Building a Healthy MQ-1/9 RPA Pilot Community

"Remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) and the personnel that operate them are well understood to be crucial to mission success in today's Air Force, and demand for skilled pilots continues to grow rapidly. However, recent studies suggest that personnel in the RPA pilot career field are dissatisfied with aspects of the job and are experiencing stress as a result. Although a variety of workplace factors lead to the stress and dissatisfaction, a large portion of them relate to issues associated with career field planning. These career field planning issues exist, in part, because of the newness and rapid growth of the RPA enterprise. The 18X RPA pilot force (those whose first and only rated job is as an RPA pilot) is only six years old, and plans for the future of the career field are still evolving. Moreover, as the rapid growth in demand for 18X pilots has outpaced the Air Force's ability to produce them, the Air Force is now struggling to train and retain enough personnel to meet the demand. Recognizing that a more thoughtful and stable plan for managing the career field is needed to ensure the future health of the force, Air Force leadership asked RAND to assist in building a long-term career field planning model that addresses those force health issues and the timeline required to build a healthy, sustainable career field. This report documents RAND's efforts to develop that model; explains its main features, underlying content, and data inputs; and describes its key technical aspects."--Publisher's description.