says fledgling pilots will be used. But the service soon will "develop an unmanned aircraft systems operator career field with specialized training potentially distinct from current manned pilot training," he said. That will come as a relief to many young pilots who have feared having their flying careers crimped by being ordered to fly drones from Nevada's Creech Air Force Base. Schwartz said...