Life as an RSAF UAV pilot: How he reshapes aerial defence

“It really drove home the fact that the RSAF has a very high emphasis on real-time operations,” he says.

But it was only after interacting with several UAV community members that his interest was piqued in flying UAVs instead. 

“Many seniors and commanders had shared that this was a domain that was rapidly evolving and on the cusp of expanding,” CPT Chia, then just a recruit, recalls. “I wanted to be directly involved in contributing to this change and evolution of air warfare.”

CPT Chia went on to read history and philosophy of science at the University of Cambridge, then completed a master’s in science and international security at King’s College London.

Studying overseas taught him to work with people from diverse backgrounds and to grasp cultural sensitivities quickly, skills he now relies on during exercises and exchanges with foreign militaries.

But it also made him more aware of how quickly the world is changing, from geopolitics to technology and cross-border risks. Events in recent years have also proved how forward-looking his superiors’ words had been.

In ongoing conflicts on the other side of the world, drones have been used in far greater numbers than ever before, thanks to lower cost and ease of deployment.

In his current posting as a strategy officer in the RSAF, he works on integrating aerial systems (UAS) into the RSAF’s capabilities – not just how to use them, but just as importantly, how to defend against them. 

“The kinds of things you use to deal with drones are not the same as those you use to deal with conventional aircraft threats,” says CPT Chia. 

Up until one or two years ago, very few air forces in the world were equipped to deal with the proliferation of drones in the airspace, he continues. 

“We recognised that this area needed attention. Consequently, we created this new office to develop the capabilities for the SAF to stay agile in managing this rapidly evolving threat.”

The unit he refers to is the

, which was unveiled by then-Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen at the Committee of Supply debate in March 2025.

Playing a pivotal role in one of the SAF’s most critical air defence developments has been a definitive highlight of CPT Chia’s career. 

“We’ve used UAVs in a certain way up until now, but that might not hold true in future,” he says.

“It’s something we need to be cognisant about, and not constrain ourselves to what we’re familiar with, when we look at how UAVs can contribute to the air campaign.”

As an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) pilot, Captain (CPT) Eugene Chia does not feel the pull of gravity in tight turns or the rumble of jet engines. 

But that does not make the job easier. In fact, it demands something else entirely. Flying a UAV presents its own set of unique challenges, the greatest of all being what CPT Chia calls the absence of “air sense”. 

Air sense, he explains, is the awareness that a pilot of a manned aircraft has of their aircraft. Being physically within an aircraft gives a pilot immediate spatial awareness and tactile feedback, he adds.

As such, if there is a sudden change in their flying environment or a malfunction in the aircraft’s systems, the pilot can respond much quicker.

A UAV, on the other hand, offers no such feedback. UAV pilots can rely only on real-time camera feed and the stream of telemetry data being fed back to them at the ground control station.

“Since you don’t get a feel for how the aircraft is performing, you have to be very deliberate in scanning your aircraft parameters,” CPT Chia says. 

For this reason, UAV training emphasises precision, composure and situational awareness. The mental agility required is just as rigorous as that expected of fighter pilots.

Trainees begin their journey at the Air Force Training Command, where they study the same aviation theory as manned-aircraft pilots, before moving on to platform-specific training at the Republic of Singapore Air Force’s UAV Training School in Murai Camp.

“We also need to have the same fundamental understanding of aviation, for instance, on meteorology and aircraft components,” says CPT Chia. “Flying a UAV is fundamentally also operating an aircraft.”

Following that is the simulator training. There, instructors create challenging flight scenarios, observe how students react under pressure and ensure they have a robust understanding of the UAV’s systems.

“If you don’t know the flying and system logic of the aircraft well enough, you won’t know the remedy actions,” CPT Chia says. “The lack of system knowledge is what gets most people.”

Those who do make it through emerge not just as UAV pilots, but as calm, analytical problem solvers.