US Army Colonel Tim Baxter is project manager for the Army’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Programme Office. He spoke to Defense Systems Editor-in-Chief Barry Rosenberg about deployment of a company of Gray Eagle to Afghanistan, the use of universal systems and interoperability, and the weaponization of the Shadow. Also participating in the interview was Deputy Project Manager Rich Kretzschmar, who was assigned to the position just a few days before the interview.
DS: What’s at the top of your to-do list?
Baxter: I will give you my top five UAS priorities, and you will see how they work together. The number-one priority here is supporting overseas contingency operations. Our focus every day is to better support the folks that are on the ground in Afghanistan. And so we have got a number of systems deployed forward with our Shadows, our Hunters, a couple different variants of our Gray Eagles, and then our smaller Pumas and Ravens. And there is an associated [logistics and support] tail associated with that.
We have got a number of other activities going on in the background that are supporting our operations in Afghanistan. We had a number of additional requirements that have hit the office over the last 12 to 18 months in the area of small UAS. We have a couple of Joint Urgent Operational Needs Statement (JUONS) for Pumas primarily supporting road clearance. We have fully fielded one of those JUONS, and are in the process of filling the second one. Along with that we also stood up a training program at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., that helps us to train the route clearance operators before they head downrange.
DS: Are you leaving any UAS assets in Iraq?
Baxter: We are not. Our UAS assets are all out of Iraq. The last ones came out in December. Some of those assets are in Kuwait now and getting ready to redeploy either into Afghanistan or back to the States for some type of recapitalization. Number two is our Gray Eagle program. I’ll call it our road to our initial operational test and evaluation ( IOT&E) that’s going to occur next August. So there [are] a number of things that are going on in the background as we prepare for IOT&E. We’ve got a full Gray Eagle company that consists of 12 aircraft. We call it our first unit deployed, and it is deploying forward to Afghanistan some time in second quarter of this year…we think mid-March to early April right now.
DS: There are already a number of Gray Eagles already in Afghanistan, aren’t there?
Baxter: We already had Gray Eagle deployed through several quick reaction capabilities (QRCs). This is adding additional capabilities for the commander on the ground forward. With the QRC, we’ve had the equivalent of a Gray Eagle platoon — four birds in each of them. So this is really our opportunity to exercise an entire company of 12 Gray Eagles fully manned by Army green suiters, if you will. It’s our opportunity to do that. We are going to learn a lot from it and certainly that will assist in supporting us as we go into to our IOT&E in August.
Read the full interview in Defense Systems