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What has been seen, cannot be unseen. Holy fuck I need some eye bleach...

Seriously? So this dude is getting hooked up then? Sure he would have known about UAVs, or RPAs or whatever they decide to call them this week, before starting pilot training, but unless he went to the academy (just kidding, but seriously) he worked his ass off for years before even getting to this point, well before they were getting dropped. And why does the date you started pilot training even matter? After busting your ass for that long, training to actually FLY aircraft, with the Air Force constantly ensuring you can meet the mental and physical rigors of manned flight, it's simply not right to make it all the way to graduation and know it was in vain and that you're going to be doing the same job that people without real flight experience, such as Army enlisted and Beta program graduates can do. And more than that, you're going to some of the s***iest locations to do it. Now don't get me wrong. RPA operators are doing one hell of a job and we need them. But students don''t go through +10 years of college/testing/endless nights of studying, planning on gaining the prestige, title and thrill of a medical doctor only to find out at the end that they are going to end up doing the same job a nurse can do...for their entire career. Does the Air Force have every right to do this to UPT studs? Absolutely. Is it still f***ed? You bet!

I find it troubling that Mr. Day, the USAF director for irregular warfare, is publicly stating that his camp is 'fighting the fighter mafia on this.' If that's his perception of where irregular warfare programs are right now, then he's pretty far out of touch with the reality. My advice to him is to quit making excuses and start serving the customer better. As an operator, my biggest gripe is the incorporation of a WSO into slow FAC'in. Everyone wants to draw parallels with FACs of yore. And while some (not all) of FAC platforms - A-1, O-1, O-2, OV-10, A-10, F-100 - had two seats, exactly zero carried a nav or a WSO. I think this would be a great mission but if it ends up working like Strike Eagle CAS ("Hey pilot, don't mask my targeting pod, and talk on the radio only by exception!") then you can keep it.

That's a 100% valid point. There is no doubt a dedicated sensor operator can provide more and better sensor coverage than a pilot operating the same sensor while still flying the aircraft. That said, is this new COIN platform being procured as another sensor? If so why not just throw another expendable MQ-1 orbit up? My understanding is that the intent is to have something that can quickly integrate with the ground commander's scheme of maneuver and act as an airbone extension of the FSE - read, FAC(A). Your example says fused EO/IR sensor, multiple datalinks, UHF/VHF/FM/SATCOM, cats-and-dogs weapons, LGBs... Add FAC(A) and you have A-10 and F-16. Bottom line - NTISR can and does benefit from a sensor operator (sidebar - how many years do you have to do something before it stops being non-traditional?) Multiple radios, myriad weaponry, and an EO/IR sensor historically have not and do not drive the need for a FAC(A) to have a trunk monkey. Are those my only two options? The crux of my argument is that a WSO has not historically been required to be effective as a FAC. Any references to 'pride' are brought on by you and you alone and are not in any way constructive to the discussion. So you draw conclusions about my reasoning in the same post where you ask for clarification on my reasoning? Copy.