USAF File photo
Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I flew B-52’s, SAC had a program called “Accelerated Co-Pilot Enrichment” (ACE) with a small number (around 6 as I recall) T-37B “Tweets” assigned to SAC bases with B-52’s and KC-135’s, not sure about the other “heavy types” B-1’s and KC-10’s The purpose was to provide more opportunities for co-pilots to get flying experience by allowing them to take an airplane for the weekend and go out and fly their butts off on cross countries, often a 2 ship formation. Way back in the day while the earth was cooling (and well before my time) the USAF assigned T-33’s to many bases to include, Andrews AFB which allowed military Members of Congress to fly and maintain some currency.
Today, the USAF is assigning pilots and navigators to fly UAV’s like the MQ-1 Predator, the MQ-9 Reaper, and the RQ-4 Global Hawk. Planning is underway to begin a Undergraduate Remote Pilot Training (URT) to transfer (potentially) the training of new UAV operators to non-flying personnel. But there is the obvious worry that they will lack all of the situational awareness that a trained aircrew brings to the fight. Here is a good article in the Training and Simulation magazine here called Remote Red Barons and while I’m not sure what the official USAF position is, sounds like they are headed down the path.
Here’s a novel idea to allow these aircrew to maintain flying proficiency and for non-flying operators to experience flight operations, while also giving them more capability: assign 6 or so AT-6’s to each UAV squadron to allow (very expensively) trained pilots and navigators to maintain their flying skills AND provide additional capabilities in the field. In addition to these aircrew “flying” the UAV’s, allow the non flight qualified operators and enlisted sensor operators to fly (in the back seat) and give them much better air sense at a very inexpensive price.
I know, I KNOW, all my friends out there are saying “but what’s the requirement” Otto? And I say, the requirement is to keep these aviators in the service because after awhile, it just ain’t the same flying the “screen” and not really out there pulling G’s. Additionally, you could deploy these forward and allow the folks to fly both trainer and combat missions as well as help out local fledgling air forces like Iraq and Afghanistan. You know, as much as I bang the Hawker Beechcraft AT-6 drum around here, you’d figure I was on the payroll??!! Oh well, I did get a couple of stickers and a coin at the 60th Anniversary of the USAF convention last year.