The Lives of RPA Pilots

“I’m overpaid, underworked, and bored,” says Ryan. “What the Air Force doesn’t get is that they can’t throw money at us to make us happy. I didn’t even know how much a pilot made when I enlisted. I just wanted to fly.” Brad, who flew a B1 bomber in Afghanistan and is now an RPA instructor at Holloman, compares it to “being transferred from marketing to the accounting department.” Ryan says pilots in their situation have taken to calling themselves the “lost generation,” and many have become resigned to the notion that if they stay in the Air Force they might never feel g-forces in a real cockpit again.

Mother Jones has a photo essay looking at drone pilots, or, as they preferred to be called, pilots of remotely piloted aircrafts (RPAs). Much of their days are spent spying on people who aren’t really doing anything out of the ordinary: “’Another time we followed this guy outside his house for half an hour, and all he did was go scoop water from a stream. Seeing that just made it sink in — how we live worlds apart,’ he recalls.” No mention of how they feel about some of the civilian casualties though.

Photo: Ed Schipul

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