Air Force unveils pay incentives to fix drone-pilot shortage

By Daniel Rothberg

Thursday, July 16, 2015 | 7 p.m.

Facing a serious shortage of drone operators and high demand for unmanned combat flights, the Air Force announced Wednesday measures to correct the shortfall. They include incentives for pilots to continue their service and a $100 million investment in the program.

Creech Air Force Base, about 50 miles outside of Las Vegas, is one of the Air Force’s primary outposts for its Predator and Reaper drone missions. The purpose of those missions can range from surveillance flights to targeted strikes. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, roughly 1,066 pilots fly drones from Creech and other bases, which puts the force more than 200 pilots short of the of the 1,281 it needs to meet its 65 daily mission demand.

The Air Force has acknowledged that the operations can cause extreme stress for pilots, given the fatal costs of a mistake and the sheer number of hours that pilots log. Drone pilots, for instance, often log four times as many hours — 900 to 1100 hours per year — as manned aircraft pilots, who log between 200 and 300 hours, Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James said at a news conference in February. At the same time, with crises in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, the demand for drone flights remains high. The unmanned Reaper and Drone missions represent the second largest enterprise in the regular Air Force.

The measures that the Air Force announced in a news release on Wednesday are intended to address the program’s shortages in both the short term and long term.

To improve retention and recruitment, the Air Force is proposing to offer drone pilots a choice to extend their service for five years or nine years, with a bonus of $15,000 per year. Members could elect to receive half of the payment up front. The Air Force said in its release that the incentives are similar to what the Air Force has offered aviators in the past.

"We will continue to maintain a persistent focus on this mission set and bring about the necessary relief to sustain operations responsibly," James said in the Wednesday release. "This is a high demand mission set. It is a national security imperative that we get this right."

In an effort to make up for the short-term pilot deficit, the Air Force will assign about 80 graduates from its pilot training programs to work as drone pilots, with the hope that the pipeline will be a temporary fix while it increases training of drone operators from 190 to 300 graduates per year. By 2017, the Air Force expects to be training enough drone pilots — about 300 per year — to sustain the current operation demand, according to the statement.

The Air Force said it is also meeting the gap by increasing use of Guard airmen, Reserve airmen and contractors. To ease the strain on the drone program, the Defense Department announced it would bring the number of required air patrols from 65 to 60 daily flights.

“We are projected to hit 3 million flight hours this fall. We have to get this right,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III said in the news release.

Pending congressional approval, the Air Force plans to invest $100 million in ground control stations, training simulators, software tools and contract instructors.

As the number of drone strikes have spiked under the Obama administration, the program has been met with criticism. Last March, 34 activists were cited while protesting at Creech.