'Eyes on the ground': army operators cope with airspace congestion.

• Author: Jean, Grace
• Position: UNMANNED AVIATION

FORT IRWIN, Calif. - In the center of a vast dry lakebed, a squad of soldiers from the nation's first Stryker brigade combat team has just launched a Shadow unmanned aerial vehicle for a five-hour training mission.

For soldiers such as Sgt. Michael Trogdon, operating UAVs is nothing new. He did it when he was in Iraq with the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, in late 2003. One major difference is that three years ago, there were far fewer drones flying in the skies. Even experienced UAV operators now have to learn how to navigate in an increasingly crowded airspace.

"In Iraq, whenever the brigade needed a UAV up in the air, the commander would call our squad and tell us to launch and we could do it right away. In this exercise, when the troop commander calls us and says he needs a UAV, we have to go through all sorts of channels to get it up in the air," he says.

Airspace control has become a big issue in Iraq, where the Defense Department is reportedly flying some 1,500 unmanned aircraft in addition to hundreds of smaller hand-launched drones.

In preparation for a second deployment to Iraq, Trogdon and his squad are learning to navigate air-space coordination procedures, which include gaining numerous clearances to ensure a safe flight.

"One thing we find is when a unit comes out here, and they bring all these UAVs ... there's a problem of airspace control," says Brig. Gen. Robert Cone, commanding general of Fort Irwin and the National Training Center.

The demand for unmanned systems continues to soar. At a recent conference in Washington, D.C., Lt. Col. Jeff Gabbert, of the Army's unmanned aerial systems project office, said the service currently has 15 Shadow platoons and it plans to field eight more next year.

With an increasing number of units acquiring their own unmanned aviation assets, training centers have had to adjust accordingly.

Cone says he hired a former battalion commander of the 1st Cavalry Division fresh out of Baghdad as the center's lead aviation trainer. His first-hand knowledge of airspace de-confliction has proved advantageous in training troops for deployment.

"We have replicated that [process] so that the brigade air element will control air the same way here as in Iraq," says Cone.

In addition, he has forged a relationship with nearby Creech Air Force Base, which was designated as a "center of excellence" for unmanned aerial vehicles. The 1,100 square miles of the National Training Center offers ample testing...