Weapons Away

Really? I was a planner when he was the EARS/CC in an undisclosed location in SW Asia and thought he was pretty decent...although that was many moons ago and my homestation sq/cc was a douche canoe, so my comparative lens may have been rose colored.

I mean...I've seen worse airspace deconfliction. In all seriousness though, I don't think that what they're doing is at all comparable to MQ-9 ops. Can't speak to RQ-4s outside of the fact that they can't physically manipulate the flight controls via stick, throttle, rudder pedals. I've sat in with the Army Gray Eagle folks, and their situation is vastly different as well. There's no argument from me about the life-on-the-line differences of being inside the aircraft. There's also no misconception (at least from me) about the training levels between 11s and 18s. There's still piloting going on though, albeit remotely...whether it's employing weapons in a stack full of manned aircraft or transiting in congested airspace with shitty weather and no true sense-and-avoid capability...all while dealing with the same questionable TAC C2 vectors that you also have to deal with. But don't worry, I have a grand solution for it all. From now on, just call us Remote Aircraft Flight Control Manipulators and Doers of Pilot-Like Tasks. Or RAFCMDPLT for short.

But who was the leadership in the community at the time? The first organic 18x squadron commander just happened a few years ago.

Ahhhh yes...because rpa pilots gave themselves that name. I forgot that RPA pilots run the USAF. I also didn't present an argument or recommendation for either side. I simply pointed out that it doesn't make sense to recommend a name change from pilot to operator if you're going to keep the rpa designation in front of the word operator.

R=remotely P=PILOTED A=aircraft Strong argument you've got going there.

Long time listener...first time caller. I just wanted to add to the praise of Jon and his team (Lisa, Bri) over at Trident Home Loans. Recently financed a home through them. Not only were they extremely easy and pleasant to work with, they gave me a great rate (title company hadn't seen a rate that low since 2016). I had a good experience with USAA on my first home purchase, but this Trident experience far exceeded my previous purchase. I will definitely be using Trident as my lender in the future. WA