Congress is looking for answers regarding the education, training, and promotion rates for Air Force operators of remotely piloted aircraft, according to language included in the Fiscal 2013 defense authorization act. Lawmakers want a report from service leadership within the next six months on this topic, according to Section 527 of the legislation. The report should address “the reasons for persistently lower average education and training and promotion rates” for RPA pilots and the long-term impact of sustaining such lower rates, states the act. The report should also contain a plan to raise the rates and an analysis of the potential impacts of the plan on achieving and sustaining the Air Force’s RPA combat air patrol objectives. Senior Air Force leaders have for some time noted that the RPA field is still on a surge footing, pressing personnel into combat in Afghanistan while leaving little time for career development afforded other fields.
The Space Force must invest in high-level training based on the lessons learned from an unprecedented level of electronic warfare (EW) used by both Russia and Ukraine in the conflict there, one of the service’s top EW leaders said on April 24. “What we have seen in the Ukraine-Russia conflict…