The soldiers of the US Army’s 1st Battalion of the 506th Infantry Regiment, Ghazni, Afghanistan, keep a close eye on their stretch of a vital road linking Kabul and Kandahar. Earlier last year, they began coming across unusual roadside bombs.
The bombs contained 200 to 500 pounds of explosives, much more than any seen before. Moreover, insurgents had planted them in culverts running beneath the highway, where they were hard to see. The bombs proved to be devastating to trucks and the new Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected vehicle, or MRAP.
 |
Maj. John Chesser at the pilot’s control station for an MQ-9 Reaper at Joint Base Balad, Iraq. (DOD photo by SSgt. Don Branum) |
Yet, fortunately, US forces had a breakthrough against this threat. Air Force MQ-1 Predator unmanned reconnaissance aircraft and the airmen who were flying them helped break up the bomb teams and greatly reduce large-scale bomb attacks along the highway. With the help of full-motion video from the MQ-1s, the battalion (part of the 101st Airborne Division) needed only seven days to find and eliminate five Taliban cells attempting to plant these improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.
Moreover, Predator reconnaissance and strike capabilities helped the battalion strike and kill a team of IED planters sent from Pakistan to train Afghan recruits. At the site of one Predator strike, US troops discovered Pakistani currency and ID cards.
There is still a risk that such teams will return to plant bombs along the highway, which, intact, is a key symbol of progress in war-torn Afghanistan. As it stands now, while on patrol between bases, US troops get out of their vehicles to check every culvert along the highway. There are some 1,000 such culverts on this road, however, and keeping all of them clear in this manner is unrealistic.
For this reason, battalion officials would like to see more unmanned aerial vehicles, to help them determine patterns of activity along the highway. And that, demonstrated by one battalion on one front of the War on Terror, is an explanation for the US military’s insatiable demand for UAVs.
The Air Force is launching a number of new measures to expand UAV capabilities in response to the ever-growing demand for Predator, MQ-9 Reaper, and other unmanned systems. In a series of firsts, freshly minted pilots are being sent directly to UAVs for their initial assignments, nonpilots are being trained as unmanned aircraft pilots, and UAV operators will soon have their own distinct career field.
 |
A Reaper on an Operation Enduring Freedom mission in Afghanistan. (USAF photo) |
By 2012, the Air Force plans to increase the ranks of UAV pilots and air operations staffers to a total of 1,100. That is up from just over 450 Predator and Reaper operators today—and 180 just a couple of years ago.
Such an increase, notes Brig. Gen. Lyn D. Sherlock, director of air operations for the Air Staff’s directorate of operations, will make the size of the UAV pilot community second only to that of the F-16.
It is a change that has been long in coming. The Air Force "must promote a strong and healthy [UAV] community, not a ‘leper colony’ or an agency of expedience," said Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, Air Force Chief of Staff, in announcing the change in September.
The buildup is an acknowledgement that UAVs and the pilots who fly them are going to be in critical demand in the years to come.
Much of the drive for more pilots stems from the problems caused by rising violence in Afghanistan and the relatively small contingent of US troops on the ground there. Those factors have created what currently amounts to overwhelming demand, said Col. Trey Turner, commander of the 451st Air Expeditionary Group in southern Afghanistan.
Predator and Reaper are vitally important to ground commanders for their integrated sensor balls and ability to stream video in near-real time to troops fighting militant groups throughout the country.
The UAVs help search the rough, mountainous terrain for insurgents and provide armed overwatch for troops in battle.
Of their numbers, "we could certainly use more," said US Army Gen. David D. McKiernan, commander of all NATO forces in Afghanistan. "The border between Afghanistan and Pakistan runs 2,500 kilometers," more than 1,500 miles. "That’s a huge area to maintain surveillance on."
 |
MSgt. Fred Roberts (foreground) and SSgt. Alex Bush (back) perform a check of an MQ-1 UAV system at March ARB, Calif. (USAF photo by Val Gempis) |
Beta Testing Begins
A multipronged approach will bolster the ranks of Predator and Reaper operators, Air Force officials say. "We want to go to a dedicated career field because we can see this as a force that we’re going to need in the future," said Sherlock, "not only at the tactical, but at the operational and strategic [level]."
This realization has begun to affect the approach to the problem taken by the Air Force’s senior leadership. Indeed, until recently, USAF was recruiting specialized pilots (trained to fly F-16s, for example) for three-year UAV assignments involving a permanent change of duty stations.
A key initiative announced this fall, however, will create a cadre of pilots to fly UAVs exclusively.
To do this, the Air Force will send 10 percent of its undergraduate pilots directly to UAV training. The first class began a four-week fundamentals course Nov. 21 at Randolph AFB, Tex., before moving to Creech AFB, Nev., for more instruction. Each year, roughly 100 brand-new pilots will head down the UAV track.
This month, the Air Force will also begin beta testing a class of 10 active duty officers (up through the rank of captain) from various technical and nontechnical fields, to see if it can teach them how to fly armed UAVs. In the past, the Air Force has used only rated officers for this purpose.
If it succeeds, the program will give these trainees the green light to operate Predators and Reapers in national airspace and in battlefield conditions.
There has been a great deal of interest in such programs. "We want to look at someone who can learn to operate an unmanned system and teach them how," said Sherlock. For that reason, the Air Force does not want beta testers "to even have a private pilot’s license," she added. That’s because the Air Force wants to gauge the extent to which it can train to a new skill set.
 |
Airmen run a preflight inspection on an MQ-1 Predator UAV at Ali Base, Iraq. As the UAV fleet continues to grow, USAF will more than double its UAV pilot inventory. (USAF photo by A1C Jonathan Snyder) |
"In the beta test, we want to be able to show that we can take someone through an Air Force training program and teach him how to get air sense, and to fly in the United States as well as in a combat zone," she said. "We want to make sure that the test is good for someone who has little or no aviation experience right now."
Sherlock went on, "We found out that there are a lot of people interested." Through October, the Air Force had received more than 700 inquiries. The initial "call out" for nonpilot UAV operators went only to airmen, because they understand Air Force culture. Not all of the applicants fit the criteria for the program, which is being designed for candidates with three to five years of experience.
Candidates will be screened for many of the same skill sets that traditional pilots need, including motor skills and vision. Though the eyesight requirements won’t be as stringent as they are for fighter pilots, color vision will still be important, said Sherlock.
Certain personality traits will also be vital, Sherlock added, among them decision-making capability under stress. After cutting the initial class of volunteers down to fewer than 40, the candidates will undergo physicals and then go through initial flight screening in Pueblo, Colo.
