Too many missions and a lack of pilots have pushed the U.S. drone fleet to a "breaking point," according to military officials and an internal service memo obtained by The Daily Beast.
"It's at the breaking point, and has been for a long time," a senior official told The Daily Beast. "What's different now is that the band-aid fixes are no longer working."
The Air Force has been under constant pressure by the Pentagon to increase its drone flights, especially with the U.S. fighting against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and while the Air Force has plenty of drones, it lacks the manpower to operate the ever increasing number of missions.
"Air Combat Command (ACC) believes we are about to see a perfect storm of increased COCOM [Combatant Commander] demand, accession reductions, and outflow increases that will damage the readiness and combat capability of the MQ-1/9 enterprise for years to come," reads an internal Air Force memo from ACC commander Gen. Herbert "Hawk" Carlisle. "I am extremely concerned."
Ideally, the Air Force likes to have a crew of 10 for every one drone orbit (which consists of four aircrafts), with emergencies allowing for an 8.5 to one ratio, Carlisle said. But with the recent shortage of manpower, the Air Force has been forced to reduce that number even lower.
It's gotten so bad that the ACC is debating whether it should continue meeting the Pentagon's request for more flights.
According to Carlisle, the Air Force will have to beg the Pentagon to reconsider its demand for 65 drone combat air patrols as soon as April 2015.
The Pentagon is so insistent that the Air Force increase Predator and Reaper patrols that top military officials even attempted to bypass regular channels to increase the number of operations, according to the internal memo.
The Air Force has had to start pulling cadets out of school to work in the drone squadrons operating combat missions over places like Iraq and Syria, The Daily Beast reported.
Drone crews are often overworked and have their leaves cancelled; they end up quitting the Air Force in large numbers, the memo said.
