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What’s a day in the life like for a military UAV Operator? Is it pretty low key compared to an 0311? How high quality are the controls/cameras? Is it high def

by cgb223 7y ago

What’s a day in the life like for a military UAV Operator? Is it pretty low key compared to an 0311? How high quality are the controls/cameras? Is it high def or kinda grainy? Like walk us through a typical day, I’m sure many of us would find it fascinating

agoodquestion 7y ago
That's a good question. Perhaps the best one here. You should check out the book "Drone Warrior," by Brett Velicovich, https://www.amazon.com/Drone-Warrior-Soldiers-Americas-Dangerous/dp/0062693913 https://www.amazon.com/Drone-Warrior-Soldiers-Americas-Dange... Which is a great book, by a drone operator/warrior.
SEJeff 7y ago
It depends on your branch as all things do. By 0311, I'm going to assume the Marine Corps riflemen, the equivalent of the Army's 11B. Part of an 0311's job is kicking in doors and detaining bad guys. When there are bad guys sniping at them on the roof, they have a bad day. The UAV above them tells them "sniper on the SSW (south south west) quandrant of building 3, hit them" and then does instant BDA (battle damage assessment) to let them know the threat is neutralized or not. Those infantryman came back to the FOB that night and thanked us profusely. We helped them all come back alive. The most boring part of the job is probably road searches. On the way out to every mission and the way back (as you're flying to the mission coordinates handed down to you by the mission commander) you just look at the main roads. For every 10 hours of looking at roads, you'll see 1 guy digging a hole and emplacing an IED or burying wire under the road. Those "side quest" missions save a lot of soldiers. Additionally, we tend to fly ahead of most convoys if the timing lines up and give them a heads up of upcoming situations. From ~7500ft above sea level, we could roughly read a license plate a mile away. We gave them situational awareness on neighborhoods to go out of their way and just avoid. Things like that. For every 100 hours of relatively mundane stuff, you get a few really special missions. One of those special missions was when a Kiowa scout helicopter took an RPG to the tail rotor and crashed in Tal'Afar. Most missions I was the AVO (Aerial Vehicle Operator aka pilot), but this was one of the few where I was the MPO (Mission Payload Operator aka camera dude). We saw this as a literal clone of the most infamous Operation Gothic Serpent (Blackhawk down) and all said, "Not on our watch!". And in the end, they made our video a lot less clear and put some parts of it in a Military Channel Special: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0845577/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0845577/ TL;DNR: UAV Operator is nothing at all like an 0311, but they love us because we do a dang good job of saving their lives. In return, they watch our backs.
- friendlybus 7y ago
  >For every 10 hours of looking at roads, you'll see 1 guy digging a hole and emplacing an IED or burying wire under the road. Those "side quest" missions save a lot of soldiers. Is this something that could be helped by all the recent machine learning computer vision advances? Maybe they can delegate side resources to having automated scanning for flaggable behaviours appearing on screen.
  - brlewis 7y ago
    Should these tactical details be deleted, or were they already public?
    - friendlybus 7y ago
      I mean it's just a guess from watching google talks on self driving cars and the constant splurging of academic research on machine learning. Two minute papers is a horrifying youtube channel because of the pace of change it is showing. There have been a whole bunch of talks about AI in warfare already, so anybody who is interested in the industry can put 2 + 2 together way better than I can.
  - goatinaboat 7y ago
    Is this something that could be helped by all the recent machine learning computer vision advances? That is exactly the thing that Google employees are protesting against.
    - ancorevard 7y ago
      True, they protest working for the US armed forces. But working for Communist Party of China‘s own army is apparently ok. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-google-idUSKCN1QV296 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-google-idUSKCN1...
      - nostrademons 7y ago

by cgb223 7y ago

agoodquestion 7y ago

That's a good question. Perhaps the best one here. You should check out the book "Drone Warrior," by Brett Velicovich, https://www.amazon.com/Drone-Warrior-Soldiers-Americas-Dangerous/dp/0062693913 https://www.amazon.com/Drone-Warrior-Soldiers-Americas-Dange... Which is a great book, by a drone operator/warrior.

SEJeff 7y ago

It depends on your branch as all things do. By 0311, I'm going to assume the Marine Corps riflemen, the equivalent of the Army's 11B. Part of an 0311's job is kicking in doors and detaining bad guys. When there are bad guys sniping at them on the roof, they have a bad day. The UAV above them tells them "sniper on the SSW (south south west) quandrant of building 3, hit them" and then does instant BDA (battle damage assessment) to let them know the threat is neutralized or not. Those infantryman came back to the FOB that night and thanked us profusely. We helped them all come back alive. The most boring part of the job is probably road searches. On the way out to every mission and the way back (as you're flying to the mission coordinates handed down to you by the mission commander) you just look at the main roads. For every 10 hours of looking at roads, you'll see 1 guy digging a hole and emplacing an IED or burying wire under the road. Those "side quest" missions save a lot of soldiers. Additionally, we tend to fly ahead of most convoys if the timing lines up and give them a heads up of upcoming situations. From ~7500ft above sea level, we could roughly read a license plate a mile away. We gave them situational awareness on neighborhoods to go out of their way and just avoid. Things like that. For every 100 hours of relatively mundane stuff, you get a few really special missions. One of those special missions was when a Kiowa scout helicopter took an RPG to the tail rotor and crashed in Tal'Afar. Most missions I was the AVO (Aerial Vehicle Operator aka pilot), but this was one of the few where I was the MPO (Mission Payload Operator aka camera dude). We saw this as a literal clone of the most infamous Operation Gothic Serpent (Blackhawk down) and all said, "Not on our watch!". And in the end, they made our video a lot less clear and put some parts of it in a Military Channel Special: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0845577/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0845577/ TL;DNR: UAV Operator is nothing at all like an 0311, but they love us because we do a dang good job of saving their lives. In return, they watch our backs.

friendlybus 7y ago
>For every 10 hours of looking at roads, you'll see 1 guy digging a hole and emplacing an IED or burying wire under the road. Those "side quest" missions save a lot of soldiers. Is this something that could be helped by all the recent machine learning computer vision advances? Maybe they can delegate side resources to having automated scanning for flaggable behaviours appearing on screen.
- brlewis 7y ago
  Should these tactical details be deleted, or were they already public?
  - friendlybus 7y ago
    I mean it's just a guess from watching google talks on self driving cars and the constant splurging of academic research on machine learning. Two minute papers is a horrifying youtube channel because of the pace of change it is showing. There have been a whole bunch of talks about AI in warfare already, so anybody who is interested in the industry can put 2 + 2 together way better than I can.
- goatinaboat 7y ago
  Is this something that could be helped by all the recent machine learning computer vision advances? That is exactly the thing that Google employees are protesting against.
  - ancorevard 7y ago
    True, they protest working for the US armed forces. But working for Communist Party of China‘s own army is apparently ok. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-google-idUSKCN1QV296 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-google-idUSKCN1...
    - nostrademons 7y ago