UAVs Serve As Eyes In The Sky
(February 22, 2011) |
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| MARINE CORPS AIR GROUND COMBAT CENTER TWENTYNINE PALMS,
Calif. (MCN - 2/18/2011) — Since the French Revolution,
military commanders have been using aerial reconnaissance to
monitor enemy movements. The system has evolved from
vehicles using primitive smoke balloons to modern unmanned
aerial vehicles. |
Vehicle operators and maintainers inspect an RQ-7B Shadow, unmanned aerial vehicle before launch at the Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 1 airfield aboard the Combat Center Feb. 15, 2011. |
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Aboard the
Combat Center, members of the Marine Unmanned Aerial
Vehicle Squadron 1 provide support to units with
aerial reconnaissance and surveillance.
“The
main focus of every mission that goes on is to just
do our best and try to do what we do in-country,
what we do in the states,” said Cpl. Alexander Keil,
UAV operator with VMU-1. “That way we have the best
support we can give the troops on the ground.”
The operators are only one part of the team that
keeps the craft ready to fly.
“We have a lot
of help coming from our maintainers,” said Keil, a
Pago Pago, American Samoa, native. “A lot of people
don't give them enough credit, and there are so many
different things that put a UAV into the air.” |
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As the maintainers prep the birds for flight, they have to
worry about both their vehicles and their crews.
“[We have to make] sure the bird is in the right conditions
for flight and safe for flight,” said Cpl. Quinn Austen
Schwehr, a UAV maintainer. “I have to worry about my crew
that's on the ground, that everybody uses the proper
protection.”
As they launch and land the vehicles,
the biggest problem presented aboard the Combat Center is
the constant wind.
“We can't launch with any tail
wind at all, and you can't land it with anything above five
knots,” said Schwehr, a Kennewick, Wash., native. “The wind
changes a lot out here, so we have to switch landing gear or
rotate the launcher so it is facing into it.”
When
it comes time to land the planes, they clear the runway and,
just like navel pilots on aircraft carriers, hope the hook
grabs the line.
“We will have a bird that will land
and skip over the resting gear [line],” Schwehr said. “So it
will either catch on the second [line], or else it will go
into the net. Net recoveries usually break a communications
relay package, so there's not that much damage when they hit
the net.”
Before they can send the planes out,
communications must be set up.
“Every day we set up
radios so we can talk with the towers out here, and we can
talk to the ground units,” said Lance Cpl. Antquan Milledge,
a radio operator. “The bird can't go up if the
communications isn't up.”
Milledge explained that,
despite periodic weather complications, how the Combat
Center is a great place for the UAV team to fix any problems
that might come up.
“This is still a training
facility, so it does help us repair,” Milledge, an Albany,
N.Y., native. “We can troubleshoot a lot of stuff our here,
so when we are in combat or in theater we know what to do,
we know what works and what don't work.” |
Article and photo by USMC LCpl. Andrew D. Thorburn
Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms
Copyright 2011 | |
Reprinted from
Marine Corps News
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