Predator, reaper crew training at all time high as demand continues.

• Author: Insinna, Valerie

HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, New Mexico -- Inside what looks like a small shipping container, in a tiny space crammed with rows of electronics and stacks of video displays, a pilot practices flying the MQ-9 Reaper with an instructor hovering behind.

To the pilot's right is the "sensor," who operates the Reaper's different cameras used to hone in on a target. The sensor is listening closely to his own instructor, who is leaning over him, gesturing at some incoming video footage.

"Your screen is looking jacked up. This is what you can do when that happens," she says before explaining how to improve the imagery.

Every pilot and sensor operator that maneuver the MQ-1 Predator and its big brother, the MQ-9 Reaper, complete both live and simulated training like this at Holloman Air Force Base near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The base owns nine Predator and 15 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft -- the Air Force's preferred term for a drone.

Training activity at Holloman reflects the ever-growing need for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets such as the MQ-1 and MQ-9, and Air Force officials expect those demands will continue into the near future, they tell National Defense during an October visit.

Commanders of the four training squadrons on base stress that their main goal is to get new pilots and sensor operators ready for the unpredictability they will face in combat, whether that's conducting surveillance in Afghanistan or rooting out Islamic State terrorists in Syria.

"There's no combat mission that's going to be exactly the same" as the training missions at Holloman, says Lt. Col. Jim Price, commander of the 6th Reconnaissance Squadron, which teaches students how to operate Predators. "You have to teach people how to think critically and how to take dynamic situations ... and go, 'How do I rack and stack my priorities, and what do I do right now to get it done?"

The four-month long process starts when a pilot and sensor operator begin training together in simulators. From there, students move to ground control stations located on base to practice flying an actual Predator or Reaper around Holloman 's airspace.

Then, it's off to their operational squadron, where they will fly RPAs located halfway around the world in missions ranging from close-air support to building intelligence that could lead to the capture or strike of a high-value target.

CAE USA contractors are responsible for generating the training curriculum and make up about one-third of the instructors at Holloman, says George Stillman, the training and simulation company's site manager and an MQ-9 instructor pilot.

Contractors are embedded in all four of Holloman's training squadrons, and can instruct...