Originally Posted by flensr (Post 2407005)

You're speaking from ignorance here bud. Don't get mad, you simply don't know what you don't know. Get a few hundred hours flying armed ISR, CAS, convoy overwatch, or a SOF infil in the reaper where lives on the ground are truly at immediate risk and are depending on you for their survival and success, and then come back here talking about video games.

Heck, try flying one of the special payloads costing millions, identified as critical assets that we only have one or two of in the entire force, and take it to a high priority tasking near a thunderstorm with only a tiny crappy camera to look through and avoid weather that will crash the plane in an instant. Do that a hundred times with a one of a kind payload, then come back and tell everyone how it wasn't any different than playing COD with the bros and required no airmanship.

Seriously, there are ANG and AFR units hiring for MQ-9 positions, and most of them won't have to deploy. Give it a shot, come back and let us know how easy or casual you found the job.

USAF enlisted members are, if I recall correctly, being trained only to fly the global hawk. That platform is significantly more automated than the MQ-1, MQ-9, and several other platforms. Even with the automation, I highly doubt that the opportunity to crash a "platform" worth over $100 mil is equivalent to playing a video game in the minds of anyone who actually does that for a living.

Originally Posted by hilltopflyer (Post 2406854)

And that will be never... our cfo (b6) has stated that if jetblue were to have a catastrophic crash it would probably put us out of business.

Originally Posted by Al Czervik (Post 2407157)

The boss got you thinking they can't afford things. He's doing his job well.

Originally Posted by Dised101 (Post 2406374)

The fact is, the military is already doing it. R and D already has taken place. That it the biggest cost. Any costs you have mentioned will be weighed against savings. The industry will defer some of those costs to the government in the form of ATC reform. Management will always view labor as an expense and not an asset. And the flying public could care less. As long as they Save a dollar on a ticket....

Originally Posted by NEDude (Post 2407120)

You completely missed the point here bud. There is a very big difference between being in the aircraft having your own life on the line, and sitting in a bunker, or comfortable office, and knowing no matter how bad you may screw up, you still get to go home, have dinner and tuck your kids into bed, and kiss you spouse goodnight. I never inferred the job was unimportant, or even easy. But it is vastly different, with vastly different personal consequences.

Originally Posted by Al Czervik (Post 2407155)

Freight trains aren't even there yet.

Originally Posted by galaxy flyer (Post 2407806)

If you think "screwing up" causing your troops to be killed OR killing people who happen to be your enemy is easy and has no consequences; you have a lot to learn. No, I'm not a UAV guy.

GF