by AUVSI News 

The Air Force is looking to automation and cooperation and is changing its own practices in order to meet the high demand for unmanned aircraft at a time of severe budget constraints, said one service official in charge of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance at AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems Defense show on Wednesday.



Lt. Gen. Bob Otto, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for ISR, said the service could save valuable manpower through a variety of methods, including by using one person to control MQ-9 Reaper missions instead of the current two.



That would free up about 1,000 positions, saving millions of dollars, he said at the show’s Air Day session.



The service has a well known pilot shortage, although that’s not caused by a lack of volunteers, Otto said.



“It’s not that we couldn’t find enough volunteer officers; it’s that we have constantly surged beyond our program of record,” he said. 



“The reality is there may be missions in which we want both a pilot and a sensor operator, [but] there are certainly missions today that could be done by woman or one man … if we architected the ground station to enable it.”



The Air Force surged from five combat air patrols to 65 shortly after the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper became available, a 1,200 percent increase.



“Those crews have been stretched to the limit,” Otto said. “Twelve-hour shifts six days a week, the only light at the end of the tunnel is separation from service, and many of the pilots have decided to take that option.”



To increase its combat air patrols without further stressing its airmen, the Air Force is relying on an additional 16 Army aircraft CAPs as well as 10 from government-owned, contractor-operated operations — in other words, getting by with a little help from its friends.



In addition to halving Reaper crews, Otto said the Air Force will need to move to having one pilot operate two unmanned aircraft — the loyal wingman concept — or even more in swarms.



“That would enable enhanced capabilities while managing our personnel constraints, which is going to be a key consideration,” Otto said.



As a loyal wingman, a Reaper could serve as a weapons mule for an F-35 manned aircraft or could fly alongside another unmanned aircraft and conduct multiple types of missions. 



“Loyal wingman is certainly a concept we’re interested in. If you take that to the next step, then we’re talking about swarming,” he said, which would add still more capability.

Otto noted that the Air Force dodged a fiscal bullet with the apparent budget deal between the White House and Congress, since living under a continuing budget resolution “would be much worse than the Air Force living under the Budget Control Act.”



Even so, he said “today’s Air Force is the smallest it’s been since it was established in 1947.”



Lt. Gen. Michael Williamson, deputy to the assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisition, said his service is also coping with budget issues and an increased demand for unmanned systems.



“If you look back on the last 14 years and our employment of UAS and the maturity that has occurred, UAS are not something we are going to play with,” Williamson said. Instead, the technology “is part of our force structure.”



One way around budget issues is to increase interoperability and commonality, he said.



“The Army has the largest UAS fleet in the department,” he said. “We have bought hundreds of systems. Unfortunately, many of these have been bought with proprietary control software. … The challenge for us is in those sustainment and training costs. The real cost is in the tail. It’s in the sustainment of those items, the maintenance, the training of those items.”



Commonality would help even more, he said, as “if you look at the fleet of UAS … you still have very specific training requirements for operation and maintenance of each of these systems.”




Budget Battles



Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, himself a former long-time Air Force pilot, said the military has been caught in the perennial battle between trying to pay down the national debt while still providing enough funding for defense.



Elected nearly three years ago, Stewart is one of about 60 percent of House members who have never experienced “regular order,” the process by where Congress passes 12 individual appropriations bills to pay for government.



He is one of a growing number of lawmakers who would like to get back to that, Stewart said. 



“It’s a lousy way to do business. It’s a silly way to govern,” he said. 



Year-by-year budget fights make it hard to conduct defense planning, he said.



“You can’t plan national defense on a year-by-year basis,” he said, citing the example of the just-awarded next-generation bomber contract.



“That’s been in development for 15 years or so, and we’re just now announcing a contract for that, and we’ll have another 15 years before those aircraft are operational,” he said. 



The new budget deal will help with defense spending, Stewart said, but won’t stem the tide.



“It’s a meaningful amount. Is it sufficient? Probably. Is it close? It’s getting there.”

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