REMOTELY PILOTED AIRCRAFT - Safety at center of growing requirement, surging numbers

  • Published
  • By Darlene Y. Cowsert
  • Air Force Safety Center Public Affairs (AFSCPA)
KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. --  Sixty-seven years ago Gen. Hap Arnold may have startled even his most visionary contemporaries when he said on V-J Day in 1945, "The next war may be fought by airplanes with no men in them at all. Take everything you've learned about aviation in war, throw it out of the window, and let's go to work on tomorrow's aviation."

No one then could have imagined that Arnold's prophecy would be realized just a couple of decades later when unmanned aircraft were used for tactical reconnaissance during the Vietnam War.

Today, remotely piloted aircraft provide combatant commanders the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data that's needed in real time to successfully target the enemy and provide strike support for troops on the ground. "Insatiable" is often used to best describe combatant commanders' need for those capabilities. That need was shared by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates when he directed in 2010 that combat air patrols increase to 65 by the end of fiscal 2013 to support an enduring requirement beyond the conflicts in Southwest Asia.

Hand-in-hand with the expanding requirements for the MQ-1 Predator, MQ-9 Reaper and RQ-4 Global Hawk, and the need for the production of more RPA pilots and sensor operators, is the increasing focus on operational safety of more than the current inventory of about 250 Global Hawks, Predators and Reapers -- a number that's expected to grow with the acquisition of nearly 400 Reapers over the next few years.

In spite of a dramatic increase in the number of RPA flying hours, the mishap rates are improving, said Lt. Col. Maggie Howard, RPA Safety Branch chief.

"The MQ-1 was the second most flown airframe last year; second only to the C-17," Howard said. "Between fiscal year 2007 and 2011, its flying hours increased from approximately 79,000 to 239,000 -- a 200 percent increase."

The MQ-1 had 78 Class A mishaps between 1994, when it was assigned to the Air Force, and October 2010, and 19 since. From 1994 to October 2010, Class A mishaps were defined as those resulting in damage equal to or greater than $1 million or a destroyed aircraft. Beginning with fiscal 2010, the cost threshold for Class As went to $2 million.

The mishap rate has decreased because of fine-tuned pilot training and the implementation of airframe design changes, said Greg Grigson, operations research analyst. Those efforts resulted in a mishap rate per 100,000 flight hours that approaches that of the F-16.

"The MQ-9 and RQ-4, on the other hand, are more advanced RPA designs which include redundant systems similar to manned aircraft and have cumulative mishap rates that are currently lower than the F-16," Grigson said.

In fiscal 2011, the Air Force had 13 RPA Class A flight mishaps for a rate of 3.83 per 100,000 flight hours.

"As with other Air Force airframes, Air Force RPA safety rates are improving over time due to design and system re-engineering," said Dr. Ken Pascoe, systems safety engineer. "This is the same life cycle we've seen in all Air Force aircraft."

"The Air Force applies the same standard of safety with the same rigor and focus to RPAs as we do with any other aircraft in our inventory," Howard said. "Our goal is to preserve combat capabilities by identifying hazards and reducing risk."