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Air Force has big plans for Reapers

By 2016, the Air Force wants to have 50 orbits — round-the-clock combat air patrols — flown solely by the MQ-9 Reaper, the highly lethal unmanned aerial vehicle, in the current war zones.

Col. J.R. Gear, the deputy director for operations for the Air Force’s Unmanned Aerial Systems Task Force, said the proposed 2010 budget request includes Reaper funding that will put it on track for the 2016 goal.

“Those details are all predecisional because the budget’s not signed,” he said.

Currently, the Air Force flies 33 combat air patrols in Iraq and Afghanistan; 31 of those are Predators, two are Reapers. Air Force officials would not say how the Predator might be used if and when Reapers completely assume the war-zone CAP mission. Already decided is that the Air Force wants to increase the number of MQ-9s that linger over the war zones to 19 by 2012.

A combat air patrol consists of three different pairs of pilots and sensor operators over a 24-hour period operating a single UAV.

In late November, the Air Force awarded $115 million to Reaper manufacturer General Atomics for 16 more aircraft with the option to buy 29 more, GA spokeswoman Kimberly Kasitz said.

In the next two years, the Air Force will grow the training pipeline needed to man the Reaper and its slightly less lethal sibling, the MQ-1 Predator. By 2010, the Air Force plans to produce 360 crews a year, about 100 more crews than produced in 2008.

The Air Force will continue to rely heavily on contractors and simulators for training, Gear said. Already contractors account for about a third of the 59 pilot instructors at the 11th Reconnaissance Squadron, the unit responsible for training Predator crews at Creech Air Force Base, Nev. Gear, the former head of training at the 11th, said finding contractors to fill some of the training slots has been difficult, largely because of problems finding UAV pilots with experience flying the Reaper or Predator.

“It took about eight months to hire six people,” Gear said.

The contractors are responsible for much of the simulator side of the training, leaving the hands-on training to active-duty pilot and sensor operator instructors.

While hiring contractors fills a need, it also works against the military as experienced UAV crew members leave the service for more lucrative civilian jobs.

Josh Kovac, a former F-18 pilot and director of new business with UAV company Aero Mech Engineering, said UAV pilots “can run about $100,000.”

“They’re getting as much as guys getting out of the service flying corporate jets,” he said.

“That’s the only available pool, guys that are leaving the service,” said Doug Marshall, an aviation professor at the University of North Dakota and part of the Joint Unmanned Aerial Center of Excellence. “It’s high-pay work in high demand.”

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Staff writer Michael Hoffman contributed to this story.