James and Welsh: ‘No doubt’ enlisted airmen could be drone pilots
By Stephen Losey. Air Force Times
The Air Force is still months away from deciding whether to allow enlisted airmen to be drone pilots. But its top two leaders say they have no doubt that enlisted are capable of doing the job.
“My personal opinion on it … we have just an absolutely fantastic enlisted force,” Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said at a news conference at the Air Force Association’s Air and Space Conference Tuesday. “With the right training and the right preparation, I just can’t imagine that they couldn’t do an excellent job of being an RPA [remotely piloted aircraft] pilot or virtually anything else that we would be talking about here.”
Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh echoed her comments. The Air Force now has some officer drone pilots who started out as enlisted sensor operators, who were probably capable of flying the RPA before getting their commissions, Welsh said.
And Welsh said the Air Force now has a large number of enlisted sensor operators who have been involved in more so-called “kinetic actions” — or firing weapons from an aircraft — than some new manned pilots.
“I have no doubt they can do the job,” Welsh said. “The question is, should we go that way?”
Welsh earlier this year said the Air Force planned to make a decision on enlisted drone pilots by the Corona meeting this fall, but James on Tuesday said the Air Force would likely have an announcement around the beginning of 2016.
