The U.S. Air Force is taking steps to relieve and retain the airmen who operate its MQ-9 Reaper and MQ-1 Predator remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), but the strain on the force remains acute, the commander of the Air Combat Command (ACC) said on March 16. The Army has less of a problem manning its RQ-7B Shadow and MQ-1C Gray Eagle platforms, but faces a training shortfall, said the commander of the Training and Doctrine Command (Tradoc).

“The surge that our RPA enterprise has experienced in recent history is now no longer a surge, but the new normal,” Gen. Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle, the ACC commander, stated in written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We have surged RPA operations nine times over the past eight years. It has become routine, and is taxing our airmen and our RPA enterprise beyond their limits.”

Carlisle continued: “Sustained high operations tempo and the corresponding high levels of stress is negatively impacting the RPA enterprise. It is robbing our airmen of the quality of life necessary to withstand grueling schedules and maintain a healthy force. This leaves many of our airmen with just one option: to separate; a decision they have chosen at an extremely high rate, which threatens the sustainment of our nation’s essential RPA mission.”

The Air Force now has 8,000 airmen dedicated to the MQ-1/9 mission, including some 1,400 Air National Guard and Reserve personnel, according to Carlisle. The RPAs fly 60 “combat lines,” or sorties, daily, each of which can last up to 22 hours. This is a fivefold increase from the 12 daily combat lines flown in 2006. Air National Guard and Reserve components fly 19 of the 60 daily sorties.

Manning by the regular Air Force covers 80 percent of the flying requirement. Of these pilots, only one-third are rated as “18X” career RPA pilots; the other two-thirds are drawn from manned fighters, bombers and transports. The service “has borrowed pilots from these other flying career fields to augment this steady state force, but it remains over 200 pilots short,” Carlisle stated. Instructor pilots from operational squadrons are used to support training units, further reducing the availability of pilots to fly combat lines.

In January 2015, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James and Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh announced a number of steps, including pay incentives, aimed at retaining RPA pilots. Later that year, the ACC initiated a Culture and Process Improvement Plan, which Carlisle described as “an aggressive, action-oriented, field-influenced program with the goal of making lasting change for the MQ-1/9 enterprise.” The service expects to graduate 334 pilots and sensor operators this year—increasing from 180 in Fiscal Year 2015—and 384 next year. It wants to produce 400 RPA pilots by 2019, and to fly 90 percent of its missions with careerists.

The Army has 4,500 trained soldiers and warrant officers assigned to 75 Shadow platoons and 10 Gray Eagle companies. It plans to increase to 94 Shadow platoons and 15 Gray Eagle companies by September 2018. (More than 7,000 soldiers have been trained to deploy 6,500 hand-launched RQ-11B Raven and RQ-20 Puma aircraft.)

“We man our unmanned aerial systems similarly to the way we man other systems; most are operated and manned by non-commissioned officers and soldiers—they are organic to a formation,” Tradoc commander Gen. David Perkins told senators. “Right now our biggest challenge, based on our force structure, is not the manning of those,; it is what I would call our home-station training as we’re building up that capability.”

The testimony coincided with the release of a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that found the Air Force has taken some positive steps, but has not fully implemented GAO recommendations to improve its management of RPAs. The agency noted that in the current defense authorization act, Congress granted the Air Force authority to increase the amount of the retention bonus it pays RPA pilots from $25,000 to $35,000, but the service has not yet exercised that authority. Asked by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) why it hasn’t done so, Carlisle remarked: “I’m 511 fighter pilots short today. Our entire rated career field is being challenged.”

The ACC commander also commented on a January article in The Washington Post revealing that 20 General Atomics MQ-1/9s were involved in major crashes last year—half of them involving the larger, $14 million MQ-9 Reaper—the USAF’s worst annual accident toll. The newspaper obtained accident investigation reports under the Freedom of Information Act.

“With the older Block 1 MQ-9s the starter -generator is a problem,” Carlisle said. “We’ve worked with the manufacturer; we’ve found some quality control issues. We really have not found the root cause, but we are modifying the current Block 1 MQ-9s with an electrical safety improvement program. Basically we ([install)] a direct-drive brushless alternator that allows 10 hours of flight capability if you lose a starter -generator, which has caused those accidents. Just since last April, we have recovered 17 MQ-9s using this direct-drive brushless alternator.”