And this is a deep cultural problem, not a simple case of a penny wise and pound foolish mistake.

What is going on is that both the Army and the USAF operate models of the Predator drone, but the Army’s loss rate is much lower because the USAF has refused to incorporate an auto-landing system on their UAVs:

Outgoing Pentagon acquisition czar John Young sharply criticized the Air Force today in his last meeting with reporters, saying the service had refused to budget for auto-landing gear for Predator UAVs even though the Air Force has lost a substantial portion of these to landing accidents. The new undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, Ash Carter, was sworn in this afternoon.

Young said the Air Force has lost one-third of the 183 Predators it has bought, and one third of those have crashed because of ground control issues. (Young’s spokesman, Chris Isleib, later sent an email to reporters slightly changing the numbers. “Since 1994 the Air Force has procured 195 Predators. 65 have been lost due to Class A mishaps,” he said.) Isleib added that of the 65 mishaps, 36 percent are laid at the door of human error and “many of those attributable to ground station problems.” About 15 percent of the total was destroyed during the landing phase, Isleib clarified in his email. (For a very human and honest portrayal of the difficulties of flying a Predator, catch this briefing by a NASA pilot who has flown them.)

Young said he told the Air Force to “move as fast as possible to auto-land.” A clearly irritated undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics told reporters “it will not surprise you that the Air Force is resisting this.” No cost estimates are available yet for equipping the Predator fleet with auto-land.

Young drew a sharp contrast with the Army’s Shadow UAV, saying it had lost very few aircraft to landing mishaps because it possesses auto-land capability.

What is going on here is a calculus that is very close to the USAF’s raison d’etre.

The air force is about pilots flying things, and pilots land what they fly, so if you add an auto-land system, then why do you need a pilot, as opposed to some sort of weapons system operator, who might *gasp* even be an enlisted man…..horrors!

Another example of why spinning off the USAF as an independent service has not served the military, or the taxpayer, well.