Air Force study finds drone pilots stressed

An MQ-9 Reaper drone takes off Aug. 8, 2007, at Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, Nev.

/ Getty Images

A study for the U.S. Air Force reportedly found that nearly a third of the pilots behind the military's unmanned drones feel burned out from the increased demand for the high-tech weapon.

Drones have become important tools in the Obama administration's fight against al Qaeda. For example, they were used to carry out the strike that killed U.S.-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and one of the terror network's top bombmakers.

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The Air Force study, obtained by the Reuters news agency, found that 29 percent of drone pilots reported experiencing symptoms of burnout.

Seventeen percent of the pilots, who work out of bases in the United States, exhibited signs of "clinical distress," a diagnosis the Air Force found among 28 percent of American soldiers returning from Iraq.

"Clinical distress takes it to a different level," Dr. Wayne Chappelle, a co-author of the study, told Reuters.

The reasons behind the high levels of stress aren't complex. The study attributed them to long hours and a lack of manpower, Reuters reported.

The demand for drones doesn't appear to be decreasing anytime soon. In 2007, the Air Force was conducting between 10 and 15 drone patrols at any one time during the year. Last summer, more than 60 patrols were happening simultaneously, but an Air Force deputy chief of staff told Reuters that number was eventually scaled down to 57 to ease some of the stress.

Read the entire Reuters article here

[Skruffy1]

If these crybaby kids "piloting" these drones think their job is stressful, they ought to try flying actual aircraft into a war zone and see what it's like to be shot at by anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missiles. Weaponized drones are a cowardly way to shoot at an enemy. Sooner or later our use of drones to kill people is going to bite us in the butt bigtime.

[armyuav]

I joined this site just to post on this.

I've seen this same type of article in the Stars & Stripes, the military's news paper. The same USAF crybaby UAV pilots complaining about blah blah i suck at life blah blah. The author should get the other side of the UAV world and go visit the Army or Marines, and see how those ENLISTED pilots are. Airforce pilots coming to the UAV world are the biggest bunch of babies I've ever seen.

posted while deployed to afghanistan

[nancy_naive]

Let's not also forget the moral decay of "riskless" war.

[K. Daraa]

My father flew in the China-Burma-India (CBI) over the Hump, and in North Africa in World War II, with it's 78 percent aircrew casualty rate, and survived. I live a few miles from an US 8th Air Force World War II Cemetary at Maddingly, Cambridgeshire, filled with the bodies of over 6,000 dead USAAF bomber and fighter crew members, with their 73 percent casualty rates in 1943 and 1944. I flew 121 combat missions in battlefield reconnaissance aircraft, and I can honestly, with a slight experience and background say, that from here, the idea of using drones in combat doesn't look too bad. Hopefully, the Air Force can train more pilots to relieve the stress. I remember when they thought about using all ranks with private pilot licenses, etc, to fly the predators; however, the MQ-9 Reaper is a much more powerful aircraft, and the new turbojet-powered drones are high performance, and impossible for any but a qualified pilot to fly.

[johnsmith9875]

Two words: Shoulder Massages.

[worldcitizen1]

It's a tough job maintaining the empire. So much money wasted on this kind of crap while more people fall into poverty at home.

[fedup12]

They need to get this guy to fly a drone. Awesome. This guy would not have lost a drone over Iran unless there was Mechanical Failure.

Any number of RC pilots would be great at it. I could do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=tzowQtqOM_I

[fedup12]

Just sayin we are a huge untapped resource.

[talltimber41]

Stress...of course there is stress. There is stress in flying any aircraft, in traversing hostile territory or any number of other types of jobs in the military.

[rightbehind]

They can find money for garbage like this but they can't the money to keep our teachers employed.

[johnsmith9875]

Education is the bane of any military. Smart people don't join up.

[John782011]

It will be interesting to see how this news impacts their cohorts that served in combat5 zones. The ribbing will be something like, "you played war games in a padded chair with a joy stick in Nevada and went home to your wife and kids daily yet burned out. Try being shot at."

[rightbehind]

No doubts! Very good point.

[Jim1900]

It would be a different kind of stress of course. You wouldn't be worried about an IED going off. But you would have the lives of civilians and friendly troops in your hands. How do you tell them from the bad guys through a camera from 10,000 feet? The Air Force should train more pilots. It is a lot cheaper than sending the real ones over to Afghanistan or some other combat zone we may not have even heard about.