Speaking during the Dubai Air Show, USAF Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said the service would be making changes to its fledgling effort to produce more remotely piloted vehicle operators more quickly. USAF put its first batch of freshly minted undergraduate pilots into RPV training late last year, and just this past September its beta class of officers with no flying training graduated from initial flight screening and RPV training. According to an Aerospace Daily & Defense report, Schwartz said, “We are trying to find the sweet spot where we don’t train too much and don’t train too little.” He believes the service is “on the right path.”
An F-16 Fighting Falcon assigned to the Texas Air National Guard’s 149th Fighter Wing crashed during a training mission in Michigan on Sept. 17. The fighter's sole pilot ejected and is in stable condition at a local hospital.
