Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Creech departure? Langley AFB promoted as home for drone pilots

Drone

Lt. Col. Leslie Pratt, US Air Force / AP

In this undated handout file photo provided by the U.S. Air Force, an MQ-9 Reaper, armed with GBU-12 Paveway II laser guided munitions and AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, is piloted by Col. Lex Turner during a combat mission over southern Afghanistan.

Langley Air Force Base is being touted as a top candidate to host a new group of drone pilots, tapping into the insatiable demand for skilled operators who fly unmanned aircraft around the globe.

The effort to put Langley in the forefront is ongoing, and it involves John M. Simmons of The Roosevelt Group, who lobbies Congress on behalf of the region's defense community. Simmons spoke at the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce Thursday and included the Langley item in a larger presentation about the defense budget.

Bruce Sturk, the point man for the city of Hampton on all things Langley, later said the effort is definitely on the radar, and "we would be very pleased and very excited for that to happen."

The Air Force in April released criteria for basing new MQ-9 Reaper units at two potential locations. The first would include MQ-9 crews, but the aircraft would be based elsewhere. That's where Langley could come in.

The crew unit is called a "mission control element" in Air Force speak, and Langley would be well-suited for it, Simmons said.

The Air Force has realized "they need to bring these unmanned systems to high-profile bases like Langley," he said.

The Air Force plans to identify candidate installations this summer. Preferred alternatives would follow this coming winter. A final decision could come in fiscal year 2018.

Langley is already home to hundreds of intelligence analysts who process and interpret data from manned and unmanned aircraft that fly around the globe. That creates a synergy with unmanned aircraft operators.

The base also serves as headquarters for Air Combat Command (ACC).

"I believe Langley is going to get a mission control element," Simmons said, "and we're working hard to make that happen. And that is where it should be, to take advantage of all the ISR capabilities there."

Ideally, he said the unmanned aircraft would be based nearby, possibly at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base near Goldsboro, N.C.

"They don't need to be close," Simmons said, "but it would be better for training purposes."

Besides the base, living in Hampton Roads could be a major draw, according to Simmons and Sturk, a retired Air Force colonel who is the city's director of federal facilities support.

The Air Force is looking for bases surrounded by good schools, recreational opportunities and other amenities attractive to airmen and their families.

The nerve center for controlling Reaper flights is now at Creech Air Force Base outside of Las Vegas.

"The folks doing these missions right now in the middle of the desert in Nevada, they're not getting promoted and their quality of life isn't very good — and they leave," Simmons told the chamber audience. "Not a good position for the Air Force."

Gen. Herbert J. Carlisle, commander of Air Combat Command, told a Senate committee in March that the Air Force is losing too many skilled people in this field.

To get a handle on the problem, ACC last year conducted nearly 1,200 interviews and received 1,164 survey responses from Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) airmen and their families.

"Our RPA airmen are overtasked, their communities undermanned and are lacking adequate support on their bases," Carlisle said in prepared testimony. "This materializes as increased stress, reduced motivation and a general reduction in job satisfaction, even though the airmen fully understand the incredible impact they have on our combat mission."

These factors, combined with long hours and irregular schedules, have prompted RPA pilots to leave the force at a high rate, "which threatens the sustainment of our essential RPA mission," Carlisle said.

He told the Senate panel that he was about 200 pilots short.

If Langley lands this new group, Sturk estimated it would be in excess of 100 personnel. But raw numbers don't tell the whole story. Bringing the capability to the region opens up the potential for more RPA pilots and, in the future, actual unmanned aircraft taking off from the century-old air base that serves as a vital cog in the region's economy.

"It is a great fit," Sturk said, "for all the right reasons."

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