Demand increasing for drone operators trained in southern Arizona (Sep 12, 2005)
The number of students training to pilot unmanned drones, which can be used to spy on enemy troops, has more than quadrupled at Fort Huachuca since military campaigns began in Iraq and in Afghanistan. The Army's Unmanned Aerial Vehicle training center at the fort's military intelligence school is in overdrive as it tries to produce enough soldiers who can operate the drones to meet growing demand from commanders overseas. "They want them faster than I can turn them out," said Mark Farrar, who runs the training center, the largest drone training facility in the world. The center turned out about 80 graduates a year in 2001, officials said. The number is now at about 360 a year. Demand is high because the high-tech devices are proving their worth on the battlefield as never before, said Farrar, who has been involved with UAVs and training for two decades. He said casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan would be much higher if not for the scores of military drones gathering overhead photos and funneling live video feeds to personnel on the ground. Farrar estimates that more than 100 UAVs from various branches of the military are in the skies over Iraq on most days. They scan convoy routes for evidence of sabotage, peer into alleys and look for suspicious activity around vehicles, buildings, ports and pipelines. "The UAV provides the commander with a god's-eye-view, like the mythological Greek gods had when they looked down at what's happening on Earth," Farrar said. The drones vary greatly in size, from a backpack-size model a single soldier can hand-launch to peer around a hillside, to the Hunter and Shadow UAVs that are launched with a catapult system and can stay in the sky for hours with a range of 50 to 100 miles or more. Sgt. Raymond Rivera, who flew drones in Iraq last year with the 4th Infantry Division, said just the sound of a UAV often leaves the enemy quaking. The chain-saw-like noise usually makes them scatter because they know that troops with firepower probably aren't far behind, Rivera said.
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