From Strategy Page:
June 10, 2009: The U.S. Air Force now has 127 Predator and 31 Reaper UAVs in service, along with 400 pilots to run them. With this force, they can put about 36 UAVs into the air at any given time. That's three times as many as three years ago. But this tiny force, representing less than five percent of air force combat aircraft, are doing the most important work in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For nearly a decade now, the air force has been scrambling to supply enough operators for its growing fleet of UAVs. To that end, ten percent of recent graduates from pilot schools will spend three years operating UAVs, before going on to flying manned aircraft. In addition, the air force is also training non-flying officers to be UAV operators. Many of these officers could have been pilots, but were prevented from doing so because of physical limitations (poor eyesight or inability to handle the gyrations of aircraft).
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