Spreading wing: Air Force responding to insatiable demand for surveillance drones.

• Author: Jean, Grace V.
• Position: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

--To meet the voracious need for unmanned aircraft surveillance in combat zones, the Air Force's 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing is creating a new Predator squadron, relocating its training units and expanding base operations.

The 432nd flies the MQ-1B Predator and the MQ-9 Reaper. It has tripled the number of unmanned aircraft that have been sent to the Middle East since the wing's formation two years ago.

"We have 34 video feeds over the battlefield right now," says Col. John Montgomery, the wing's vice commander.

The wing is standing up a new MQ-1 squadron. "A couple of our squadrons have grown much larger than they should be," says the wing commander, Col. Chris Chambliss, in a phone interview. "Our MQ1 squadrons need to be a certain size to be the most efficient and still be able to maintain operational control. This has grown so quickly that we've outstripped a couple squadrons' size."

The ideal squadron size is approximately 200 airmen, including crews, intelligence and support personnel, he adds.

That in part is why the wing is producing its sixth Predator squadron, the 18th Reconnaissance Squadron. Some of its personnel and equipment will come from existing organizations.

The Predator carries a suite of sensors, including full-motion video cameras and laser-guided weapons. A two-person crew operates the aircraft from ground control stations located here and at four other bases across the country.

In June 2007, the newly established wing was flying 10 combat air patrols, says Montgomery. A single combat air patrol, or CAP, consists of three to four aircraft and two ground control stations--one deployed in theater to launch and recover the planes and one located in the United States to fly the missions. Each CAP requires about 50 airmen who are deployed with the aircraft to provide maintenance and the launch and recovery operations, and 30 others who remain at Creech to fly the missions and work the operations center. CAPs co-located at the same base can share maintenance and launch and recovery crews.

Because battlefield commanders' insatiable appetite for the full motion video was escalating at the time, Pentagon officials set a target for 21 combat air patrols by 2010; the wing surpassed that number in April 2008 and is 60 percent over the goal, says Chambliss.

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The wing is flying 35 CAPs around the clock--31 with the MQ-1B Predator and four with the newer MQ-9 Reaper. Royal Air Force crews from the United Kingdom man the fourth MQ-9 combat air patrol.

There is still a shortage of crews to adequately fly the systems. The Defense Department is pouting some $2 billion into intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance programs and personnel to help boost the Predator combat air patrols to 50. Officials here are confident that they will meet the goal by 2011.

"My bet is, we'll get to that before that time," says Chambliss.

If the rapid on-going construction here is any indication, the Air Force appears on track to attain its objective. In just two years' time, this so-called "oasis" in the desert has transformed from an auxiliary airfield with temporary buildings into a bona fide base with modern facilities.

Since the mission started, Creech has opened 17 new buildings, with five more ribbon-cutting ceremonies planned this year. The bulk of the wing's day-to-day operations has relocated to the northeastern comer of the 2,000-acre base, away from the main drag and the Indian Springs community at its gate. In this newly developed section, a backhoe digs near a group of sand-colored trailers that are protected by a fence topped with concertina wire. It is there, inside the ground control stations where Predator and Reaper crews fly their combat missions over Iraq and Afghanistan.

On a recent morning, an MQ-9 pilot and sensor operator launch a Predator from Creech.

"Today, we're not actually flying the air craft," says a captain, whose name is being withheld for security reasons, as he settles back in his seat. "We handed it off to a squadron that's doing training. For the rest of the day, I'm a launch and recovery pilot," he explains.

A New Mexico-based crew took control of the Predator to fly a training mission over California. Later in the day, it will send the plane back to Creech where he will "grab" it and land it on base.

The 432nd...