The Air Force secretary on Wednesday said that demand for drone pilots is so high that it will likely never be met.
“I don’t want to sound flip, but I think the answer is probably never,” Deborah Lee James told members of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee when asked when capability would catch up to demand. “Every time we speak to a combatant commander, they want more.”
Still, she said the service plans to submit a legislative proposal this year to offer more incentives to keep drone pilots in the service to boost capacity as much as possible.
The Remotely Piloted Aircraft Get Well plan will try to keep more airmen in the remotely piloted aircraft community as the economy improves and demand for commercial pilots grows.
Gen. Mark Welch, chief of staff of the Air Force, said the plan will give drone pilots better quality of life by providing them with more options for basing and working to bring the pace of operations down to a level that will “allow sanity back into their lives.”
Welch said that because of the high demand for drone pilots and not enough airmen to fly patrols, the community has been operating in a permanent “surge” mode.
In addition to more incentive pay increases and bonuses for drone pilots, Welch said the Air Force must fix quality of life issues for drone pilots to retain them.
“Until now, there’s been absolutely no normal in their lifestyle,” he said.
To accomplish this, the Air Force is also working to provide a normal schedule and set up an operations group at a base in the U.S. about a year from now. Welch also said the service will eventually look at basing drone units in Europe and the Pacific.
