

The loneliness of the long-distance drone pilot - Thevet
http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/headline-story/11553/air-force-drone-pilot-problem/

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Animats
The USAF hates drones. Their pilots hate drones. The US Army likes them, and
has much less trouble with staffing. The Army's Predator drones have autoland,
and their drones crash less than the USAF's piloted landings. Army drones are
piloted by enlisted men who take a 21-week course.

Army recruiting video for drone operators:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe48B7YRLfg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe48B7YRLfg)

The Army wants to minimize the number of people needed to operate drones,
because their operators are in trailers at the drone launch sites. The
soldiers who fly the drones are also trained to launch them (some launch from
a truck-mounted rail, without a runway) and do some of the maintenance on
them, so they're full-stack drone soldiers. The USAF has a setup where drones
are flown off a runway near the battlefield, but piloted and observed remotely
from the US.

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bsder
Yeah, the Air Force has been fighting tooth and nail because it's becoming
increasingly obvious that manned aircraft are going to significantly drop in
number.

Why call in a strike with it's attendant delay when you can just do it now?

Perhaps if the Air Force were a little more cooperative with the Army, the
Army wouldn't have been quite so aggressive about its drone program.

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jacquesm
Drone pilots looking for sympathy because they're lonely?

"The door opened and in walked a Pakistani father with the corpse of his
child."

The epitome of first world problems.

~~~
ycitm
As @Joeboy points out, the title is a play on "The loneliness of the long
distance runner", so it's not literally about loneliness.

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Joeboy
The word lonely (or derivatives thereof) doesn't actually appear in the text.
I only know that because I searched for it though.

~~~
ycitm
The phrase "it makes for really boring dinner conversation" does though.

~~~
jacquesm
As well as a whole pile of others about being 'overpaid, underworked and
bored' and more gems like that.

Another viewpoint:

[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/29/drones-...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/29/drones-
us-military)

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danbruc
I hope they suffer a lot from what they are doing. They are responsible for
what they are doing. They are always free to quit and work for someone with
higher goals than blowing up people on the other end of the world.

Just imagine what would happen if Pakistan would start blowing up drone pilots
on their way home because they are terrorizing their people.

~~~
kephra
I really wonder why nobody did use an off the shelf high payload drone, e.g.
an octocopter, to attack a drone pilot on its way home, at home, at the
football match, or when he picks up his children from school. Those drone
pilots are combatants and therefore legal targets of war, regardless how deep
they hide in the hinterland.

I don't think that Pakistan will declare war to US. The relation is totally
odd, with US financing Pakistan military on one side, while bombing those
parts where Pakistan lost control on the other hand side. Pakistan and US are
close allies, who both know that staying allies is the best they can do.

But some self declared Islamic state might do. Its just retaliation from their
viewpoint. And that kind of attack is plain cheap to execute, would perfectly
fit into the picture of an asymmetrical war, and even be legal as drone pilots
are combatants.

So I really wonder, why nobody did so far.

~~~
danbruc
Yes, Pakistan was not a good example. But an octocopter would be unnecessary
complex way because you will probably not be able to control it from the other
end of the world. But what if you would just waited in front of the base and
shoot a drone pilot down? Would it be fair game? Would it be murder?

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Joeboy
Not reading the article because I fear it might piss me off more than I need
right now, but I wondered if everybody knew the title was a riff on
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Loneliness_of_the_Long_Dis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Loneliness_of_the_Long_Distance_Runner)

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gaius
Must be terrible

Oh wait [http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-
drone-...](http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-
strikes-kill-1147)

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ris
My. Heart. Fucking. Bleeds.

