Air Force Contracting Out Drone Piloting--Shifting War To Private Contractors Again [Pictures]
U.S. Air Force officials has begun to hire private companies to fly drone aircraft operating over Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The unprecedented move is in response to demands from the Obama administration to dramatically expand the drone war just as the Pentagon faces a critical shortage of military pilots.
As a result, civilian pilots will directly participate in military operations for the first time since the drone wars began about a decade ago. According to the Los Angeles Times, the Air Force signed contracts with two private companies in 2015 to provide enough pilots to fly two “combat air patrols” or 24-hour surveillance flights that would involve as many as eight MQ-9 Reaper drones per day. The Air Force plans to eventually expand its fleet of privately piloted drones to 40 over the next four years.
Of the two companies, one, Aviation Unmanned, is a small, veteran-owned outfit operating out of Dallas, Texas, which was awarded a contract on August 24. The second is General Atomics, a large San Diego, California-based military contractor that builds both the Reaper and Predator drones and has been paid at least $700 million over the last two years for a variety of drone support services. Their contract was awarded April 15.
Good Jobs First, a watchdog group, reports that General Atomics has received $614.7 million in U.S. federal subsidies since 2000. This past August, Department of Labor investigators found that the company violated federal law by refusing to pay 901 of its employees the rate determined by local prevailing wage laws. General Atomics agreed to spend $945,000 to reimburse employees. This is not the first time that private contractors have played a role in the drone wars. Companies such as Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics and SAIC have long held contracts to analyze surveillance data gathered by drones flying over war zones. source
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