I thought the thread's discussion related to RCAF level UAVs, RPAs etc etc and not the tactical level ones so my comments were in respect to those and I never contemplated not having a "pilot". I'm just saying you don't need one qualified and trained to the level of your typical jet jockey or even a transport pilot. There are dozens of things that those guys need to deal with "on the fly" so to speak that requires both training, talent and endurance. While flying UAVs and RPVs also require some piloting skills its not on the same level.
It may interest you to know that the bombardiers and master bombardiers who flew the Sperwers on ROTO 0 also went through a certified three month flight school program before being trained for another three months on the UAV itself. The RCAF imposed a pilot or navigator to sit in the control module with the crew to oversee "air worthiness" but in effect the gunners, under the supervision of their sergeant mission commander launched, flew and recovered the aircraft which weighs in at some 700 pounds, had a twelve foot wingspan and cruised up to 16,000 feet. It was the size, ceiling and nearby airport that made the RCAF nervous (or maybe it was the fact that the Army got a bunch of cash to buy Sperwers on a UAV in a matter of three months)
There's no doubt in my mind that the guy who flies a Raven B doesn't need anywhere near as much training as those Sperwer operators did and that anyone who flies a Reaper should have more. But none of them need the same degree of training as someone who flies an F-18 or F-35 or C-17. Neither do they need the same rank nor compensation package. That was my point: the RCAF is locked into the mentality that unless you are a pilot trained captain receiving flight pay you have no business operating an airframe. The fact of the matter is that there are pilots and then there are pilots. We need to keep the training and rank and compensation commensurate to the task at hand. Guys who fly suicide drones, do not need to be RCAF fully qualified pilots (they don't need to be RCAF at all) neither do most tactical UAVs and quite probably some of the more esoteric aerial guided weapon systems (hell we launch precision munitions by cannon, why not guided/piloted winged ones from a HIMARS?) The technology is getting spectacular and its time to set some paradigms aside and think differently about who does what and whether they get to collect flight pay and sleep in hotels.
I was the last one to run a Sperwer mission in the Canadian Forces.
Sperwer was a Tactical UAV.
The AVOs (Air Vehicle Operators) and POs (Payload Operators) were still Bombardiers, with one or two promoted to Master Bombardier in theatre, and one of our AVOs was some variety of Aircraft Tech.
All four Mission Commanders were Tac Hel Pilots.
None of us were receiving aircrew allowance as we were not flying. None of the deployed aircrew were, either, as they all received the same as anybody else deployed.
Our wingspan was actually just a tad under fourteen feet.
Scan Eagle was completely run by 4 AD Regiment. It was designated as a Small UAV.
There was no "RCAF" at the time. It was still "Air Command".
Operating Sperwer was nothing like flying a manned aircraft. The controls consisted of a panel embedded in a desk/counter and had nothing more than twiddly knobs and large, square, illuminated buttons. It reminded me of the original Star Trek control panels. We had no peripheral vision, nor could we hear our engine noise (which was a major factor in at least two AV losses) or feel what our aircraft was doing - even when we flew into thunderstorms and got swatted down eight hundred feet or so.
Scan Eagle is a smaller machine than Sperwer, but more modern and designed and built by a real US company with a real history of real aircraft design whereas Sperwer was designed and built by SAGEM, a French communications electronics company (my Bell Fibe modem-thingy is a SAGEM product, but, fortunately, it works reliably) with extremely limited experience designing and building anything that flew - and it showed. Lots of components were sub-contracted and did not work well together and much of it was just plain really, really weird.
We never lost a mission due to lack of a serviceable machine, but that's purely because we had magicians instead of Techs. Our "Body Shop" guy even rebuilt a whole wing after he'd noticed that the airfoil on one wing of an AV, newly-returned from a major rebuild by SAGEM, was inverted (excellent quality control there, SAGEM). That would have made for a highly entertaining launch...
We lost six machines, one in Wainwright during Ex Maple Guardian due to a launcher failure, one in theatre due to a parachute failure (my personal first loss), one due to a partial engine failure (my personal second loss), one due to a faulty engine RPM failure that mimicked an engine failure (my personal, and - thank fuck - final personal loss), one that failed to climb post-launch due to a temperature inversion and ended up in a mountain of old mines in KAF (I had an iron-clad alibi that time), and the last another launch system failure.
I almost lost one due to another inversion, but my quick-witted AVO followed low ground based purely on moving-map-display contour lines with no direct input needed from me and we eventually began to slowly climb. The inversion problem had likely happened on previous rotos, but was still not fully understood at the time and it caught us by surprise. The other problems were neither anticipated (and were not, therefore, included in the checklist) nor had they ever occurred before, at least not in CF service. I obtained all of the previous flight safety reports after my third loss and went through every one of them. There were several of which we were unaware, but, fortunately, none of those recurred during our roto.
I almost lost another very early on when the AV symbol on the moving map display froze, which made it extremely difficult to blunder our way back to KAF and make a successful recovery - which was due to the intelligence, skill, and incredible co-ordination of and between my AVO and PO.
We had amazingly brilliant people for the most part, but were not set up for success by either the "system" overall or previous rotos. We were still inventing and learning things from scratch, but we actually documented everything.
We operated at much lower altitudes than the little Scan Eagles did. They were around 11000 feet above ground level, whereas I tended to hang around 3000 feet. Any higher, and detail suffered - our thermal imager was not the best. Scan Eagle, then, did not even have a thermal imager. They were strictly a daytime operation, and their image tended to be rather jerky. Both of those shortcomings had been corrected when I went back a couple of years later.
Yes, those pairs of young Scan Eagle Bombardiers seemed effective in their roles, but they certainly sounded nervous when talking to ATC or Taipan (the tactical controller). That was a new environment for them.
Our Tac Hel experience, especially for the two of us with a Kiowa recce background, certainly helped, as did my Police helicopter time.
There is less and less need for actual flying time for largish systems as they develop and improve, but additional training is required to make up for the lack thereof for those who do not have any - not so much for the flying skills, but general air sense and tactical awareness. I still think, however, that the only way to be able to comprehend and think in a 3D environment is to experience it directly and to understand what one's aircraft is actually doing, especially when it deviates from normality.
The smaller toys don't need that air sense, or any more tactical sense than what their operators already have, as they are operating at much lower altitudes and ranges than we were.
