Do you like someone controlling something that is flying in your airspace, low visibility, and yet can kill you just as easily as smashing into a mountain with significantly less appreciation for the dangers of aviation than we had pounded into us throughout flight school and nothing more than a cursory introduction to what goes on in the skies? I don't.
+1,000,000. RC plane or not, you're still flying in actual airspace with actual other airplanes. UAV airspace deconfliction is a HUGE problem even as it is. Pred guys have no way (that I know of) of scanning for traffic, the only 'eyes' they have are pointed at the ground, and since the pilots are on the other side of the world, it's not like someone can give them a call on Guard. There were multiple near-midairs over Fallujah, almost all caused by UAV's zipping through CAS stacks and changing stations and altitudes without talking to anyone. And that was with trained 'real' pilots at the controls.
Tactical UAVs are one thing - the very low altitudes and very slow speeds they fly at means they're not as dangerous to everyone else. But big-boy UAVs (Preds, Reaper, etc) are flying up in big-boy airspace with everyone else.
I know the AF is hurting for Pred pilots and this is an attempt to streamline the training pipeline, but this is an unambiguously awful idea, and I'm afraid it'll take a Class-A or two before it gets changed.
