Three years ago we predicted that manned Close Air Support (CAS) would be a thing of the past  by the year 2020 (Latest stats on USAF Drones). USAF HQ just hastened our prediction today, announcing they will mothball six tactical fighter squadrons, including four squadrons of the venerable (and awesome) A-10 attack aircraft as part of Obama's plan to gut our nation's military.

Units on the chopping block are the 107th Fighter Squadron at Selfridge ANG Base, MI.; the 163rd FS at Fort WayneANG Station, IN.; and the 184th FS at Ebbing ANG Base,AR. Throw in Iowa's 124th Fighter Squadron (F-16) and two other un-named active duty units flying A-10 and F-15's. That's 10% of our fighter force -- Gone in 60 Seconds.

Not to worry though. Jackwad Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz says the pilots in the axed squadrons would transfer to other units, including those that fly unmanned aircraft like MQ-9 Reapers and MQ-1 Predators.

“What we are doing is re-missioning the units,” Schwartz told reporters at the Pentagon Jan. 27. “In other words, for example, a unit that was operating manned aircraft might transition to a remotely piloted aircraft mission. And so, their fundamental skills will still be employed but in a different way.”

Yeah, right.

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No, this isn't a Photoshop'd image of a giant phallus, it's just the latest salvo in the USAF's war against piloted aircraft (Welcome to Outsourcing, Gentlemen!). Argus One, a dirigible-looking thing created by the World Surveillance Group (WSG), is currently undergoing tests at an "undisclosed base" - - can you say Groom Lake, aka 'Area 51'?  Argus One can hover over a target area at 10-20,000' and provide real-time recon datalinked to some MWFIC who undoubtedly will give the order to launch some other drone to take out the target.

We've been talking about the de-manlyfication of the USAF for quite some time (The Future is Officially here...), but this is some really cheap-ass shit!!!

Bring back the Lockheed Skunk Works, I say!

If the steady flow of nuclear secrets to the ChiComs over the last decade wasn't enough, the recent capture of one of our RQ-170 "stealth" drones might prove to be a game-changer as far as US military superiority goes. While Iran was beating its chest about the alleged shootdown of the drone, the US military and the Administration were of course denying the whole affair - until Iranian state television produced the aircraft (which appears largely intact) at a propaganda-laced media event - check out the US flag with skulls for stars!

The USAF transition from manned fighter and recce aircraft to a fleet of drones mandates that we maintain a huge edge in technology. These pesky little things can be used quite effectively against enemy targets, whether the "enemy" is some Al-Qaeda asshole - or the US imilitary tself.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about Drone-gate are reports that the US military had a chance to go after the wayward UAV and destroy in on the ground where it went down. This of course was vetoed by Obama, who was afraid the violation of Iran's airspace would have been seen as an act of war. Will the buffoonery never end?

CBS's 60 Minutes ran a story last Sunday on the USAF's UAV program. At the end of the story, an ex-fighter pilot admits in public that he'd rather keep flying drones than go back to an F-16 cockpit. Sad.

The New York Times

Up, Up and Out

Op-Ed Contributor By PAUL KANE Published: April 20, 2009

Silver Spring, Md.

ROBERT GATES, the secretary of defense, has proposed a budget overhaul that will go a long way toward improving our national security, but more can be done to meet his long-term goal: creating the right military for the 21st century.

Not since Henry Stimson's tenure from 1940 to '45 has a defense secretary been faced to the same degree with simultaneously fighting a war and carrying out far-reaching reforms. Yet there are three major changes Mr. Gates should add to his agenda, and they deserve President Obama's support.

First, the Air Force should be eliminated, and its personnel and equipment integrated into the Army, Navy and Marine Corps. Second, the archaic "up or out" military promotion system should be scrapped in favor of a plan that treats service members as real assets. Third, the United States needs a national service program for all young men and women, without any deferments, to increase the quality and size of the pool from which troops are drawn.

At the moment, the Army, Navy and Marine Corps are at war, but the Air Force is not. This is not the fault of the Air Force: it is simply not structured to be in the fights in Iraq and Afghanistan. While Army, Marine and Navy personnel have borne the brunt of deployments, commonly serving multiple tours, the Air Force's operational tempo remains comparatively comfortable. In 2007, only about 5 percent of the troops in Iraq were airmen.

Yes, air power is a critical component of America's arsenal. But the Army, Navy and Marines already maintain air wings within their expeditionary units. The Air Force is increasingly a redundancy in structure and spending.

War is no longer made up of set-piece battles between huge armies confronting each other with tanks and airplanes. As we move toward a greater emphasis on rapid-response troops, the Army has tightened its physical fitness regime and the Marine Corps has introduced a physically grueling Combat Fitness Test for all members. Yet an Air Force study last year found that more than half of airmen and women were overweight and 12 percent were obese.

Next, the current military personnel system is a peacetime bureaucratic construct that serves neither national security nor those who wear the uniform. Congress sets the level of manpower for each military service. Within this constraint, military planners have to decide how many riflemen, mechanics, cooks, medics, pilots and such there should be within the military's job types, known as Military Occupational Specialties. Then the Pentagon has to decide how many people will be retained in the ranks or promoted.

The result is an "up or out" system that demands service members move up the ladder simply to stay in the military. Any soldier passed over for promotion twice must leave or retire.

Treating service members like so many widgets - in particular, the enlisted men and women who make up 85 percent of the ranks - is arbitrary and bad management. I have seen many fit, experienced officers and enlisted Marines arbitrarily forced out because there were only so many slots into which they could be promoted.

The military should develop a new accounting and personnel system that tracks the cost of developing its human capital and tallies each service member as an investment with a fixed value based on his education, training, experience and performance. This would reflect the departure of a valued service member as an asset lost, not a cost cut. Why are fit men and women who have served in combat, a human experience that a million dollars can't buy, being pushed out instead of retained for 15, 20, 30 years?

Last, Mr. Gates should urge President Obama to confer with Congress and introduce national service at age 18 for all Americans. Under such a system, young people from all classes and backgrounds would either serve in the military or do other essential work like intelligence assessment, conservation, antipoverty projects, educational tutoring, firefighting, policing, border security, disaster relief or care for the elderly. The best qualified would be assigned to the military.

The 1.6 million Americans who have served in the current wars represent less than one percent of all citizens. We need to spread the risk and burden of fighting our wars. If more of our national leaders had been in uniform, or knew they might have children at risk in war, their decisions during military confrontations might be better. And this is not just about the struggle against terrorism: would New Orleans reconstruction have lagged so long if we had had a national service program in natural-disaster recovery?

President Obama has the political capital to make these critical changes. Given the urgency of war and money available under the economic recovery plan, now may be our best chance for decades to truly modernize America's defenses.

_________________________________________-

Paul Kane is a Marine veteran of Iraq and a former fellow with the International Security Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

As a follow-up to a couple of previous stories on the MQ-9 and "UDT" , here's a recent graphic released by the USAF that illustrates how quickly they are  outsourcing manned aircraft, esp. on the tactical end with the MQ-9. My prediction for the end of manned CAS by 2020 stands...

We've been saying it for months (Welcome to Outsourcing, Gentlemen! and Georgian UAV films its own death), but now it looks like its official. The final nail is being hammered home into the coffin of manned tactical aviation. Undergraduate Drone Training is starting to take the place of UPT!

 (Photo: UDT Class 09-01 take their stations at Creech AFB,NV)

USAF Develops Plan For Filling Unmanned Aircraft System Positions
by Master Sgt. Russell P. Petcoff
Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs
Washington DC (AFPN) Sep 22, 2008

Air Force leaders are taking a two-pronged approach to address the increasing need for pilots of unmanned aircraft systems in Afghanistan and Iraq, an Air Force official said recently.

The first approach will use a small percentage of undergraduate pilot training graduates for the short term. The second will examine the potential for a distinct career path for Airmen to fly unmanned aircraft.

"The UPT approach will happen quickly," said Col. Pete Lee, chief of the operational training division in Air Staff Operations.

In the next couple of weeks, Air Force officials will select approximately 10 percent of UPT graduates to begin UAS training when they graduate in October. Their UAS training will be at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada.

After completing a standard UAS tour, UPT Airmen will receive a follow-on assignment to a manned aircraft, Colonel Lee added.

In January 2009, the Air Force will begin the second approach, a small-group testing of a program to train approximately 10 active-duty officers to specifically fly unmanned aircraft. Colonel Lee said the lessons learned from the first group will be used to train a second group of 10.

Initial training will begin in Pueblo, Colo., where the Air Force conducts introductory flight screening. UAS-specific training will follow with full major weapons system qualification completed at Creech.

"The plan is to develop and validate training programs that prepare non-UPT pilots for wartime UAS duty," Colonel Lee said. "We will continue to uphold the highest levels of Air Force flight safety standards."

The colonel said this is a historic time for the Air Force.

"Pilots flying unmanned aircraft today and Airmen selected for the new UAS training program are charting ground-breaking paths for the Air Force," Colonel Lee said. "They are truly trailblazers."

The Air Force general in charge of oversight of air, nuclear, space, cyber and weather operations for the Air Staff said the demand for UAS in theater is critical.

"The combat contributions of unmanned aircraft systems in today's fight have surpassed all expectations and have taken a crucial role in our ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Lt. Gen. Daniel Darnell, Air Force deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements.

"The surveillance-only role of UAS has rapidly expanded to include strike, force protection, and additional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions," the general added.

Colonel Lee said unmanned aircraft are the tip of the spear for Air Force combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq because of "their ability to identify, track and engage our enemies."

From January to August of this year, MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers flew more than 4,400 sorties, logging over 81,800 combat flight hours. They also engaged more than 9,900 ISR targets and were an integral asset during more than 300 incidents of troops in contact with the enemy and more than 1,000 raids.

The Air Force recently announced plans to swap out manned fighter aircraft in Iraq with its newest fighter pilot replacement, the MQ-9 Reaper from the 42nd Attack Squadron based at Creech (remember that asshole?) AFB, NV. Roughly the size of an A-10, and weighing in at over 10,000 pounds, the Reaper can deliver a smörgåsbord of precision-guided stuff including Hellfires and GBU-12's.

"Today we are in an environment where we may not need the large number or persistence of manned aircraft," said LT Gen Gary North, the USAF MFWIC in the Middle East. "There are periods where we've gone a week to ten days without having to release a single kinetic attack, and that is a real success story," he said, referring to bombing enemy targets. "Will we need to have manned kinetic capability to respond either with overhead or ground alert? The answer is yes, for a period of time," he said.

"Kinetic attacks" and "kinetic capability"? WTFO??? Obviously political correctness has infested the USAF to the point of no return - didn't we used to call it "old-fashioned whup-ass?" Worse, these Reapers are flown by a "two man crew" back at Creech AFB (the former Indian Springs AFB) - two guys sipping java and working a mouse and a monitor in pleathor lounge chairs, no doubt looking good with their neatly-pressed silk scarves.

My prediction? Twenty years from now manned CAS will be a thing of the past. But as efficient as drones may be, they are incapable of emotion and can't yell out "Shack!" when they toast some Al-Qaeda asshole, so what's the point? And who will they call when they have a problem - some dude in Bangalore?

This clip shows a Russian Mig-29 splashing an unarmed Georgian UAV on April 21, 2008. IMHO, if the pilot had any balls, he would have gunned it rather than wasting a heater...

Once again, YouTube rocks!