Page 179 - Airpower in 20th Century - Doctrines and Employment

179
tHe iaf and tHe uav era

The outcome was the Mini RPV, or MAZLAT in Hebrew. The industry was quite en-
thusiastic, understanding that the markets will be ready and willing for the renewed
concept based on the operational experience and feedback of the IAF.
In fact, one of great advantages in weapon systems development, in Israel, is the
fact that the country is small, a lot of people are not total strangers to each other,
many of the people who work in the industry are doing their military reserve duty
operating or maintaining systems that were developed in their own or a next door
office. This means that “the circles are very tight” and modifications, improvements
and testing of good ideas do not suffer from a long lead time and beaurocracy.
So, from the mid 1970s onward, a lot of thought and work was put in developing
techniques and capabilities that will suit new operational requirements which, after
the experience gathered and the operational lessons learnt aimed toward more so-
phisticated missions. Not just carrying a payload but being able to perform a variety
of missions in a multi-role profile, of one or some birds participating in a mission.
When I was nominated the Chief of Air Force Intelligence (mid 1977) I man-
aged, as the customer of what the Rpvs were supposed to bring, to encourage their
participation in operations and to ensure the presence of more than just one squadron
in the Air Force. This was the time in which I heard some of my fellow generals,
questioning the budgets, manpower and priorities that the RPV systems were allo-
cated – but it was not a real opposition – the operational results were very convinc-
ing, and the existing manned platforms had a lot of work to do, so in fact there was
a well organized participation in missions that eased the competition, and beside all
that the Manned A/C were used in a different type missions than the UAVs, so that
each system could excel in its preferred area of operation.
An operating system, even an unmanned one, depends on the people as much as
on the equipment. We started with very few people as mentioned above and have
gone through a self designed on the job training in the preparations, flight planning,
before flight checks, the supporting logistics and the in flight monitoring of the plat-
form and the payload. As the missions came in and the unit became and was treated
as an Air Force Squadron we had to go up a few classes from the “experimental”
phase.
A major effort was done in the build-up and training of the men power. The on
the job training made a big step in being transformed to an organized “school” for
flying teams (operators) and ground crews, and the human resources management
went well into the Air force Main Stream and was, no more, an unforeseen “burden”
that had to be solved in an unordinary manner, which is normally the case with the
operation of special projects and “unique” systems.
The work of the squadron and base became much easier after the Air Force High
Command was convinced that there is a high dividend in the operation of the UAVs,
as part of the Air Force and under the command and control of the Air Force, and
that the “environmental” risks and skepticism about the “Robots that will storm the
populated skies…” is very very low!