Streamed UAV's?
 

Hi all again,

My next question is, with the RAF's involvement in the running of Predator based in Nevada, combined with the fact that we not only train the yanks on their own UAV's now but are planning to buy our own, and are developing UCAV in the form of Taranis, how does one end up on UAV's and please dont tell me its after EFT?!?!?! Haha

Thanks,

Haha no but ill get to live in Nevada, that is, until they post our UAV ops in Macrihanish or worse, Shetland Islands.

There's no way of getting a cheap Ford Mustang.

Why would you want a ford Mustang? They're sh~!t

'Much better off with a Jaguar XKR'

That's just a (more expensive) Ford!!!

"Haha no but ill get to live in Nevada."

You pillock! You might train in Nevada ... for a VERY short period ..... and then spend years in the Gulf/Afghanistan flying the damn things. And when thats over you will be off to the Falklands .....

You don't have a clue, do you?

Mr Bernoulli - either do you sir!

You say either, I say neither, let's call the whole thing off.

CG

(not written by me, obviously)

Mr B, I believe the trick is not doing the "taking off/landing" cse which is required for deployable predator operators... Anyone else shed any light on that?

As an aside, heard a while back the US were taking a couple of abbos straight through the predator cse without any previous flying experience. Anyone heard how they're progressing?

Mr B,

Best be careful about shooting your mouth off and trying to discredit others before you are sure your facts are straight.

I can assure you that the current tranch of UAV flyers do "live" in Nevada and det's are pretty much optional (for the brits). Even if you do deploy during the tour, I can assure you it will be less time spent in the sand than 90% of any other RAF sqn over the course of a tour.

Pba,

I hear that that the abbos are no longer part of the UAV program. Qualified pilots only now.


Also, the "take off/ landing course" is required before deploying. Moral of the story...........?

Don't do the cse! And you're safe.... (though I believe the brit conversion cse includes the yank take off/landing cse, which for them is an add on after they've converted due to the somewhat squirelly behaviour of predator close to the ground.)

Interesting to see that the abbos have been taken off, I heard the first couple of guys were pretty much going to have as many hours thrown at them as they could take until they were fit to fly it to see if it was possible. Obviously it wasn't!

Not necessarily. The plan was to start a separate training course for UAV operators. Due to, mainly, budget constraints, USAF decided to avoid building/funding a different training program vice continuing the current method.

Ahh tis interesting. Must have been last minute, the last I heard of it (sometime mid - last year admittedly) they had a specific candidate already selected! IIRC he was an abbo pilot that had done half of PFT(EFT, whatever..) and was suffering from incurable air sickness. Had passed aptitudes and grading type thingamyjig so they'd taken pity on him. Obviously decided the money wasn't there in the end!