By Marina Malenic
The Army is fielding improved versions of several of its unmanned aerial systems (UAS) as part of Defense Secretary Gates’ “surge” of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets to Afghanistan, top Army officials said last week.
“The money set aside by Secretary Gates allowed us to implement some much-needed capability quickly,” Col. Gregory Gonzalez, the Army’s project manager for unmanned aircraft systems, told reporters at the AUVSI Unmanned Systems North American conference in Washington.
The Army has almost 1,000 aircraft in theater, according to Gonzalez, which are maintained at “over 90 percent readiness at all times.”
The service’s smallest UAS, the hand-launched RQ-11 Raven, will receive a digital datalink by the end of the summer. The RQ-7 Shadow tactical UAS, meanwhile, is set to receive a fuel-injected engine, a laser designator and a software block upgrade, according to Gonzalez.
“These have been very successful initiatives that we’ve done on a very tight timeline,” he said.
The Army’s largest UAS, the MQ-1 Sky Warrior, has largely been operated by contractors to date. However, just this month, soldiers from Ft. Huachuca, Ariz., deployed to Afghanistan with the aircraft as operators, according to Gonzalez.
“This effort meets the Secretary of Defense’s guidance to get systems out to theater before they are one hundred percent ready,” the colonel said.
Speaking at the same briefing, Tim Owings, Gonzalez’s deputy, said one of the greatest accomplishments for the Army has been electronically linking unmanned systems to piloted platforms.
“That has been, in our opinion, the revolution that has occurred in the wars that we’re involved in right now,” Owings said.
Lockheed Martin‘s [LMT] Video from Unmanned Aircraft Systems for Interoperability Teaming-Level 2 (VUIT-2) system has allowed Apache pilots to receive video feeds from accompanying UAS. One battalion of Apaches has been fielded with the capability thus far, according to Owings.
Earlier in the week, Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of III Corps, encouraged the deployment of more unmanned ground vehicles.
“There’s got to be a sense of urgency,” Lynch told attendees at the same conference.
Of the 153 soldiers he lost under his command in Iraq, Lynch estimated that some 80 percent of them “didn’t have to die.”
“I am so tired of going to demonstrations of technology,” he said.
“The technology is there. We’ve got to get past the demonstrations and into the field,” he added. “If you’re not fielding, you’re failing.”
Lynch said more UGVs are needed for route clearance, surveillance and for convoys as substitutes for manned vehicles.
“We’re losing so many soldiers in convoys it’s an embarrassment,” he said.
“We’re going to be fighting this war on terror for the next 10 years and the enemy’s weapon of choice is the IED,” he added. “It is today and it will be in the future.”