Civil operators have been avoiding hiring ex-military pilots (and fast jet pilots in particular) since at least the mid 1980s.
They're statistically far more likely to be involved in an incident due to the military culture encouraging them to press on regardless.
If you can see a quadcopter across a footall field whilst stationary you're doing well. I've sat on top of a hill at a Buddhist shrine in Myanmar and despite being able to hear the drone circling about 200 feet below still had a hell of a job picking it out from the ground another 800 feet down. If you can do it whilst moving at 200mph then you're getting on for superhuman.
I'll repeat the observation that there's a linear inverse relationship in the UK between the number of recent drone sightings around airports and the number of bird sightings.