Army trains with remotely piloted vehicles

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Yash Rojas
  • 354th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska --  For the past two weeks a team of unmanned aircraft system operators from Fort Wainwright made history at RED FLAG-Alaska by supporting Air Force personnel and assets via the use of the RQ-7B Shadow.

With the help of the RQ-7B Shadow unmanned aerial vehicle or UAS, the official Department of Defense term for a UAV, Army UAS operators use RF-A as an opportunity to support Airman and train new personnel for real world combat.

"The purpose of the UAV is to provide unmanned surveillance," said Sgt. Luis Santiago, Delta Troop 5th Squadron 1st Cavalry Regiment 1/25th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Unmanned Aircraft System platoon sergeant. "It also keeps soldiers out of harm's way."

UAS operators from Delta Troop 5-1 CAV 1/25th SBCT use the RQ-7B Shadow for assessment of damages targets received from various weapons systems.

"What we are doing at RF-A is conducting battle damage assessments also known as BDAs for the various task missions," said Sergeant Santiago.

BDAs can provide important data about military damage on predetermined targets.
In addition to helping assess damage of targeted objectives soldiers perform maintenance on the UAS when not flying.

"Today UAS operators will conduct maintenance due to the fact that we have a very low ceiling, so we can't fly," said Sergeant Santiago. "When not flying we have our operators in the shelters doing either simulated training or doing ground maintenance and ground flights."

"We currently have four maintainers out here who are conducting inspections of every part of the flight equipment to upkeep its mission readiness," he added.

As RF-A drew to a close, army operators experienced poor weather conditions that made it impossible to fly the UAS.

However, the bad weather also gave the Army a chance to better train their troops in a training environment similar to a deployed environment. Some UAS operators even camped out for the duration of the exercise at the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex returning to base only for food and supplies.

"The goal during this training exercise has been to get our new guys readiness level certified and trained for Afghanistan," said Sgt. Nicholas Ungs, Delta Troop 5-1 CAV 1/25th SBLT. "We train as we fight."

"Normally in a deployed environment we work with Army and Air Force Assets all at the same time," said Sergeant Santiago. "What makes our job so interesting is being able to work with all different forms of military assets, whether it's tankers, Marines, Air Force Pilots, helicopter crewmen, etc."

This iteration provided Soldiers and Airmen a place to showcase their skills. The Army unit spent the duration of the exercise training with Air Force and Army assets in preparation for real world combat.

Army UAS operators from this unit demonstrated the capabilities of RQ-7B Shadow in support of an assortment of missions as well as the importance of team building amongst different military branches.