Behind the Scenes With America's Drone Pilots

An anonymous reader writes "As President Obama meets with advisors on an Afghanistan strategy today (who are now leaning more toward Joe Biden's more-drones policy), and even as Al Qaeda claims it's not all that scared of drones, the new issue of Esquire takes the first real in-depth look at the American military's UAV build-up. Defense geek Brian Mockenhaupt spends some time on the ground in Afghanistan, as well as back at the Pentagon, where the pilots ('more like snipers than fighter pilots') are playing a kind of role-playing game, getting to know terrorists' daily ins and outs. Looks like these Reaper drones are the real wave of the future, eh?"

Re:ChAir Force

[biryokumaru]

I've heard the Air Force referred to more than once as the Chair Force.

Where do I sign up

[Botched]

To be a rigger?

Re:ChAir Force

[Anonymous Coward]

ChAir Force?

Then Steve Ballmer should be made a general.

Sex with sheep

[Dan East]

From page 4:

Indeed, they see many things meant to be secret, like men having sex with sheep and goats in the deep of night. I first heard this from infantry soldiers and took it as rumor, but at Bagram I met a civilian contractor who works in UAV operations. "All the time," he said. "They just don't think we can see them."

Not that bad

[cromar]

On the other hand, if wars are made up of robots fighting robots, there'd be drastically lowered casualties on both sides... then, maybe, we could reduce wars to episodes of BatteBots [battlebots.com] and generate a large potential for advertising profit as the world tunes in to see the latest "war." In this way, it would be possible to turn the human craving for cyclical violence into a family friendly TV show. The advertising revenue would feed back into the "wars" much in the same manner as the current military-industrial complex uses profits from one war to develop the weapons for the next.

Re:Where do I sign up

[Anonymous Coward]

Wiz idea, chummer.

Re:Sex with sheep

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully these are not brought into sovereign US soil because I certainly wouldn't want my privacy compromised by perverts watching me have sex with my lovely goats.

Re:I hate to say this...

[Red Flayer]

From the spear, the longbow, musket, and machine gun... The intent and purpose was to give your side the benefit of being able to put the enema at "arms length" (so to say) and put you on the side less likely to die.

FWIW, you don't need to put the enema a full arms' length up there. Just a couple inches past the sphincter will do fine. If you want to try for arms' length, go right ahead -- it's your bowels, after all... I just suggest using extra lube in that case.

Re:why drones are so BAD

[Conchobair]

In order to deal with that human side of things, what we should do is tell the pilots it is just a training simulation and thier objective is to defeat then enemy in order to pass. This would remove any guilt from killing real people. Also, since we all know kids are the best at video games and simulations in general, we could train a whole bunch of kids to do it all for us. We can put them through some sort of battle school or something.

Why hire remote pilots?

[GodfatherofSoul]

I'd just virtualize the controls, make it a MMO game, then offer cash prizes for the top "scores." I guarantee you, you'll have some 14 yr old with a D average who'll figure out how to bounce Hellfire missiles off walls to kill terrorists behind corners.

Re:Why hire remote pilots?

[dpilot]

And no doubt his sister and brother will post such insightful stuff on the Internet that whole nations will turn over their reins of governance to them.

Of course you'll have to cover up the murders the kid unknowingly commits, just so you can keep him playing your computer games.

Re:Sex with sheep

[sponga]

Sorry, I had to post one of the infamous 'Donkey Love' videos and this one has music.

Donkey Love
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=325_1253735346 [liveleak.com]

He even has his buddy help him out, tag team action on the donkey?
*high five*
"very nice"

On a side note, they have a UAV operations center somewhere by Tustin, California and you can talk to the guys at the bar after they get off a days work of UAV surveillance. Of course it is all classified, but I read a couple places where some guys got into discussion with them.

Weird you go to war in the morning and come home to your kids/wife in the evening.

Re:A U. S. monopoly? for how long?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are we sure you can't cobble a crude but effective one out of a video cell phone, an R/C model aircraft, and a couple of iPods? How long before we see these things over U. S. skies?

Are the iPods for in-flight music, announcing your demands via a prerecorded audio segment, or as an explosive charge?