Red faces at the USAF?

A report in Stars & Stripes suggests that someone in the USAF has blundered.

The Air Force has lost many more unmanned aerial vehicles than the Army, in part because Army drones have the ability to land themselves, the Pentagon’s outgoing procurement chief said on Monday.

John Young, the undersecretary of Defense for acquisitions, technology and logistics, raised the issue Monday shortly before his replacement was sworn in.

While discussing problems with the acquisition process, Young mentioned that the Army and Air Force are not talking to each other about their unmanned aerial vehicles programs.

"The Air Force built a budget that didn’t include putting auto-land capability in their Predators, despite the fact that we’ve lost a third of the Predators we’ve ever bought, and a significant fraction of the losses are attributable either to the ground control station or the pilot’s operation of that ground control station, or the pilot’s operation of the vehicle," he said.




"Of the 65 mishaps, 36 percent are human error, many of those attributable to ground station problems, a Defense official said. "Roughly half of those happened during the landing phase."

Predators cost between $3 million and $4 million, Young said.

Army unmanned aerial drones have the ability to land themselves, and the Army has lost "an insignificant fraction" of the aircraft, Young said.

"I have mandated in acquisition decision memorandums that the Air Force move as fast as possible to an auto-land capability," he said.

With improvements to ground stations and the added ability for Predators to land themselves, Predator losses are expected to drop by 25 percent, he said.

There's more at the link.

Can you imagine the hilarity in Army aviation circles right now? The USAF is supposed to be the home of expert pilots - and they're crashing more UAV's than the Army, so much so that they're scrambling to buy the auto-landing systems they've previously scorned! Perhaps US Army aviators should offer to take over a few squadrons of fighters and bombers, to show the boys in blue how it's done?



Peter