Drones and Structural Unemployment

Will fighter pilots become structurally unemployed? The first step seems to be training fewer of them while ramping up their replacements.

Increasingly, the U.S. Air Force is turning to unmanned aircraft to perform work once done exclusively by aviators like Johnson, the wing commander of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tuscon...

In the space of a generation or two, officials say, Air Force bases like D-M could be doing much of their business by remote control, reducing jet noise over urban areas while saving money, improving effectiveness and preventing risk to the lives of military personnel...

This year, for the first time in history, the Air Force expects to train more unmanned aerial vehicle pilots - 240 - than conventional fighter-bomber pilots - 214...

One of Arizona's exports has been trained fighter pilots from Luke AFB and others. Perhaps the future export will be drone operators. (We'll definitely need a better name for them.)