CREECH AIR FORCE BASE, Nevada—The U.S. Air Force squadrons that form the 432d Air Expeditionary Wing here are the first that exist only to fly unmanned aerial vehicles. The base, which currently hosts training and operations for MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers, is trailblazing modern military aviation. It’s a perfect place for practitioners who fly UAVs every day to set the record straight on some common misconceptions about UAVs.
Photo of: MQ-9 Reaper
1) The Air Force still trains more pilots for manned airplanes than it trains UAV controllers. Col. Pete Gersten, the air wing’s commander, says that despite some media reports that give the edge to UAVs, the number of pilots the Air Force is training to fly manned aircraft remains at 51 percent. The Air Force wants to increase UAV combat air patrols (CAPs) from 34 to 50—that means having 50 UAVs in the air at one time—by the start of 2011. Each CAP flight requires a three-person team in the United States and a landing crew stationed in the area of operations that handles launch and recovery from a control station that uses line-of-sight communications. Having takeoff and landing crews stationed closer to the front line avoids the 2-second delay associated with controlling them via satellite from halfway around the world.
2) For every UAV in the air on a mission, there are three others in inventory. While one is on the job, there is one transiting to where it’s needed, one coming back and one on the ground being repaired and otherwise readied for a mission. So an Air Force fleet capable of 50 CAPs at once — the current end-of-next-year goal for the Air Force — would require a force of at least 200 UAVs. Training that many UAV pilots in time is the real issue; “we’re sort of struggling with that,” Gersten says. The commander is responsible for all UAV training and combat operations — at least until 2010, when training will shift to Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. Last Wednesday the first Predator test flights were conducted from Holloman in preparation for the move.
3) UAVs aren’t unmanned — they’re remotely controlled. It takes a crew of three — a pilot, sensor operator and intelligence coordinator?— to perform a Reaper or Predator mission, not including the maintenance and takeoff/recovery personnel. But these remote-control aircraft are more intelligent than you might imagine. Some of the craft’s intelligent software allows the operators to set “hold modes” that set orbits, altitudes and speed limits. A Reaper can also autonomously autobalance its draw of fuel from the wings to preserve its center of gravity, report mechanical failures during flights, follow waypoints and automatically wheel over a designated rally point if the satellite link to ground station is lost. Predators and Reapers will also automatically return to their base after a while if there is no communication. There, they will spin around a preprogrammed spot near the base, waiting to be collected using the recovery team’s line-of-sight, C-band-frequency communications gear.
4) Reapers and Predators are more useful for snooping on enemies than killing them.Despite the hype associated with the USAF and CIA unmanned missions that launch missiles, the demand for air strikes is not high on the list of missions the ground forces request from UAVs. The staff at Creech say that 97 percent of missions provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) in support of convoys, raids, air assaults and all manner of guerrilla-hunting. There are many ways for Army and Marine troops to kill insurgents, but finding the right ones, and clearing the way for a clean air strike, can only be done with human intelligence on the ground (risky and manpower-intensive) or by observing from above for long stretches of time. Sensor operators here speak of 4-hour, wrist-fatiguing stretches spent aiming a UAV’s onboard infrared camera at a single vehicle around Afghanistan or Iraq. Spotting roadside bombs and identifying bombmakers are other roles well-suited to a UAV’s “persistent stare.”
This article By Joe Pappalardo of Popular Mechanics can be read at.
