The Air Force is considering offering 18X drone pilots a critical skills retention bonus in early fiscal 2016, Air Force spokeswoman Rose Richeson said.
The first pilots who completed 18X training, qualifying them to fly remotely piloted aircraft, are getting close to finishing their six-year commitment to fly drones. And with the drone industry booming, the private sector is poised to scoop up RPA pilots who leave the Air Force.
With the Air Force already facing a shortage of RPA pilots, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James signed a memo in January that increased the maximum amount that 18X RPA pilots can receive in monthly flight pay from $650 to $1,500 if they keep flying unmanned aircraft beyond their six-year commitments.
If the Air Force offers 18X pilots a critical skills retention bonus next fiscal year, it would replace the increase in monthly flight pay, Richeson told Air Force Times. It is too early to say how much money the bonus would offer 18X pilots, she said.
"That level of detail will be available later this year as the specific program policy and guidance are finalized and approved," Richeson said in an email.
One RPA pilot told Air Force Times that he was not impressed with the possible bonus because the Air Force offers a lot more money to fighter pilots, who can receive up to $225,000 in Aviator Retention Pay.
Compared with that, the increase in monthly flight pay approved earlier this year for RPA pilots is a slap in the face, the pilot said. The higher bonus for fighter pilots also shows that the Air Force does not consider 18X pilots to be real pilots, he said.
Under current Defense Department policy, only pilots who are qualified to fly manned aircraft can receive Aviator Retention Pay.
The Air Force is looking for other financial incentives to retain RPA pilots and does not plan to ask the Defense Department to change its policy, Richeson said.
"While these will be different authorities than those used to incentivize airmen who fly manned aircraft, they will be commensurate, equitable and implemented during similar points in a career," she said.
But RPA pilots feel they are slighted in other ways as well. They spend so much of their time flying missions that they do not have opportunities for professional military education as manned pilots do, so they are less likely to be promoted.
Even if the Air Force offers RPA pilots a critical skills retention bonus, industry may be able to offer them something that the service cannot: a future.
Still, the Air Force does not have any plans to involuntarily retain 18X pilots or other stressed career fields through stop-loss, Col. Rob Romer, chief of military force policy division, told Air Force Times.
"Normally, when you take a look at stop-loss, it's in a situation of a war, a national emergency deployment, something fairly extreme, and we believe we can manage the career fields that we see that are stressed — and then all career fields in general — via the means that we have right now, and still meet mission requirements," Romer said in a Feb. 19 interview.
