Fun to fly, unmanned aerial vehicles perform valuable intelligence function
By Terry Boyd, Stars
and Stripes
Terry Boyd / Stars and Stripes
Hunter crew members walk one of the drones back to its resting place on the edge of the
runway at Skopje Airport. It takes about 30 people, including civilians, to operate the
small surveillance drones. |
In the middle of the simmering crisis that is peacekeeping in the
Balkans, the Army has lots of interesting, demanding jobs. But few have the impact of the
men and women who fly the Hunter unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs.
And few are more in demand.
“Once field commanders get a taste of what we can give them,
they get hooked,” said Staff Sgt. Louis Edwards. “It’s like giving a kid
candy. They just want more and more.”
The small RQ-5A Hunter drones that Edwards and company fly are
basically great big radio-controlled planes, not too far removed from those that hobbyists
fly in parks on Sunday afternoons.
“It’s a 1,600-pound Weedeater,” said Maj. Dennis
Griffin, who commands the UAV company.
But by flying their Hunters with both video and heat-sensitive
infrared cameras low and slow over targets, the soldiers from Company A, 15th Military
Intelligence Battalion, 504th Military Intelligence Brigade, based at Fort Hood, Texas,
can give commanders a real-time, God’s-eye view of whatever they desire to see.
Terry Boyd / Stars and Stripes
Spec. Dako Monzili, 23, a generator mechanic, works on her first head-gasket change as she
trained with Gloria Bounds, left, a TRW technician. Monzili is learning to work on the
twin-cylinder motorcycle engines that power the Hunter drones. |
They fly six Hunters out of the Macedonian airport, just a few
hundred yards west of Camp Able Sentry. The camp is the U.S. support base for both KFOR
operations in Kosovo, and for Operation Essential Harvest, the British-led effort to
disarm Albanian rebels fighting the Macedonian government. Albanian guerrillas agreed to
surrender part of their arsenals in return for changes in the Macedonian constitution
guaranteeing them more civil rights.
Company A’s video and still photos go to both American
intelligence soldiers and to British commanders wanting to reconnoiter for weapons pickups
in guerrilla strongholds along the Macedonia-Kosovo border.
On a recent workday, the Hunter unit was scheduled for one morning
launch and an eight-hour flight. But even before that Hunter landed, crews were prepping
another, which took off at sunset.
As the only deployable Hunter company, Company A is in demand almost
constantly, said Pfc. Andrew Wentworth. “We’re victims of our own success,”
he said.
The unit’s six Hunters have racked up more than 660 hours since
they started flying on May 22, he said.
Terry Boyd / Stars and Stripes
Technician Jimmy Vargas was at the controls when a recent Hunter mission took off from the
Skopje Airport, just a few hundreds yards east of Camp Able Sentry. |
The highlight of the unit’s deployment so far came June 24 when
Hunters were able to help 81 soldiers in an American-led convoy escape armed and angry
Macedonian crowds in Aracinovo. The soldiers were escorting 80 buses of Albanians,
including 100 guerrillas who had held Aracinovo, just six miles north of Camp Able Sentry.
Angry that the guerrillas were trying to leave Aracinovo with their heavy weapons, people
gathered at Macedonian military roadblocks.
Hunters flew to look ahead and behind the convoy, said Capt. Dan
Dittenber. After the convoy became stuck at the first roadblock, Hunters spotted a crowd
gathering at a second, then identified two alternate routes out of the area and back to
Able Sentry.
“We ended up earning our pay that day,” Dittenber said.
Task Force Falcon commander Brig. Gen. Bill David “told us we were worth our weight
in gold,” he added.
The beauty of the Hunter is that it’s so simple. “Anyone
can be taught to fly [a Hunter] in a matter of minutes,” Wentworth said.
“It’s knowing what to do when things go wrong” that takes work, he added.
Plane facts
•The job of the Hunter surveillance drone is to
fly low and slow, searching for targets without putting a pilot at risk. The little
aircraft can fly as slowly as 35 mph without stalling, and cruise to targets at about 55
mph, with an operating ceiling of about 10,000 feet.
•With a wingspan of only 29 feet and a fuselage
about 20 feet long, the Hunter is roughly half the size of the Air Force’ Predator.
“Pilots” fly the plane at control panels that are very similar to those on small
airplanes.
•Hunters are powered by two 750 cc Moto Guzzi
motorcycle engines, though TRW technicians say the Army is trying to adapt a small
Mercedes-Benz diesel motor to eliminate having to fuel with gasoline.
•It takes 30 people to fly the mission, including
two “pilots” on the ground in Humvees, as well as training pilots. Mechanics and
technicians from TRW round out the crew, supervising the maintenance, training and
pre-flight checks. From takeoff to target, the Hunter gets handed off three times between
control modules. At any given time, perhaps eight people are monitoring the drone’s
vital signs, such as engine temperature, looking for signs of trouble.
•With about 50 gallons of fuel on board, they
planes can fly about 10 hours, depending on altitude.
•The Hunter is one of seven UAVs from Israel
Aircraft Industries. The Navy uses an IAI-manufactured aircraft dubbed The Pioneer.
•The Army is thinking about adding a smaller
drone, the Shadow 2000. But it wouldn’t replace the Hunter, which is meant to be a
corps/theater asset. Supported by a simpler, more mobile system, the Shadow is designed
for battalion-level use.
— Terry Boyd |
What goes up occasionally comes down unexpectedly. A Hunter conked
out recently, but emergency chutes floated it to earth with only cosmetic damage.
“It’ll fly again,” Dittenber said.
There are limits to when the Hunters can fly, Griffin said. As with
any aircraft, ice on the wings can bring down a Hunter. Storms are the biggest threat,
though Hunters can fly below clouds and gather infrared images in the rain.
Hunters are far from the only UAV in America’s arsenal. Company
A replaced an Air Force operation that flies Predators, a much larger UAV. But the Army
can do the job for less. A Hunter runs about $1.6 million — $800,000 for the plane
itself, another $800,000 for the electronics, all from Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd. in
Tel Aviv and Cleveland-based TRW Inc.
By comparison, the RQ-1B Predator runs about $3.3 million per
aircraft.
But drones are the simplest part of the operation. It takes more than
30 soldiers in an operations team and about 10 civilian employees from TRW to support
Hunter missions. The military specialties for Company A include everything from UAV pilots
to generator mechanics.
Perhaps the biggest difference between the Predator and the Hunter is
that Predators are flown by Air Force officers, while junior enlisted are at the
Hunters’ controls, said Griffin.
“It’s a big point of pride for these guys,” he said.
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